Category — Life

Have you noticed the amount of information that your brain has to process these days? Just look around you… can you imagine if you could retain all the shapes, colors, names and places of everything? Your head would explode with all the information overload!

Luckily for us, our brain knows how to filter most of it. It’s always been like this. However, in the last couple of decades, something radically changed in this perspective: Internet. This incredible tool exposes us to loads and loads of extra information. If you’re a learner, like me, you’ll find amazing all the resources that it’s possible to access within the click of the mouse. However, besides making it harder on our head, it also makes it really hard on us, and on our time.

For these reasons, I propose you to do just-in-time learning!

Browse through a piece of content that you’re interested in and decide for yourself: “Will I use this information in my life very soon?”. If the answer is yes, then great, just learn about it with enthusiasm and apply it whenever possible. If the answer is maybe or no, then don’t add more stuff to your brain. Just skip it! If you want, use something like Evernote to keep that information stored for you when you need it. Humans learn by practicing in real situations. We are very good in rationalizing concepts, but nothing really beats experience. It is the famous wisdom of older people.

Interestingly enough, it is not only to our brain that we can apply just-in-time learning. Our body has also an intelligence of its own that permits to adapt to new realities. But contrarily to the mind, you won’t be able to tell the body what and when to assimilate. It will tell you!

I’ve had this realization in one of my Alexander Technique classes. My body does not care about the amount of information that my brain receives. It knows what to learn next. Fighting this will only make learning process slower. Teach something new to your body – try Yoga, Taichi, Alexander Technique or even something as different as juggling and experience the learning!

In the past years, the number of studies declaring the benefits of meditation are increasing. State of the art technology and medicine are allowing to prove what meditation practitioners knew already for hundreds and thousands of years. But on the other side, the vast majority of people are yet to discover what makes meditation so wonderful. The human being can always rationalize an excuse in order not to do something, even if it will only improve is life. Here are a number of excuses for meditating:

I don’t know how to get started/how to meditate just learn it! In the Internet world, there are so many resources available for teaching you! Just type ‘how to meditate’ in google or any other search engine, and there will be tons of information available to you. If you feel overwhelmed with all the information then start simple. Get yourself in a quiet environment where you can’t be distracted (yes, that means turning your phone off!), close your eyes, and just concentrate in your breath. That’s it! Start from here, and when you realize how complex this can be, learn just a little more in order to be able to do better. Little by little your meditation skills will improve.

I can’t sit cross-legged This is a big misconception of meditation. When you’re thinking about meditation, everyone has an idea of a strange person sitting in the lotus position. It is not mandatory to sit like that. Just find your own comfortable position – sitting down, for example. One position that you should avoid though, is laying down, due to the tendency to fall asleep. Our body is conditioned to get into sleep mode, and that’s not meditation!

I don’t have time to meditate Let me tell you… if finding 15 or 20 minutes in your day is something impossible for you, then take a step back and reflect on what’s going wrong with your life. It’s time to reshuffle your priorities and notice what really matters for you. The more time you spend meditating the better, but even a quarter will bring you benefits already.

I’m religious / I’m not religious Another big misunderstanding of meditation lies in its relation with religion. By meditating you’re not being more or less religious than you already are! Yes, there are meditation variants that are connected with religious practices, such as focusing on mantras. If that’s an important point for you, then just make sure to choose a simple form of meditation.

I can’t afford it This economical crisis won’t let you improve on yourself, is that it? Well, if you’re using this excuse for not starting doing meditation, then you’re out of luck. Why don’t you use your public library and get a book about meditation? Read it and apply it. The cost is zero. Even better, there are meditation centers around the world that let you join for as long as ten days and discover meditation, providing you shelter and food without the need of paying even one cent. There’s really no trick behind it. After such a great experience, people spontaneously donate their time or money to allow more people to experience it. Just try it, you’ll become a more enriched person.

I can’t do it because ______. Let’s face it, your mind can always find a reason not to do something, and in particular meditation. If you’re reading this, odds are that your life path is very close to discover meditation, if you haven’t discovered it yet. Why don’t you take just one more step and give it a try? You have nothing to lose.

My perception of good posture while seated was, let’s say, a bit wrong. I’ve learned, with the help of my Alexander Technique teacher, that what I thought was a correct posture, was actually overarching. This discovery is definitely useful, but only if it brings more awareness. Let me explain better.

After the discovery of my overarching issue, I started to react to my bad posture, figuring out what’s the new correct posture, now that I know that it is not the overarching one. I just got myself in the same loop! Crazy hein? Before I was trying to have the right posture by overarching, but what I’m doing is trying to ‘discover’ another right posture. This is also wrong – I’m just trying to fight action with reaction. Awareness is the key! Whenever you realize that your posture is not good, start thinking up, start releasing and freeing your head and neck, and the rest of the body will automatically adjust itself. No need to create the habit of the ‘right’ posture. Get out of the action-reaction loop and just be aware!

Sitting behind a desk at work for an extended period of time, has evidently a consequence on our bodies. Pain in the back, neck and other parts of the body is a consequence of many hours of bad posture. Based on my experience, I can honestly say that the Alexander Technique is the best way to undo all this pain.

I wish it wasn’t. I wish that a miraculous product could stop all this pain. But this is not the case, and it’s on us to prevent the continuation of the pain in our bodies. No fisyotherapy, gym exercises, swimming, yoga, acupuncture, chiropracy, can make me feel closer of solving the root problem of my back and neck pain than Alexander Technique.  And I walk my talk, because I’ve experimented with all the aforementioned techniques. Don’t get me wrong, I still do some of those, but Alexander Technique is really the practice that tackles the origin of the pain: the imbalance of the body.

I’ve started taking Alexander Technique classes, and I’m amazed on how every session gives me aha moments that help me better understanding myself. I’m also privileged to have Corinne as a teacher. She just graduated from the necessary three years course to become an AT certified teacher (!) and she is genuinely excited in sharing her knowledge and helping me. I’m learning always something new: the position of bones in my own body, where should I bend, how should I bend, where are the extremes of my spine, where are my sitting bones.

I plan to blog more about my classes, but for now the best is just to give out some links to give a first impression on what is the Alexander Technique. Start with the wikipedia article, and then check out the following videos, and I’m sure you’ll learn something about your body: Using the Arms With Ease and Effectiveness, Sitting Comfortably Erect, Effortless Deep Breathing and Head Neck Back Pattern.

Hi there!

I’ve decided to revamp the previous re-incarnation of this blog. I want to use it as a way to improve my learning process in areas that interest me. Hope it interests you as well!

See you around,
Raul