Gratitude

Are you improving?

This was my father’s regular greeting….. over decades….. whenever I telephoned or indeed, whenever we greeted each other.

Of course, this was said with light hearted affection and jest, but close to the surface lay my deep insecurities about never being quite enough. I must have taken this to heart.
For I spent years trying very hard. Getting very good at many things and yet still not feeling as if it could possibly be enough.
There were episodes of depression and anxiety. Debilitating back pain from getting super-fit. Intensive training courses to further my career. Burn out. Failure. And then round again.
Compulsive practice, glamorous concert performances, fulfilment and accolade, crawling inadequacy. Debilitating migraines.
Ambitious projects. Avoidance from deep seated feelings of inferiority….
A complete disaster with my thumbs that I was convinced had brought my piano playing to an end.

I am seen as skilled, creative and gifted … And yet on the inside, I can easily feel like a “but-is-it-enough yet?” ….kind of person.

If I had been asked that question over the last few years …. Are you improving? I would have to have said “I’m not sure, but I’m trying” and with every new achievement, the bar would be raised a little higher, just not quite within reach…. and who knows where my endless achiever had placed it.

In 2004, a conversation in a field about Alexander Technique went something like this.

Rather than do something to improve, why not drop the effort and allow what is natural to find its way through?….. in other words, stop doing the things that interfere with the potential for self expression.

This philosophical U-turn-revelation filled me with a profound hope and relief……
Perhaps all that energy spent on trying So hard to be So good, to be So successful, so competent, so expert and respectable… good enough?
It brought me to tears…… Just maybe I didn’t need to do all that.
…..So much relief and hope, that 3 years later I committed to my 3 year training.

Oh and habits, they die hard.

Another opportunity to excel. I remember my competitive (7 year old) spirit secretly hoping to “be the best” in the way that I was always the best at primary school… in other words, the one with the most red squares out in the lead from the others in class.
I am embarrassed to say! How old am I? Well this was less than 10 years ago and I was still “at it” …. this business of improving.
And so it went on. I have stories and stories to tell!

Today I gave a great lesson.
This week I’ve given a few.

More importantly, in my own being something great has become reorganised on the inside.
The sense that of myself I have enough to feel supported and at ease.
I can genuinely say that I am improving.
Language is a flimsy thing.
Whilst it may look like the same statement, there is a fundamental difference.

For so many years, I was trying to improve.
This involved a lot of excessive effort, mental and physical and cost a great deal of personal confidence.

I notice I am improving.
I’m going in a direction where improvement is a natural consequence of my studies, my pleasure and my fascination.
I notice that today I haven’t had to try at all.

I played with the kinaesthetic memory of trying and the more recent interior quietness of not trying.
The former is so familiar that it slips below the radar rather easily.
The latter is beginning to be more like a noticing and then a decision.

I can begin to think “Oh yes, that’s a trying thing.”

“I don’t need to “try””

Can I switch it off? Lower the volume? Retrieve a moment of quiet?

On a sunny evening by the sea, having slept out on the moor and seen this morning’s sunrise above a sea of rolling clouds, I can say yes.

Fifteen or so years ago I saw sensible middle aged friends pursuing things that would nourish them into old age.” I wonder if I’ll do anything as wise?” thought I.

Well, I have.
It’s this Alexander thing.
I plan to let it guide me through the next decade or two or however many there are left.

This evening I want to share my gratitude and delight in having brought the Alexander Technique towards me and for the inspiration to continue in this direction.