In one of my Friday Harbor “online” residentials,
A game emerged
of literally sprinkling ourselves with kindness.
 
The challenges people are experiencing during the pandemic heightened the need to emphasize kindness in daily life for ourselves and others. The game was a playful way to emphasize care for ourselves.
 
 
My conscious inclusion of kindness and its relationship to the Alexander Technique emerged from teaching  an individual and a group who were using the
Alexander process to be mean to themselves
With combinations of judgment, assuming they were always wrong,
And most alarming to me – giving up their own agency!
After a night of contemplation, the first line of what I  call my
Fancy definition of Alexander’s process appeared -
 
Constructive conscious kindness to ourselves
 
Although I have used this phrase for many years now,
With the pandemic heightening the needs surrounding kindness,
The implications of centering kindness
 in coordinating ourselves, and how we coordinate to relate to others,
are blossoming.
 
At the International Congress of the Alexander Technique in Berlin,
My Radical Kindness Workshop offered a playful process –
Yes, the sprinkles are back –
To Center our work in Kindness.
 
During the month of September
For 20 minutes on Monday,
At 8 a.m. PDT on Zoom,
I’ll be hosting an Integrative Alexander Technique -facilitated kindness warm-up.
If you’d like the link, please email me at cathmadden@aol.com

One of the most meaningful gifts of the Integrative Alexander Technique learning approach is its wonderful ability to reveal, inform, and deepen our inherent creativity. In this half-day workshop, all are invited to explore multiple facets of Alexander Technique-enhanced creativity in a unique and individually tailored circuit rotation. Guided by leaders in this integrative approach to learning, you will be able to immediately practice the principles while exercising and vivifying your natural whole-self ingenuity. For more information and to register, please visit  www.integrativealexandertechnique.org/events

​InterAcT:
 
A six class intensive focusing on communication in teaching the Alexander Technique.  Each session has a theme, an associated practice, and open time for reflection and experimentation. Since we will be using the Zoom platform, the class includes tools for online teaching.
 
The series is designed for people who teach the Alexander Technique or who are learning to teach this process;
teachers and communicators of all disciplines are welcome.
 
Monday August 17            Invitation
Wednesday August 19      Power
Friday August 21                Kindness
Monday August 24            Honesty
Wednesday August 26      Will
Friday August 28                Independence
 
Class meets from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. PDT. Sliding Scale of $175 to $250 US for the series (or, pay what you can).
Please email cathmadden@gmail.com to register.

​ 
 
Possibility
 
The picture is from the front of one of my notebooks of lesson plans. 
The title and first line of Emily Dickinson’s poem always bring a smile to my face.
 
An aspect of being in a pandemic and teaching in a pandemic, is the question of the unknown and uncertainty.  As I have been considering for myself and with others, I have been offering that we are simply more aware that we are moving towards an unknown; that it has always been true that we don’t know what will happen next.
 
When I am teaching people about teaching, I coach them to embrace knowing that when you are teaching, learning develops in myriad ways. We can approach the teaching moment with wonder. You have a plan, you have information- and the ability to respond.  What happens unfolds as it needs to.
 
Yesterday, as I was teaching, I heard myself say the word unknown.  Embracing the unknown is a value in both of my primary professions – theatre and Alexander Technique.
 
This time, as I said the word – “unknown” - I heard the “no” contained in the word.
 
My current quest in language is to see what happens if I frame everything from a yes perspective.  I laughed a bit, realizing that I was about to question long-used jargon  once again.  And I wondered what the yes version would be – and the word “possibility” appeared.
 
One of many instances in which F.M. Alexander uses the word is this one from the The Use of the Self:
 
This process of directing energy out of familiar into new and unfamiliar paths, as a means of changing the manner of reacting to stimuli, implies of necessity an ever-increasing ability on the part of both teacher and pupil to ”pass from the known to the unknown”; it is therefore a process which is true to the principle involved in all human growth and development.
 
(And I could supply a plethora of theatrical references to various versions of embracing the unknown.)
 
What if, instead, I dwell in possibility?
 
What if F.M.’s sentence became
 
The process of directing energy into new pathways as a means of changing the manner of reacting to stimuli, implies the necessity of an ever-increasing ability on the part of both teacher and pupil to welcome new possibilities….   ?
 
Curious to reread Dickinson’s entire poem, I found her poem one that could be a description of what I hope for as I teach – to open doors and windows to serve my student’s highest dreams – so that the student opens their own gateway to “gather paradise”.
 
I dwell in Possibility
 
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
 
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
 
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
 
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
 

 
Radical Kindness Practice
 
The word I choose to represent our whole-self-ness when I am teaching is
 
Biopsychosocial.
 
Each of our Whole-self-ness
encompasses our atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, nervous system, our experience and behavior, our relationships with people, family, community, culture, nature and ultimately the biosphere.
 
This moment of pandemic urgently calls us to care for the social aspect of our wholeness.
Perversely, the way we demonstrate that now is
6 feet of space (2 metres) between us for health.
This 6-foot “hug”
Is radical kindness.
 
In an online class last night, people talked about interactions in the world in which people were tightening as they kept this distance, creating a very unpleasant atmosphere.  And, I thought, of course – moving away has usually meant disrespect or worse.  And, it is a “no” message, guaranteed to cause tightening.
 
I invite you to join me in another approach. When you move away from someone:
 
What if,
As a Radical Kindness Practice,
I call my whole self
(for those of you who know it, use the Alexander Technique)
to think that I am offering a 6 foot “hug”
respecting all
as we work together to heal the world.
 

​

image from urmc.rochester.edu

Radical Kindness to my Biopsychosocial Self
 
Fancy words for Integrative Alexander Technique in Pandemic Days
 
This morning as I fumbled through my litany of annoyances, frustrations, concerns and worries about HCoVid 19 and its effects in my life, the first line of my fancy definition of the Alexander Technique appeared –
 
Constructive conscious kindness to yourself
 
And became
 
Constructive conscious radical kindness to my biopsychosocial self
 
Radical because we are being asked to expand our practice of kindness challenging us to see that the actions being asked of each of us serve world-wide community kindness.
 
Daniel Siegel provides a definition of kindness that resonates with how I think the Alexander Technique integrates with our life:
 “The visible, natural outcome of integration. Positive regard for others, compassionate intention, and acts of extending oneself in service of others are all different manifestations of the differentiation and linkage of selves within a larger ‘We’ at the heart of being kind. Involves honoring and supporting the vulnerability of others and the self.” (2012: p. AI-44)
WE.
Biopsychosocial, a term introduced by physician George Engel, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center emphasizes the interconnectedness of self and community:
“I have proposed guidelines for a more inclusive model, a biopsychosocial model based on general systems theory. As the name suggests, its intent is to provide a framework within which can be conceptualized and related as natural systems all the levels of organization pertinent to health and disease, from subatomic particles through molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, the person, the family, the community, the culture and ultimately, the biosphere.
[…]
Overall health reflects a high level of intra- and intersystemic harmony. Such harmony may be disrupted at any level, at the cellular, at the organ system, at the whole person or at the community levels. Whether the resulting disturbance is contained at the level at which it is initiated or whether other levels become implicated is a function of the capacity of that system to adjust to change.” (Engel 1968, p. 175)
 
In this pandemic moment, all of Engel’s levels of wholeness demand our attention.
The pleas of our government officials and health care professionals is to think beyond ourselves.  If we understand ourselves as integrated biopsychosocial beings, we might be able to see more clearly that we are not sacrificing for others, we are sacrificing for ourselves.
 
At the moment pandemic conundrum arises, while acknowledging the challenge, my practice today is to use the Alexander Technique to call myself to serve my whole biopsychosocial realm, comforting the discomforts I experience at some levels as I integrate all the elements of me – from atom to biosphere -  in the service of kindness to every level – in communion with you and you and you and you  and you and you…..


Engel, G. L. (1978) ‘The biopsychosocial model and the education of health professionals’. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 310, pp. 169-187. 
Siegel, Daniel J. (2012) Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Say yes to health by using your hands to Dance.                     
 
(an Integrative Alexander Technique Public Service Announcement related to Corona Virus Needs)
 
Many of us have seen the videos of public officials telling us not to touch our faces, followed by them immediately touching their faces. 
 
Of course they are immediately touching their faces! Those of you who have studied with me will probably remember me saying “Don’t think of a pink elephant.”  And realizing that once I say “don’t think of a pink elephant”, you were thinking of a pink elephant. 
 
We need to be talking to ourselves about what we want rather than what we don’t want.
 
We need a yes message.
 
The first day when I found myself about to touch my face and said “No”, I found my whole system tightening.  It was quite unpleasant.  And, as soon as I recognized it, I knew why.  Daniel Siegel’s work in interpersonal neurobiology highlights that the use of the word “no” evokes a reactive state of being,  whereas the use of the word “yes” evokes a responsive, receptive state of being. (Siegel, DJ .2017. Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human among many.)
 
 A yes message will be more pleasant, so easier to carry out; and more effective because we aren’t evoking the pink elephant.
 
Say yes to health by using your hands to Dance. (or whatever other motion you’d like to do. Say yes.
 
(also saying yes to washing them a lot!)
 


 

Since my current short definition of the Alexander Technique is:

Constructive Conscious Kindness to Yourself
Cooperating with Your Design
Supporting your Desires and Dreams

celebrating World Kindness Day, November 13, seems most appropriate.

A short article on the neurobiology of Kindness says "Kindness is the engine for personal growth", explaining that
Each person is a mirror of their environment which is then in turn mirrored by their own behaviour.
This underlies the powerful phenomenon of social contagion – that information, ideas, and behaviors
including kindness can spread through networks of people the way that infectious diseases do.
For this reason, giving and receiving kindness can have a contagious effect.  Research also shows
that optimal learning takes place in an environment that is creative, inclusive, rewarding and
bolstered by firm, healthy boundaries, in an environment that is kind.  

(https://inside-the-brain.com/2018/11/13/the-neurobiology-of-kindness-worldkindnessday/)

My new book, Teaching the Alexander Technique: Active Pathways to Integrative Practice,  offers ideas
​about kindness to yourself and in the teaching studio.