Hello everyone. So often when I do these blogs, it’s because a student asks a question, and that question sort of reorients me. It makes me think, it makes me explain in a manner that I have to better understand what it is that I’ve been saying for years sometimes. And today was clear.
The student was asking while in between one decision and another – one decision was to take care of themselves, and the other was to acquiesce to a demand, to a question, to a request. On one side, they felt selfish if they didn’t agree to do this thing, while they knew full well that they didn’t have the energy, endurance, health, or what it took to take care of themselves. They were caught in between taking care of themselves or doing this thing. And then it came out naturally for me to say something, “You can’t give what you don’t have.”
And then I thought about my life and how many times have I been asked to give what I don’t have? How much credit do you need to accumulate? How many promises do you need to make? Yet, we can’t give what we don’t have. I can’t teach what I don’t practice. I can’t offer advice if I don’t live my life. You can’t give what you don’t have. And yet, in this current way that we’re seeing ourselves in the western world, it’s not uncommon to privilege feeling unselfish over just needing to accumulate what it is that we want to give.
This is how you end up, sort of overextended. And when I say you, I mean me. This is how I end up overextended. I give things that I don’t have. I want to give everything I’ve got. And yet, in order to give something, I need to have it. This is the reason to practice anything. This is the reason to practice meditation.
This is the reason to practice the Alexander technique, in particular. As it allows you to reorganize yourself in a manner that then you can take care of yourself, and then you can help others. Any practice that does not allow you to recenter yourself, to bring these energies back in, in my opinion, it’s just asking you to go in debt.
And I see this in my work. I see this everywhere around me. So I encourage you to think about that. Whenever you feel selfish, whenever you feel like you couldn’t possibly take care of yourself in this situation, just realize you can’t give what you don’t have.
That includes love. That includes understanding, and support. So for this Christmas, or anytime, maybe you consider giving yourself the gift of stability and the gift of stopping and observing your habits and deciding what is it I want to give and do I have it?
Thank you. Good luck.
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