Category: Balance

How Active Body Awareness in the Alexander Technique Transforms Your Life

9/11/2025

Have you heard of the Alexander Technique? It's a most beautiful method that teaches how improving awareness of your own body can be a profound tool for creating lasting positive changes in your life.

This growing awareness is, in fact, one of the most valuable outcomes of the practice. At first glance it might seem overly simple: noticing how you stand, shift into walking, sit, type, reach and move throughout the day.

The deeper you go into observing yourself though, the more you realize what's so amazing about your body: Not only how connected every part of your body is to your overall wellbeing but also how important the smallest parts of you are for everything to work harmoniously.

For me, the opening up into this active self-awareness has been deeply transformative, showing me solutions and insights to problems I did not even know existed!

Take for example the connection of my persistent neck pain to how I was using my attention while working at the computer. I learned that the root cause of that pain and discomfort was the way I overextended and stiffened my neck, held my breath and contorted my spine each time I tried to read a smaller font in a scientific paper.

And I had absolutely no idea that I was doing that!

But once I knew it to be true I could not unsee or un-feel it, which was the beginning of changing and adjusting how I looked at my screen by way of using alternative, less stressful ways of sitting and reading.

I used reason and emotion - a powerful combination for breakthroughs to be truly possible. This kind of awareness does take practice, and trouble shooting skills don't develop overnight.

It’s a practice just like learning to play an instrument which also requires an ongoing relationship with your own body. Each day brings new opportunities to tune in, ask questions, and explore how you're moving through the world and how that in fact affects your everyday wellbeing.

This is what these explorations could be like: "How am I standing right now, and can I balance with a little bit more ease?" "As I can see my raised shoulders in the mirror, what have I been thinking about, and can I let go of that thought?" "If my right hip is aching, what might I be doing elsewhere that's supporting that discomfort?"

These are powerful, transformative questions.

They are the beginning of inquiries that can lead to profound shifts in how you feel and function. It’s like running continuous diagnostics on your body. It's like checking in with yourself, not in a obsessive or anxious way but in a gentle, curious and supportive manner.

These small moments of awareness offer us a choice: To re-adjust, and to find better comfort and balance, time and time again. The truth is, life will always throw things at us. We will react, sometimes gracefully, sometimes not so much. We’re all on autopilot much of the time just trying to get through the day.

But the difference comes when you bring conscious, guided awareness into the equation. Instead of being swept away by unconscious habits and tension you have the ability to step back, reassess, and make confident choices.

This is the essence of the Alexander Technique: helping you to notice your body’s signals so you can unravel the tension and discomfort that inevitably accumulates throughout the day, and kick it in the butt before it causes pain and decline in your body's daily function.

Whether it’s adjusting your posture at your desk, or releasing tension in your shoulders after a stressful conversation, this new awareness allows you to reset and realign yourself with intention that makes sense to your body.

But one of the most powerful aspects of this practice is that it shifts your relationship with yourself. Instead of feeling like your body is something you need to battle against because it seems like it's betraying you with pain or discomfort, you start to see your body as ally.

And boy, this shift in perception is liberating!

It transforms how we move through our day, both physically and emotionally. Suddenly, we’re not just reacting to life’s challenges; we’re responding with awareness and choice.

Ultimately, the Alexander Technique offers a way to navigate life with more ease, grace, and awareness that matters.

Over time, this amazing work creates a ripple effect of transformation not only in your physical experience but also your emotional and mental well-being.

In a world that keeps pushing us to move faster, do more, and ignore our own needs, the Alexander Technique offers a refreshing alternative. It invites us to slow down, tune in, and become more mindful of how we’re going about living in our bodies.

And in doing so it gives us the tools to create a life that feels balanced, comfortable and aligned with who we truly are.

How You Use Yourself Matters. But What Does This Mean For Your Life?

8/17/2025

Self-use is an interesting concept. Let me explain.

Imagine you're carrying a backpack full of groceries. If you sling it over one shoulder, let the straps dig into your skin or carry it unevenly, it quickly becomes uncomfortable and heavy. But if you adjust the straps properly, distribute the weight evenly and walk with awareness, the backpack feels lighter and moving becomes more easy.

You of course know, without being told, that how you carry your backpack changes how you perceive it.

But think for a moment of your body as a sort of backpack. “Use” is a word we often use in the Alexander Technique, and it means how you carry and move yourself in everyday life.

And how you use yourself matters greatly.

The word "Use" is not about how you look or whether you are strong or flexible, but how you do things with your body, how you sit, stand, walk, or use your breath.

Even how you think is an aspect of your "Use".

Most of us never really stop to consider how we're using ourselves.
Instead we focus on the objects around us: the chair, the desk, the phone.

But how we carry our body through space, how we respond to gravity and to the objects we encounter, how we hold our head, how we breathe and what we pay attention to: all of these aspects of BEING are part of our Use.

This is such a rich field of exploration; a fascinating and empowering study of YOURSELF because taking charge of how you are BEING TODAY affects everything about your body's future health and wellbeing,

Take typing on a computer for example. You might rest your wrists on the desk, pull your head forward into the screen and hold your breath.... often habitually and without even noticing.

But over time your neck starts to tighten, your shoulders rise up and your wrists feel stiff. The task (sitting and typing) is simple, but your "Use" is creating tension.

The same task done with different Use can feel effortless. Your body is beautifully adaptable; it's a living, moving system that responds to how you use it. If you use it with habits of tightness, tension, or compression, it will feel heavy and uncomfortable.

But if you use it with awareness, balance and ease, it will feel light and alive.

The great news is that Use can easily be changed. You can learn to stop pulling yourself into patterns that create tension, imbalances and compression, and instead learn to move and express yourself with more freedom and less effort.

This is what I teach in my private, 1:1 coaching programs. This is the essence of the Alexander Technique: To help you become consciously aware of how you use yourself in everyday life so you can choose different ways: with less effort less and more freedom.

In short, "Use" underlies everything you do. It's the missing piece that connects your structure with your movement and your feelings. When you understand and improve your Use, pain and tension release away and life becomes a little easier.

You then truly transform how you feel in your body.

Check out my posts on Instagram to learn more about the way I think and teach. Click here if you would like to speak with me to find out how I can help you improve your Use so you can let go of strain and tension and feel great in your body.

Why Posture Matters More Than You Think

7/31/2025

Everyday I see how we live in a world that's slowly pulling us away from the natural intelligence of our bodies. We sit too much. We collapse into office chairs, cars, couches and soft beds, and we get lost in the world of screens.

We have learned to function under pressure but at the same time have forgotten how to thrive.

Many of us feel disconnected from ourselves, and don’t know exactly why, or how to return.

This disconnection shows up in the way you carry yourself through the world. It shows up in the physical, mental and emotional (over)reactions you bring to everything. I believe that a large part of that disconnection is due to the loss of connection to the inherited uprightness of your body.

It’s the loss of wholeness really. Living in your natural verticality means that your primary movement mechanism is intact and your senses wide awake.

Your body has evolved into upright balance so you can freely use your arms and legs not only to survive but to follow your dreams... and strive along the way.

Your head has evolved to balance freely on a upward-lengthening spine so that your vision can radiate out into the world and make you see new horizons. But because you now live in a digital age, your natural upright balance suffers chronic disturbances as you try to adapt to the stress and physical collapse of staring at small displays for day, weeks, months and years at a time without knowing how to reset yourself.

It shows up in the way you grip where you could be releasing. You brace your body where you could soften and allow. You rush through life without noticing how much it costs you to hold yourself together.

But verticality is vitality.

When your body is in balance, your life force activates and you can move with in flow. You will breathe more freely, feel more depth and sense yourself more deeply.

Your emotional weight can transform and exit the body. But when it is out of balance, energy gets trapped and compensates through muscular effort as your nervous system is trying to protect you from collapse. Over time, this leads to chronic pain, fatigue, tension, and a deep sense of unease in your own skin.

What I teach is not a quick fix. It is not about standing up straight or doing posture exercises. It is about unlearning the habits that keep you small and disconnected from your own physical intelligence. It's about regaining access to the uprightness you were born with. This is the posture work we all need more of.

You can check out my posts on Instagram to learn more about the way I think and teach. Click here to set up a complimentary New Posture Consultation call and learn how I can help you free up your posture into verticality, now and forever.

I Stretch Every Day. Why Am I Still Tense?

6/30/2025

If you’re still tense after taking yoga classes, you're not alone. The layers of everyday tension go deep, and feeling tense again soon after your class is not because you’re inflexible, or because you don’t “get” Yoga.

The real reason is that your body is doing something in the background that you’re not yet aware of.

And this is something to celebrate because it means that the problem is NOT your body. Rather it is the way your movement system is coordinating itself. And that can be changed! Your postural system relies on patterns of balance and movement that you have repeatedly practiced over years.

For example, if you tense your shoulders each time you reach for an object, you will also tense your shoulders each time you reach down to your yoga mat. Over time, your tense shoulders will affect your neck and spine, rib cage and pelvis, and mess with their balance. These are the kinds of “hidden” patterns that dictate your posture and ability to move.

The good news are that as soon as you learn how to redirect those hidden, unconscious patterns by making them conscious with the help of a highly trained embodied posture coach, things will start to shift without needing to stretch deeper, or you putting in more effort.

It’s about doing less: less effort, less “trying hard”, less going for an end and more enjoying the process, more awareness for the present moment experience of your body. It’s about creating less tension to begin with. It’s about understanding what set’s you up for tension, the origin of tension in your mind, your emotions, your muscles, your thinking.

Physical tension is not something that can be fixed with exercises because ultimately, it's a mental issue that needs the right kind of targeted self-awareness to prevent it from happening. And as soon as you become aware you have new choices that help your body to let go on its own.

When you learn to move with less effort, a whole new space opens up inside and around you, literally and figuratively. **That’s the root of true flexibility: not how much or how deep you can stretch but the choice to use less effort.

This is a process you can learn by joining my private 1x1 DISCOVER YOUR EFFORTLESS BODY program.** If you want to learn more click here.❤️

Avoid Neck Strain, Back Pain And Posture Troubles Through Good Head Balance

12/10/2024

What is good head balance?

Good head balance happens at your ‘top joint’ (a-o-joint), which is located at your spine high up between your ears. Moving your head from there keeps you out of most posture trouble.

But because a head follows it's owners attention, and much of it being constantly highjacked by the beeping and flashing of the devices in front of you, your head gets pushed forward and down into them.

Why is that trouble?

Because your neck and shoulder muscles are absolutely not designed to support such weight. Did you know that your head is as heavy as a bowling ball? Wow!

But here is the real issue.

Every time you push your head off your spine and down into your device, the force compounds and can feel like 35 pounds are pulling on your neck and shoulders!

12 pounds of trouble turned into 35! Ouch!

You can't sense it, but your nervous system does. And it interferes with your very fine-tuned postural system. It’s where most of our modern body discomfort, pain and excess tension originates.

It's a mental problem that has turned into a physical one.

So what can you do to free up your head on top of your spine?
Allow your nose to lead the way.

How to experiment with head balance and ease of movement based on location:
1. Sit erect on your chair.
2. Locate the lowest tip of your chin. Imagine a long paint brush being attached to your chin.
3. Paint a few figure eights with the brush in front of your face.
4. Notice how this feels to your shoulder, neck and head.
5. Now locate the tip of your nose. Imaging the brush being attached to your nose, and paint more figure eights.
6. Compare painting with your chin to painting with your nose.
7. Does it feel different? Does one take more effort to do?

You may feel it's easier to move your head if initiated at your nose. This is because the head-neck joint is located at the base of the nose in line with its tip)

Here are two extra tips:
Extra Tip #1
Put the paint brush back onto the nose and let the figure eight get smaller and smaller, until it becomes unnoticeable from the outside. Turn your head gently and look around. This is your head freely balancing on your spine.
Extra Tip #2 When looking at your device, take a few moments to sense where you're balancing your head. Where is your attention? Is your chin leading your head?

If so, allow your nose to lead the way.
I am offering complementary posture consultations click here if you want to learn more.

How Active Body Awareness in the Alexander Technique Transforms Your Life

How You Use Yourself Matters. But What Does This Mean For Your Life?

Why Posture Matters More Than You Think

I Stretch Every Day. Why Am I Still Tense?

Avoid Neck Strain, Back Pain And Posture Troubles Through Good Head Balance

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BerlinTel: +49 (0)160-3728007

​San francisco work with me virtually​FROM ANYWHERE!tel: 415-879-0038​

Testimonials​

Berlin
Tel: +49 (0)160-3728007

San francisco
work with me virtually
FROM ANYWHERE!
tel: 415-879-0038

Testimonials