#21 Alexander Technique and Mindfulness: A Well-Kept Secret

Amy Ward Brimmer, owner of Way Opens Wellness, highlights Alexander technique, mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, constructive rest, and much more!

The Alexander Technique is about being mindful in your movements. addressing the Body-Mind Connection with "Whatever you think, your body picks it up."

• How do we interfere with our body?
• Learn to align with how our body is designed.
• How can the Alexander Technique can be applied to prevent chronic injury, illness, and disconnect?

Amy Ward Brimmer has been investigating mindfulness and self-expression since childhood. She is the owner of Way Opens Wellness in Yardley, PA, where she offers Alexander Technique, Somatic Release bodywork, Qigong, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Compassionate Listening, and Insight meditation instruction. Amy created Way Opens to bring together people interested in learning and teaching body mind methods of awakening. She has taught at Yale, Villanova, Brooklyn College, and along the banks of the Delaware Canal, among many other places.

Website - https://wayopenswellness.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/WayOpensWellness

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/amywardbrimmer/

YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI5zS7rr9rfBgXN3QATNY0g

SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/amy-ward-brimmer

Thank you for listening! If you like this podcast, please FOLLOW my show on your podcast app.
Spotify | Amazon Music | Apple Podcasts

Check out my website and learn more about me and my podcast, fitness classes, and you can submit your email for my Newsletter!
Keep'em Healthy with Jami (keepemhealthywithjami.com)

You can also follow me on instagram: Jami DeLuca (@keepemhealthywithjami) • Instagram photos and videos

You do you, stay well, and... Keep'em Healthy!

Transcript

[00:00] Speaker A: Really been conditioned to find, to value ourselves based on our productivity. We are so much more than that, and that's such a lie, really.

[00:22] Speaker B: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Keep'em healthy with Jami podcast. Thank you so much for listening today, and I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you do, please follow me on spotify, Amazon Music or Apple podcast. As always, my goal is to inform and inspire action towards a healthier you and your loved ones. Today, get ready to learn something new. I have amy Ward brimmer, owner of Way Opens Wellness in yarley, pai. Opens Wellness is a place where people come when they're ready for change. Listen in as Amy highlights the Alexander technique mindfulness meditation, breathing, resting, and so much more. So let's get ready to learn. You're going to want to hear what Amy has to share. So without further ado, let us meet Amy Ward brimmer.

[01:13] Speaker C: I have Amy here. Welcome to the Keep'em Healthy podcast. Amy, how are you today?

[01:18] Speaker A: I'm great. Happy to be with you, Jami.

[01:21] Speaker C: I just really fast wanted to share before we get started that I crossed paths with you by attending your Loving Kindness meditation class. And I just felt really at home with your presence. You just have a very common grounding essence to you. So it prompted me, obviously, to see what else you do. And from there, I found your Ways Open Wellness, which is why I reached out to you, because it talked about techniques that I've never been introduced to before. And I just wanted to pick your brain and see what you're doing and highlight everything that way's Open Wellness does. So if you're ready, Amy, I would love for you to start sharing with my audience. What does way's open wellness do? Or is what is it?

[02:10] Speaker A: Well, the name is Way opens Wellness.

[02:14] Speaker C: Oh, did I choose that wrong? I'm sorry.

[02:17] Speaker A: That's okay. People often say Ways open, and it's a kind of unwieldy name that I occasionally regret choosing. But the reason I chose it is because it really does reflect our mission. And the name comes from two sources that also reflect my own spiritual path. It comes from the buddhist tradition and it comes from the quaker tradition. So there's a famous, at least among zen practitioners, I guess there's a well known phrase move and the way will open. And in quakerism, there is also a phrase that's often used, way will open. And both of those things are basically pointing to stepping out in faith, taking a chance, taking a step forward, doing some kind of movement, and the path opens to you. You don't have to know exactly where you're headed. You just need to take that first step. And in the work that I do with people, which I'll get into shortly, it's all about awakening mindful transformation, which really is a choice that folks take. So what I do here, and this grew out of something that I've been trained in for about 30 years now called the Alexander Technique. Alexander Technique is a way of learning how we interfere with our natural ability to move and live with ease, balance, poise, and grace. We get into unconscious habit patterns in the way we hold tension and stress in the body. And this often leads to chronic pain, illness, disconnection. And so it's a hands on movement modality that helps people begin the process of learning about themselves and learning that they have options about how they use their body and using their body and mind in alignment with how it's designed. So before I created this, I guess brand called Way Opens Wellness, I just had a private practice for many, many years. And during those years, I raised a family and became a childbirth educator and a birth dula and applied my Alexander Technique understanding and training to those activities as well. And this was mostly when I was living in Brooklyn and then in the early 21st century. In 2002, my family moved here to Bucks County. I'm located in yardley, and that's where I see people at Way Opens. And so my work has kind of gone through a whole bunch of different iterations and applications. And I've trained in mindfulness meditation, and I could talk more about that too. But Way Opens Wellness is really a place where people come when they're ready for change. A lot of times the people that I see have tried everything else. Nothing works to heal their pain or help them become more proficient at whatever skills they want to become proficient at. So, for example, I work with a lot of performing artists. My background is in theater and dance. And so I tend to work with a lot of actors. And then other movement professionals like yoga teachers and massage therapists come for Alexander lessons because it's a way of embodying your work and your life. Our mission is really just to help people see that they're not broken, they're actually whole, and that we really believe that everybody has what they need to meet their own need for healing and learning and growth. So all the things that I offer are not so much putting things in to people, but actually helping them access the abilities and skills and natural ways of being that we all possess. So it's a little bit like removing what's in the way of that, depending on what someone's needs are, right.

[07:08] Speaker C: It's so interesting when you speak about movement and people. I mean, a lot of people don't do a lot of movement during their day because they're sitting in an office chair or maybe they have little ones and they're bent over. And there's so many reasons why people could have chronic pain. And we don't take the time to focus on the fact that we have power in ourselves to be our own healers when it comes to how we approach our work, how we approach our day to day, how we approach our breathing, how we approach how we stand. And I love that you mentioned this Alexander Technique that you've been using. It from being a dula to helping people who are singers and dancers to yoga teachers. It just gets applied for every person and it's a skill or it's this technique that not only it's not like you're saying it's not something you put into somebody. They can do this on their own once they learn it, and can do their own healing for the rest of their lives. That's what I'm trying to promote here on the Keep Them Healthy podcast. Part of it is that you are your own self expert and you are a huge part of your healing process. We forget that. We leave it to the experts most of the time. And so I love that you're promoting that. I'm going to teach you how to heal and how to learn your body and what needs to work for you. So that's really interesting. So with the Alexander Technique, can you elaborate a little bit more specifically? What would you be focusing on? I guess is it to depend? Are you focusing on breathwork, posture? What's your process?

[08:53] Speaker A: Well, it's really a focus on the whole person and it's often seen as a posture improvement course or something, but that's really the least of it. So you actually just said quite a lot in your response. And really the key thing with Alexander work is that we become accustomed to these patterns and ways of moving and being and they become automatic and sort of happen without our consent. So we're not really bringing mindful awareness to say how we're sitting at our desks, for example. And sitting, by the way, is an activity. There is movement in sitting, there is movement happening in standing. So a lot of times what happens is you sit at your desk all day and you get up and you're like, oh, my back hurts. And you kind of know it's from the way you've been sitting for two, 3 hours at a time without changing your position. But most people don't really know what to do about that. Sometimes people will come to me and say, my neck is frozen, or I have a frozen shoulder, or I was in a car accident ten years ago and I've I've, you know, never been able to move my, you know, my knee in the same way or my arm in the same way. And people feel kind of stuck. And so it's a real process of helping folks unhook from these unconscious habits and learn. Yes, they can make some choices. Once you're aware of what you're doing, you have some choice, you have some option. So just to give a little background on the history of Alexander Technique, it's called that because it was created by a man named frederick matthias Alexander, and his story is a great example, kind of of what this can do for people. He grew up in Tasmania, in Australia in the late 19th century. So Alexander technique has been around for 100 and 2530 years or so. It's not a new thing from the 60s or something. And he was known as FM alexander. So FM grew up and became an orator. And in those days, actors would go around on tour and give do solo shows, do the great monologues from shakespeare and great speeches and stuff. And so he he had a fairly decent business going for himself. He was getting booked, and he started to lose his voice. And this is a pretty long story, so I'm making it real short, but he kept losing his voice. And he, like a lot of my Alexander clients, went around to many doctors and got various treatments, and some of them worked, and some of them didn't, but none of them worked permanently. And he really came to the conclusion he began to notice that it was really after he was on stage performing when he would mostly lose his voice. So he logically concluded, well, it must be something I'm doing when I am performing that's causing this problem. So he set about studying himself. He didn't have anybody else that he could go to. So he set up a room with mirrors everywhere so he could see himself from all angles. And over several months, he would practice and try to see and sense, well, what am I doing? And this basically left him with the information that every time he would prepare to speak, he would take in a breath and pull his head back and sort of down and crunch his neck, sort of lift his chest and chin. And this was compressing his neck and his throat right where he needed the most freedom and ease to speak, and it was cutting off his breathing as well. And so he began to realize that he was really interfering with himself in a way that he thought, well, I just won't do that. I just won't speak when I get ready to speak. I just won't do that. But then he made his most important discovery, possibly, which is that even the thought just standing there thinking in preparation of speaking, that thought caused that tension pattern. And so he's a very early pioneer in the west, anyway, of understanding the body mind dynamic, that body and mind are one, and that movement we like to say this in the Alexander world, movement is embodied thought. So whatever you think, your body picks it up. And, like, trauma recovery and body brain mind studies are actually showing this now. But he was really the first person to recognize this. And so he realized that in order to change his movement, he needed to change his thinking, or what we might call a felt sense now, or a mindful aware approach. And then he went on to actually discover that he could do that. And he solved his vocal problems and actually began to be known as a breathing method guy. He started taking it around to other people who were having similar breathing problems. And so really, the core of Alexander Technique began with speaking and breathing. But the beautiful part of it is that it's really founded on the understanding that if I can change how I think, if I can change how, how I am actually relating to my whole self, as I move, I can move in a way that, as alexandria used to say, the right thing does itself. And so it really is an early, early example of what I think now is being called mindfulness practice. holistic mindful. It shares a lot with the approach approach that yoga, which is thousands of years old, takes, and other Eastern approaches, which I don't believe FM was familiar with at all. This is real self discovery.

[16:02] Speaker C: This story is awesome only because, first of all, mind body connection is something that I discovered later, later in life. And mindfulness, I think across the board, Amy, is really like a buzzword and a trending concept in our culture. I mean, they're teaching it mindfulness in schools now to the kids. And so connecting Alexander Technique with mindfulness, it's pretty amazing. So I don't know if you can continue telling me, like you're talking about how he went he did mindfulness through his breathing, which I'm all about breathwork. breathwork has changed my life in particular, and just gave me an empowerment of like, that I can use my thoughts and use my breathing to calm down and different methods like that. If you keep going, if you can elaborate more of how he gets beyond breathwork.

[16:58] Speaker A: Yeah, well, so this is actually how I ended up as a mindfulness teacher. I am trained to teach Mindfulness based Stress reduction, which is an eight week training program created by John Kabatson, a lot of hospitals, prisons and clinics, and it's huge. It's been around since the late seventy s. And it's through my Alexander work that I became more interested in meditation and mindfulness in general, because, as I said, it's really an embodiment program that relies on mindful awareness. Although I'm sure Alexander never I'm pretty sure he never used the word mindful. But yeah, there's been this huge explosion. I'm so happy over the last 25, 30 years of scientific research into what happens when we meditate, when we use mindfulness. And because of that, and because we are such a stressed out what's the right word?

[18:10] Speaker C: Society. Culture.

[18:11] Speaker A: Disconnected society. Yes, our culture. Late stage capitalism is all about competition and separation. And anybody who practices any kind of mindfulness meditation or other kind of mindful practice immediately realizes there's really no separation between anybody or anything. And so, like the Alexander Technique, this is all about reunification. This kind of unified field that we are meant to. This is the natural world if you look at nature. So the whole process is kind of about coming back to what our natural capacities are as human beings. And so, although people often come to say, I want to feel more confident when I'm auditioning for a role, an actor might say, I want to feel more grounded in my body, or I want to have more facility with my instrument because I'm a singer or somebody comes with chronic low back pain or whatever. What they discover is more about their whole self, and that there's so much power in attending to our own use, bringing some curious attention to how am I doing what I'm doing. And this is one thing that makes the Alexander Technique very, quite unique. Most other modalities are either treatments like Swedish massage or something. You go for a deep tissue massage. That's lovely. I love massage. But it's a treatment like chiropractic, and it can solve a problem, but it doesn't really often get to the root of the problem, especially if you could go to a chiropractor and get adjusted. But if the way you're moving and using your body is what's interfering, then shortly you're going to be back in that shape and you're going to need another adjustment. Yeah. And so having Alexander lessons and we call them lessons, not sessions, because it really is a learning process. And so having an Alexander lesson or a session really helps you understand what you have choice about. And it can be very therapeutic. I mean, most people feel very good when they finish a lesson because it's done with very gentle touch. It often combines everyday movements, like how to walk, how to sit, how to stand, how to move between things like moving from sitting to standing. We often do things with way too much tension and misalignment, so we look at real everyday movements, but then part of a lesson is usually done lying on a bodywork table and really resting, really restoring. This is a little bit like yoga negra or something, where you're going into a deeply relaxed state, where I use my hands, skilled, trained hands, to help realign things and help your body find its more natural, open, reconnection. It's sort of like smoothing out a crumpled up piece of paper or something. And so people often find when they're able to release the tension held in their bodies, and this certainly includes breathing, because how we breathe is going to affect everything. Most people walk out feeling lighter. I often hear people say, I feel like a couple of inches taller. I feel like everything's reconnected, and there's not one part going one direction and another part going another direction. So it has this sort of therapeutic aspect to it, but it is also a learning process. A lot of it is learning how to kind of undo our patterns. It's unique in that way. And so Alexander Technique teachers often work with people who meditate help them sit more comfortably in meditation because you're automatically in that mindfulness place you're already turning toward yourself when you're meditating. And so you can apply what you learn in Alexander lessons to any activity. We don't really have exercises that we give.

[23:15] Speaker C: Right. So it's interesting that you bring up that when you lay down and you do your somatic release body work every day. I have, I guess for the past two plus years now, I take a 20 minutes where I lay down and I do a meditation. And I did hear something in the research recently about laying down midway through the day and, like, elongating your spine and how important that is. Is that something that the Alexander Technique and lessons share about? Is it important to do that every day?

[23:49] Speaker A: Yes. I'm so glad you mentioned that. And you mentioned somatic release body work, which is like an offshoot of Alexander lessons. And I can say more about how that's similar, but it's actually different.

[24:03] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sorry. forgive me.

[24:04] Speaker A: That's okay. It also happens lying fully clothed on a body or table. But the intention is a little bit different. But, yes, there is a process. And I just said we don't give exercises and we don't. But the one procedure that I do teach people and I begin with the very first lesson and encourage people to do this daily if they can. Like you're doing is something called constructive rest. It's sometimes called active rest or lying down in semi supine, which is kind of a boring name, but yeah. So constructive rest is exactly as you describe where you lie on your back, and you can do it on a bed or a sofa, but it's better to do it on a firm surface, like a carpeted floor or a yoga exercise mat on the floor, because what you're getting is information about where you're holding tension. And you can apply. We have something that we teach called Alexander directions. It's this way of thinking in an activity and the activity of rest, it sounds a little like an oxymoron because when we think of rest, we usually think of falling asleep or taking a nap. And a power nap has its place, for sure. But constructive rest of the constructive part of it is allowing yourself to really do nothing with your muscles, with your body per se, but really tuning in. It's kind of like a body scan meditation where you're lying there and allowing gravity to support yourself. And it's much easier to let go when you're lying there than it is to let go when you say upright. Because when we're upright standing or sitting, we're in a balanced situation. We're constantly needing to adjust and be in balance with gravity. But when you're lying down, it's very easy, as you probably have noticed, to feel safe enough to let go. And things just kind of lengthen and widen. And what you do with your mind is either think those thoughts kind of invite your spine to lengthen or envision. It getting longer. This is just going to happen naturally because of we're in this different relationship with gravity. But there are some specific ways you can sort of converse with your body, kind of talk to your, listen to how things are. We don't really listen to our bodies. We're not taught to do that. But anything you feel in your body is a signal, it's a message, right? And so this process is, is just really lovely. And even if it feels like nothing much is changing, most people find that if they do practice on a regular basis for 15 or 20 minutes overall, they, they notice lots of changes.

[27:20] Speaker C: I can attest to that. Yeah, it's, it's been a game changer for me. It's been a nice balance for me to take time to rest. And also, like you mentioned, to see rest in a different light than just sleep. Rest can look in so many different shapes and forms. And for this, like for me to lay down and take a moment and do a body scan or just do some breathing or whatever that means for me every day, it just has helped to calm my system for a second. Where most people have very busy, very lives that are always running from one place to the next or one ding to the next, whatever that looks like. And so I just changed my world in regards to how I can relax and how I can just give my body that little bit of self care and it's not much. All I have to do is lay down. It's amazing.

[28:09] Speaker A: Yes. And stopping the doing, stopping the work that accumulates in the body and mind is really key. We are probably the only mammals that don't do this. And it goes back to kindergarten. I mean, I don't know what they do now, but a zillion years ago when I was in kindergarten every day, and this was a half day kindergarten, but for every kindergarten class there was rest time. And you laid out your little rug and you just laid down and maybe the teacher put some music on or something, or read a story or something, but you just rested. And we knew, we know that children need rest time and somehow we've lost that. And there's a lot people have the biggest stories. Their minds tell them the biggest stories about why they can't do this. There's some kind of built in fear of missing out or huge guilt. I've heard people say, oh, I feel guilty.

[29:11] Speaker C: I've heard even almost a fear of looking lazy, if that makes sense.

[29:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. It really hasn't really been conditioned to value ourselves based on our productivity. We are so much more than that. And that's such a lie, really. And so again, if you look to nature, you can see that the way we drive ourselves and it causes an incredible amount of illness. I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to try to say what illnesses per se have been shown, but stress related illness, I mean, this has been a couple of generations now. We know that a lot of autoimmune disorders, for example, the rise of asthma, there may even be some evidence for things like neurophysical problems like Ms or just chronic illness. If you just drive yourself all day long and then collapse, that is a life out of balance. And so all the work that I offer is really about coming back into balance and really learning to deeply trust our own systems and our own sort of body wisdom. This was certainly approach I took when I was supporting people in the birth process, which we've also gotten really disconnected from. And this all kind of just comes down from this is really why I ended up taking my first Alexander lesson. I don't know if you want to hear that story or not.

[31:11] Speaker C: No, but everything you're saying is making sense, right? You're using well, I love the finding the balance. I think we live in a culture and a society that we are really one sided when it comes to what we're being taught as children and what we're seeing as our parents and the people that we love. Do we see a lot of people that run themselves into the ground, basically, and just keep up, right? To keep up with your work or your family life and even just as a parent, to keep up with the sports and everybody is next and trying to keep up. And you're right, it winds up causing chronic illnesses. And then there's also other factors, right? I mean, that I've studied especially through my health coaching practices with just food and water and other things that we don't get outside enough sunlight, all of that. But stress is a huge situation that causes chronic illness, like you're saying. And so for us to learn how to take the time, pause and listen to our bodies and then have the knowledge to counterbalance when things are out of balance, that is what I'm believing now that the Alexander Technique is also teaching to say like, hey, here's how you can get yourself back to balance. And that's a skill. And that is something like you're saying it's not a treatment, it's not something you have to go visit someone to do. It's something that you can make a choice in your day to day to keep yourself in health and balance. So it's awesome.

[32:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And ultimately it's learning to do things in an easier way, being less hard on ourselves, less harsh with ourselves. As I said previously, we tend to put more effort into the simplest tasks and so it sort of shows off an easier, more cooperative way to sort of get through life. One of my first, aha, moments after I started taking alexander lessons was I was opening a can with a handheld can opener, which is really just hand and wrist action. But I noticed that I was lifting and tightening my shoulder, like practically almost up to my ear while I was trying to open this can. It was just like all this excess tension that was not necessary. And it was something that I probably did well. As I discovered, pretty much any time I reached for anything, I tightened a part of my shoulder and upper back, which who knows how that began? I mean, I can come up with some possible ideas of how and when that started way back in childhood. But this had become part of my patterning that I didn't notice because it was just ubiquitous, it was just constantly happening. I used to always only stand with my weight on one leg and really didn't use both legs to support me, which isn't like you can never do that or that you should never do that. It's just that it was constant and I didn't know I was doing it. And it was putting a big twist in my lower spine and hip, which at that point wasn't causing pain. But if I had gone on like that, I'm sure eventually it would have. And so these are just sort of simple examples of we're just holding a lot of tension that we don't know about. And this is because we are pushing ourselves so hard and we are so disconnected from our lives and we feel so much stress and pressure from the outside, like you were saying, will people think I'm lazy? If I could I even tell anyone that I take a 20 minutes rest? What will they think of me? We have all these pressures that we largely put on ourselves. And then coming back to the breathing, I was just thinking, when you feel stressed, then that's going to affect your breathing. And then the less well you breathe, the more your brain thinks you're under threat or stress. And it goes into the shallow breathing. It becomes this sort of vicious cycle. So a lot of the people that I work with are breathing very poorly. Some people breathe backwards, which by that I mean when we inhale, the lungs fill with air and the ribs expand, the diaphragm moves down toward the pelvic floor. There's an expansion on the in breath. And then when we exhale, it releases back and down again. And that's just a simplistic description. And some people are, when they breathe in, are sucking in and pulling in. And when they breathe out, they're pushing out. And they don't really know they're doing this, of course. But I've been amazed at how many people are kind of breathing backwards or just really shallow breathing. So they're constantly in that fight or flight stress mode and not getting enough oxygen. And then when your muscles don't get enough oxygen, they are more tense. And when they're more tense, they're going to hurt more and there's nerve impingement. So it's good that you're seeing how important good, free breathing is, because it really can be a main healing power. To learn to breathe well can heal a lot of problems.

[36:51] Speaker C: Right. Which is so crazy, because we come into this world, the first thing we do is breathe. It should be this natural process, but yet we have lost the art of breathing. I feel, or I was never, if I could be frank, outside of my own seeking. I was never taught that breathing was a healing property of oh, when you're feeling that connection was never made for me until I found it in my adult years. And it seems so simple. Like, that's the first thing we do when we're born, but yet we don't understand its power. And it's just been everything I've learned recently and just through my studies of yoga and then reading different breathwork books and whatnot. And it's been amazing the impact it has in my life. But I've never heard of backwards breathing, so this was like brand new information for me. It's crazy to think that people are doing this. We have no idea. We have no idea that we're breathing wrong. That was even a thing. Who knew? So shining light on that through your work is really impressive.

[37:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I've been very grateful to have a growing understanding of the power of good breathing. And you're probably familiar with this book that came out a few years ago called Breath by James nestor.

[38:10] Speaker C: I have a copy. Yes, I do.

[38:12] Speaker A: It's a very useful book. And the one thing that he discovered that basically Western medicine didn't pay any attention to respiration unless it was except for diseases of breathing, respiratory diseases. But nobody in Western medicine was interested in looking at what's normal. It's a little bit like psychology began as it was all about what was abnormal. They were defining what was normal by looking at abnormal. And so he kind of had to go to some older, non Western sources. And so it's just really interesting that it's starting to be studied more. There was a man named Dr. Carl stow who was located in New York City who was I know about him because my Alexander teacher and a number of other Alexander practitioners studied with Dr. staw before he passed away. Because he was one of the few practitioners that was really interested in what is normal breathing, what are the mechanics of breathing, what's going on? And how can people learn to restore it? Literally was the same kind of project as FM. Alexander, which is how are we interfering with this natural power that we have? And breath, as you probably know, breathing is our most intimate connection to our environment and to each other. So when I teach breathing, I often teach. Last month, I taught a webinar on breathing, and actually tomorrow, this will air after this. I know, but tomorrow I'm offering a free webinar on constructive rest, which the core of that is tuning into the breath to begin. And so when I teach it, it's really all about accessing. People feel empowered when they're able to access what's it like to just let yourself sigh. And this is why chanting is a tradition in a lot of cultures, because chanting strengthens and empowers our body's ability to breathe. Yeah, it's kind of everything. You're right.

[40:48] Speaker C: I will continue to study more in all of that because it blows my mind. And also, I love connecting how cultures and how people have used breath throughout our entire time here on Earth, and yet we just never connected it or understood it. And so I love being open to learning new things about how chanting is something that helps to establish our breathwork and make things stronger for us. And it's amazing. It's amazing. And so actually, I'm going to be busy when you have your class, but I think I'm still going to log in because I want to see your recording.

[41:26] Speaker A: Yes, sure.

[41:27] Speaker C: I want to see your recording because I want to see your constructive rest and what you're going to talk about when it comes to that, for sure. And before I let you go, though, I do want to say, is there any common because, well, this is the first I've ever learned of Alexander Technique, but for people who come to you, is there any common misconception of your practice that you find daily? Or like, not daily, but you find that you're commonly being asked and you say, oh, no, that's a misconception. Is there anything going on with that?

[41:58] Speaker A: Well, I think probably the main one, that it's not so much wrong, but it's just a limited view where people think Alexander lessons are for improving your posture. And that's because when we use ourselves better, our posture improves. So a lot of times people do come, they say, well, I find myself slumping at my desk and I try to sit up straight or stand up straight, and that doesn't seem to help. And the reason it doesn't help is because the idea of sitting or standing up straight is that's a huge misconception. So it's not so much a misconception about the work itself, but about what people think good posture is. There's a lot of misunderstanding about that. Posture is just most of the time when someone says, oh, so and so has great posture, they're just seeing it in a two dimensional way, like looking at a snapshot, and that's just a moment in time. But posture is really the result of sort of present moment awareness for good or for ill. It's constantly changing. And so maybe the biggest myth that people have when they start Alexander lessons, whether they're interested in improving posture or not, but a lot of times people think that they're coming to get fixed or they're going to learn how to fix themselves. And that word fix has a couple of different connotations. There's probably, yeah, you could improve. You definitely will see improvement and healing and positive change when you take Alexander lessons. But that idea that there's, like, you're going to repair something that's broken isn't exactly accurate. And then the other definition or the other meaning of the word fix is that fixed, like, fixity, like holding something. And probably the primary thing that everybody I see has in common is that they're too fixed, they're too held in their bodies. So people think, if I can hold a shape, I will have good posture. But that's actually the opposite of what we want. We want to be able to release and let go and allow flow to kind of guide us. And so I think it's such a radical 180 degree change of view that no matter what you're hoping to change, understanding that you don't have to do it. A lot of what you're going to change is how you're relating to what's happening and how you're acting, what actions you're taking. And that's where it kind of becomes the same as learning to meditate and doing mindfulness meditation is we're not interested in learning to meditate really well. Who cares about that? We learn to meditate so that we can live better. We become more mindful in life. So, again, I think some of the misconceptions it's true that I could go for a lesson and work with my teacher or any of my colleagues, really, and I'll walk out of there feeling better and feeling like, oh, something's been restored. I'm more connected in some way to myself and to my world, but it's not so much like, I broke a bone and now you're going to set it and it's going to heal and you're going to fix. It's more holistic than that.

[46:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that makes sense. Also for me in particular, when you say posture, I think roll your shoulders down and back, keep your head neutral. I think of those words, or sit up straight, but like you're saying, there's way more to it. Same thing. I remember just growing up and sitting in school, the principal was coming in, you sit up straight and you do you kind of freeze and talk about being tense and stressed. And then also when I meditate, now, I'm being mindful in the fact, like, are my eyebrows raised or lowered or scrunched together with my forehead scrunched because I'm thinking about something stressful. And to tell yourself, like, relax and release those muscles and to take a moment to give your body a break. And so I can understand why people would that would be the misconception that they would bring to you, is that the Alexander technique would be a change in posture and teach me how to stand and walk and sit properly. And I appreciate that you have explained that it's way more than that, and that it's a mindfulness process. And I want to also just say that thank you so much for coming on here and explaining everything that you do. And I want to let my listeners know that I will be on my show notes. I will be posting your website, I will be posting your Instagram account and your email and any other way that you want them to connect with you. And I would encourage everyone to check out amy's website at Way Opens Wellness because it gives a lot more information about what we cover today. And if you live in the Bucks County Philadelphia area, I would encourage you to seek out Amy Ward bremer and get talking with her, or at least get on her email list, because the emails I've gotten thus far have been such great resources for me to learn. So anyway, Amy, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I appreciate your time and your energy, and I appreciate your passion and what you do, and I hope you enjoyed yourself today.

[48:10] Speaker A: I really did, and I really appreciate the chance to share about something that people don't know about very much. Unfortunately, this is one of those well kept secrets, I think, of learning and healing. So I'm always happy for the opportunity to talk about this thing that completely changed my life and has been such a help in every way. So thank you for spending some time with me today.

[48:42] Speaker B: I just want to thank Amy so much for coming on today and shedding light on taking time and creating space to be mindful of everything that we do. And it's very important to be intentional with your rest and your breathing and to understand that you have stock in how your body moves every day and also how you can prevent injury and illness and be a healer in your own life. I want to let you guys know that I have on the show notes under amy's bio, all the links to her website, facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel, and soundcloud. So I really urge you to check it all out. I know I will continue my constructive rest daily. It has been a game changer for me in resetting and calming my nervous system. And as I leave you, so don't forget, stay well you, do you and keep them healthy.