Balance and Vitality

My tenth Alexander Technique session was not exactly an AT session at all. We decided that I could use some "energy work", which is difficult to describe but nonetheless pleasant. You lie down and let Alexis do all the work.

Because I am the new-agey sort, it was a supremely relaxing experience. If Alexis could put this "energy" in a pill, she'd be a gazillionaire. I was feeling warm and fuzzy and floating in and out of consciousness when something snapped sharply in my upper chest. (No, it wasn't a coronary.) It was the most bizarre and shocking sensation -- like someone had let go of a big, overstretched elastic band in the hollow between my throat and my lungs and my back. Heart chakra? Overactive imagination? I've stopped trying to figure out what it was.

The biggest effect that AT has had on my life is psychological; that is, it has somehow shown me my past from a completely different standpoint. When I look at what therapists of all sorts do, I always wonder how beneficial it is to rehash unhappy memories. Why re-live something again when it was horrible enough the first time?

My experience with AT has answered this question. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether you are truly over something or just slapping a band-aid on a festering wound. For me, it has been helpful to see things from a fresh perspective so that I can really let it go and stop looking back.