Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Dropping the armour
Temptations by Sylvie LewisI'm sitting in my practice during a gap between giving Alexander Technique lessons this morning and listening to a CD by one of my clients. Her gentle voice fills the room and I think how different does her music feel to the attitude and emotion of life on a day-to-day basis. Here is one vocalist who wears her heart on her sleeve; it's unashamedly....honest.....and romantic.
Life in London is usually a bustle of frenetic activity; faces in the packed Underground stare into space oblivious and ignoring of others. Our emotional defenses are up, we are self-defensive against the high, fractious energy of 'life'; protective against the harsh challenges, and hardened against the verbal and emotional attacks that seem part of the work environment; stiffening against the responsibilities and demands that confront us on a daily basis. Socially we may also feel threatened and may contrive to present a persona that fits our idea of how we'd like to come across. It is echoed in our style of clothing, our make-up, our mannerisms and body-gestures. In London we make appointments to meet friends a week or month ahead. (I remember when we could just pop into some-one's house unexpectedly and be welcomed for as long as the chat and tea would last.) In short, our defenses are up and understandably too given the busy, frentetic environment that many of us live in.
But deep inside, under all that armour and self-protection that so many of us carry around are wonderful, sensitive and beautiful people that we could certainly love to meet and make friends. Strip away the armour and we find beauty and pure love. If we think that this does not apply to someone in particular we have not gone deep enough.
How many people do you know who wears their heart on their sleeve? If you're counting then you are a very lucky person. It's a joy to share time with people who do not carry contrivance, pretension or who are over-defensive. When we remove the threat so we do not challenge, confront or put pressure on people then we can all relax; we can begin to be who we 'are'. But our 'persona' may be so ingrained that we no longer know who we are ourselves; we have become our own caricature. If we can shed the armour, let our friends 'in', feel safe, unchallenged and free of others expectations, with no contrived image and self-defence we can truly relax.
Letting one's armour down takes courage particularly in certain stressful situations. We tend to need it for our own sense of security. OK, so it may seem foolish to even consider dropping one's armour in certain situations. But that's because we are experiencing a condition of weakness within ourselves. If we were to attend to certain aspects of our overall health and well-being we can gain significant strength and self-confidence that will carry us through the most difficult challenges in life. By attending to one's posture we can bring huge improvements in self-confidence and stature; by improving our hydration with plenty of water and less diuretics such as coffee, tea, alcohol, by eating healthy food and less junk, by getting more rest so we are less fatigued, by even having a post lunch nap we can change how we are! All these things are so easy in some ways yet they seem so difficult given our lifestyle. There is nothing clever or terribly sophisticated about attending to such basic essentials of healthy life. And to just do a little of these can make a huge difference to how we feel. There are also personal development workshops such as Essence Foundation that can help us cope with life's challenges.
When we are healthy and feeling confident we have no need of the posturing antics that are almost a modern social norm; we do not need so much of the defensive 'armour' that we present to the world. We can let people 'in'. Then they see more of the real 'us', the real person behind the face.
I'm listening to Sylvie Lewis's voice and thinking, this is sensitive and real and honest. Here is a singer who is not trying to fit into a certain 'type' of sound or appeal to a certain market. Everyone has their own taste in music and whether we like her music or not, here is a singer who is just naturally being herself, without defence or armour. That itself has appeal. Her sound represents for me the openness I like in the people I'm fortunate enough to have around me.
