Elephants and AT

When thinking about animals that move very gracefully, elephants seem not really like typical examples. Outside the circus elephants hardly ever lift more than one foot off the ground, and it looks rather funny when they run.

Do elephants have a place in the Alexander Technique, although they don't move very gracefully? O yes, because positive and negative imagery can influence our thinking. Some people carry thoughts as heavy as a full-grown elephant with them, and just like an elephant these thoughts will stand even taller when they feel threatened.

Depending on the amount and placement of these 'heavy thoughts' the elephants in our mental landscape doesn't stand out, and might even contribute to some sort of heavily loaded balance. As we tend to lean onto our 'heavy thoughts', we hardly notice the elephant in our back, while it might appear highly salient to anyone around us.

Our mental landscape can encompass the entire planet (and even much, much more), yet even in a city-sized mental landscape elephants are hard to find. Unless we feel threatened, engage in emotional warfare, question reality or social rules most of our elephants remain invisible.

Our mental elephants can only survive as long as we feed them. They might not move as graceful as a wild cat, but they move, allowing change. If one of our elephants has died, it still weighs us down, and limits our perspectives.

One way of getting rid of our dead elephant is by eating it. And here comes the Alexander Technique handy. How do you eat an elephant? Ask yourself, and dare a simple answer. Meanwhile I extend this silly picture a bit more. Of course, if our mental elephant in an unvisited part of our mind it might decay before we even learn of its temporary existence.

If we find the dead elephant in a decomposing state, I certainly wouldn't suggest eating it. You might even think it's impossible to do at all. In my humble opinion, the easiest way of eating an elephant is piece by piece. Please don't expect your Alexander teacher serving you elephant steaks (and please believe me that I never have or wanted to eat elephants outside of metaphors).

Learning a skill for life does usually not come easy or fast, I can't eat the elephant at once. And if I forget why I started eating the elephant, I can easily get distracted, bored or frustrated. While we certainly don't learn to move like an elephant, we should invest enough patience not to try to eat an elephant in one piece.