Before I trained as an Alexander Technique teacher, I thought there were only two options:
I was either concentrating well or I was unconcentrated (which meant that I was distracted by something).
Now I know that in both cases, I was actually concentrating hard or hyper focussing.
I was either zooming in on my activity, or I was over-focussing on my busy mind.
In both cases my focus would be exclusive, narrow, and limited to only a detail or part of myself.
And in both cases, I was excluding the awareness of the space around me.
Once I started training as an Alexander Technique teacher, I began to see that there is another way of giving attention to something.
I learned that there is a much more useful focus, which I later started calling ‘all-inclusive awareness’.
All-inclusive awareness is a focus that is relaxed yet alert, open, curious, and calm.
It is inclusive, meaning that you are simultaneously aware of your whole body and self, your activity, ánd the world around you.
If this sounds like it’s hard work, I can assure you it’s the opposite; it’s completely effortless.
It feels easy, as if you’re in a state of flow, as if things are happening without you trying hard.
Your senses are receiving information without you needing to make them receive.
All there is to hear, see, or feel is simply and gently coming to you. You feel connected, calm and easy.
I believe that all-inclusive awareness is a natural form of focus for all human beings, but it has been lost in our present-day society. I think that we naturally used this kind of focus much more when we were living as hunters and gatherers for thousands of years.
For a very long time in our evolution, we needed to scan the horizon and look into the distance. We were much less focused on things close to us. Even when we were looking closely, for instance while carving wood or picking berries, we had to maintain a relaxed-alert open focus, so that we could be simultaneously aware of our activity, our surroundings and our loved ones close to us.
Also, when hunting, in order to work together and successfully catch an animal, we needed to be aware of the animal, each other, and the space around us at the same time; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to successfully catch it.
So this all-inclusive, open focus was very natural to us back then and crucial for our survival.
But what a contrast to our present civilized society! Now we can walk down the street with our earphones in, looking at the ground, disconnected from our bodies and the world. Now we can be zoomed into our computer screens or phones without any immediate consequence.
Somehow we’ve come to believe that concentrating hard means we need to hyperfocus on a detail at the expense of everything else. We started to believe that good concentration requires us to zoom in on our activity, and that as a consequence, we can’t be aware of ourselves and our surroundings too.
We seem convinced that we only have two options: we either concentrate on something external like the computer screen, or we close our eyes and concentrate on something internal. It’s either/or.
But luckily there is another way: we can tune into all-inclusive awareness!
All-inclusive awareness offers us ánd-ánd-ánd:
While working at your computer, you can be aware of your whole body, the screen, and the space around you.
When feeling something in your body, you can choose to be aware of that part, your whole body, and the space around you.
While walking, you can be aware of your feet, your body, and the park.
Let’s look a little more closely at the Alexander Technique thinking process to see when you can tune into all inclusive awareness and let’s return to the story of the car.
As we’ve seen in the audio guide on stopping, you first want to pause for a moment before you drive away, giving yourself the chance to decide how you want to sit in your car.
For example; you release excess tension from your neck and shoulder muscles to prevent driving with your neck craned forward and your shoulders lifted.
This is the moment for you to tune into all-inclusive awareness.
You start to zoom out.
You begin to gently become aware of your whole body.
You look into the distance with your soft, broad panoramic vision.
You start to see the end of the street and parts of the sides of the road.
You become aware of the space above and below you, the space behind you, and the wheels of the car on the ground.
As you can imagine, this will help you drive more calmly and safely.
You’ll see changes in traffic much more quickly and easily.
You will be able to react faster and with more flexibility.
Because when your eyes are not fixed your neck, and shoulders will have much less excess tension. And as a result, it is easier to turn your head, look left and right, check your blind spot, and look behind you.
As you can see, technically, all-inclusive awareness is part of the skill of stopping. However, I decided to mention it separately to help make you more aware of it, because the kind of focus we use is so crucial for the quality of our muscle tone, coordination, poise, and breathing.
Let’s discover much more about all-inclusive awareness in the next audio guide called; All-Inclusive Awareness, the Art of Effortless Focus.