Post surgical recalibration
Recovery from major surgery challenges the entire continuum of self. After-effects of general anesthesia, restrictions in activity due to incision protection or other considerations, and shifting signals from all interior systems are just a few of required post surgical adjustments.
Any change in the integrated instrument of self necessitates overall recalibration. We are mobiles of interconnected systems, in ongoing balance as the winds of life shift.
As teachers and students of the Alexander Technique, we have choices and tools, no matter our condition of self.
Allow Time
Healing requires time, and is unlikely to proceed in a linear or predictable manner. The continuum of emotion-thinking-sensation-movement (which may be sequenced differently, depending on stimuli) has been shifted in axis by surgery prep, anesthesia, surgery, hospitalization and drugs. All systems have to recover at their ideal rhythms, in relationship to each other.
“Allowing time” as an attitude gives a general signal that the integrated self can be trusted. Much as in a hands-on Alexander lesson, we allow the time to have a new experience. We allow the time for a new means of proceeding.
Happy Curiosity
Surgery is traumatic. The essence of identity is shaken, tossed, thrown into turmoil. Allowing time is essential so that a happy curiosity can resume.
We can start small: “if I can’t do this familiar activity in a familiar way, how do I allow an unrecognizable way?”. Then proceed to bigger questions: “what am I learning in this upheaval?”. We can build confidence in our dynamic non interference, in allowing new and surprising solutions. We can allow unfamiliar experience as a means of learning.
Welcome Demands
Demands provide opportunities to learn new responses. We can ask, as demands increase:
Where is the ground? (Ah, there it is, meeting me where I am)
Where is my attention? Can I allow it to broaden beyond previous experience?
How much less can I fix, do, interfere, make everything like it was?
Continue the Adventure