Use your passion to fix your bad back
When your back is sometimes torture. When protecting it has put a permanent stop to you doing the things you love. When you’re in a desperate mess and don’t know how to get out of it. When you have come to believe that there may not be a way out. Then you could be forgiven for saying: “I don’t care anymore whether I live or die”.
And you could really mean it: “If this is all life has to offer, then what is there to live for?”
Not believing there is anything left to live for, it’s hard not to give up.
This is such a tragic — and avoidable — conclusion.
You’ve fallen into a very common error
Such a tragic conclusion comes from making a certain very understandable mistake. You’ve mistaken what you are for the fullness of what you can become.
In truth, while you’re alive you’re never stationary. You’re always in the process of becoming something else. Never, ever are you doomed to remain as you are. Your state of being is always temporary, a snapshot: your story unfolds.
The real you is not what you are: it is what you are becoming.
What are you becoming?
While you’re giving up, while you’ve no hope, that becoming is a process of disintegration.
When you acknowledge your dreams, your passions, you can harness those passions and move forwards again. You can begin to grow and develop into what you were meant to be.
It’s often difficult to even admit to your passions. There’s such an unsurpassable abyss between what you are and what you’d like to be.
Or is there?
It would be a very tame dream indeed if there weren’t an abyss between what you are and what you dream of becoming. So, yes, it’s true that there’s an abyss but is it really an insurpassable abyss?
No it isn’t.
Two Examples
When the Wright brothers decided to make a flying machine, flying was an impossible dream for human beings. But the Wright brothers had a passion and they followed it. They worked out a possible way to harness the Bernoulli effect and make a flying machine. Then they toiled at it, trying, changing, perfecting. Eventually they had something that they hoped would work. They tried it out — and they flew.
When the actor Christopher Reeve had a horse-riding accident and broke his neck, he was paralysed from the neck down. To all appearances, his life had come to a tragic end. But Christopher didn’t give up. He took the best advice available to him and he worked at it. Gradually, he learned to breathe again and talk again. What he achieved as a result is truly inspiring.
How about you, yourself?
Many of you feel trapped in a world that seems to be closing in on you as you get progressively more pain and less mobility. While it’s only natural to feel like that, you have the power to turn things around.
How? You need to harness the same tandem of forces that the Wright brothers, Christopher Reed and countless other people have done.
1. Harnessing your passion
Like those countless other people, you have your own passion, your own dreams, your own “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if…”, your own “if only …”
You may have forgotten it, but it’s there, I promise you. Find it. In God’s name, find it.
Find your passion, connect with it. Cherish it, tend it, nourish it. That passion is what you’re here on this Earth for. You just need to harness it in tandem. Harness it alongside the best help, advice and technology you can find.
2. Harnessing the best help, advice and technology
What would that help be? When it comes to replacing muscular, joint and nerve pain with ease and mobility, the best possible technology is the Alexander Technique. And, whether or not it be the very best, I can (and do) provide you with some pretty outstanding help and advice.
Harness these alongside your very own passion. The very best I and the Alexander Technique can do is indeed good but, by itself, it can’t perform miracles.
To perform miracles you must harness together our help and your passion. Do that and what you can achieve is limited only by the amount of energy and enthusiasm you invest into the rest of your life.
Don’t let age be a barrier — I myself am 57 now and that certainly hasn’t stopped me, as last week’s weekly article showed you. Another example: I have taught a man who was over a hundred. He didn’t live many years after I saw him but he sure didn’t rot away in a wheelchair.
Whatever your present situation, follow us. Follow my centenarian pupil. Follow Christopher. Follow Orville and Wilbur. Follow me.
What are you waiting for?
P.S
A fuller account of Christopher Reeve’s recovery and achievements can be found here and here’s a delightful video of him after his accident
The other articles in this category are here:‒
Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley
If you want to get the best kind of help, come to me for an introductory lesson in Liverpool.
If you’re too far away, then the next best thing is to get personal lessons and advice from me online at Repoise.com, my on-line school. (Both far-away and local pupils use Repoise).
In more detail:–
If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)
- There’s nothing better than individual lessons. My practice is at 37 Hope Street, Liverpool L1. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book an initial consultation and first lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).
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If you’re short of funds, you can still have first class training from me — though it will require a little more work on your part.
The thing to do is have an individual, in-person lesson just once a month. That will entitle you to also get regular on-line lessons from me through Repoise. That way, you have the best of both worlds: in-person lessons and very regular, even daily, on-line Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley from me. That’s a real bargain because Repoise costs the equivalent of three lessons a year to everyone else.
Ring me on 0151 708 6172 if you want to arrange this.
- I occasionally run group lessons. If you’re interested in these, go here for details.
If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool
- There’s still nothing better than individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
- I suggest you also get direct day-to-day guidance from me by joining Repoise.
If you’re having plain Alexander Technique lessons from someone else, you still need to discover the Smiling Back Method of the Alexander Technique. You’ll get a lot more out of your lessons when you do.
37 Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 9EA, England
Telephone: +44 151 708 6172 Mobile: +44 7872 905 154
Copyright © 2007-2012 Philip Pawley
SmilingBackMethod.com
