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Expanding Horizons

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Great poetry moves us. It calls us to a deeper place within ourselves and can enable us to dwell there for a time.   To dwell where we may attain new insight or allow whatever arises to be okay — be that ; pain, fear, disruption, joy or distress. For me, philosopher/poet David Whyte’s work invites such contemplation. He speaks eloquently of asking invitational questions. Questions which invite us to look deeper, to begin to see more clearly. To recognise that as humans we have a tendency to repeat the same questions, the same patterns. Patterns which can constrain or free. All the great wisdom traditions invite deep exploration, inviting us to open into new questions, to see beyond what we have experienced. To ask if what ‘we know’ is real? Does it continue to serve us? Whyte speaks of threshold places — those times when we are uncertain what to do, which way to turn, how to address what is troubling us. He suggests these are the times to open ourselves to invitational questions, whi
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Learn Your Way out of Pain - A new direction

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Steve came to see me about chronic headaches which were impacting many areas of his life. After a few months of learning how his movement and postural patterns were contributing to his pain Steve overcame his headaches and is now confident doing activities that he had come to fear: “I went to see Anne for my chronic headaches, which I suspected were caused by bad posture and had been occurring for at least four years. No other modalities had been able to improve my condition, including Pilates, physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, remedial massage, and many others.  My headaches were so easily triggered that simple acts such as bending over the basin or emptying the dishwasher would cause one to arise.  The way Anne teaches you to improve your posture and way of moving is so logical and easy to understand. Anne starts with the very basics and builds upon this as you improve.  I started to see results after my first couple of sessions and can honestly say now that I don ’ t get head
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Finding a Way Forward

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Recently while sitting outside a cafe, I watched an elderly lady walk to her car. She had a walking stick and when she needed to step down from the kerb, she used one hand to hold tightly to a signpost and the other the stick. Very slowly she negotiated her way from the footpath to the road. A challenging and fraught journey, one which many of us may take for granted.   However, we don’t need to be elderly to hold ourselves tightly. We see it all around us each day. Young and old, walking and moving in ways that do not flow freely, that are constrained and constricted. This may be for many reasons — injury, illness, trauma, pain, fear and loss.   For a number of years when I lived with chronic pain I lived like this. I learnt to distrust my body and myself. I held myself tightly, constantly fearing pain that seemed to grow and move around my body as time went on. I was like a tightly coiled spring unable, for a long time, to trust that it could be possible for things to get better. My
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Unwinding Chronic Pain - a broader view

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"We need to  engage  with this massive problem in a new way, give people the resources to  recover  and find the best methods to  prevent  persisting pain" Professor Lorimer Moseley, University of South Australia One in five people in Australia live with chronic pain, which can be debilitating and for many disempowering. Of these Pain Australia says Referrals to pain specialists occur in less than 15% of GP consultations where pain is managed, medications are used in close to 70% of GP consultations. One in 100 will receive multidisciplinary care. Pain Australia also reports that best practice does not support long-term use of medication for chronic pain management. So where does that leave many long-term sufferers? What of those who have already had surgery and/or use medication and continue to experience long-term pain? Or indeed, those like myself, who are told after many months of increasing pain, that there was no longer any tissue damage or evidence of s
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Unwinding Pain - One Step at a Time

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Lao Tzu said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It is often only with hindsight that we can see how many steps we have taken to achieve a new way of being. Wellbeing can come quietly each time we make a new decision; each time we become aware of and curious about our thoughts, sensations, pain patterns and emotions. Over time we may come to see that who we are is not who we were or thought ourselves to be. Life can become richer. A while ago, I had a wonderful opportunity to reflect on my own journey to a richer and fuller life. On a very wet Melbourne morning I set out on a walk from Belgrave in Melbourne’s east to my home, some twelve kilometres away. I enjoyed the beauty of the bush in the rain and seeing parts of the local area I had not seen before.   Ten years ago, this would not have been possible. Due to chronic pain, intense anxiety, and depression I believed I would never do that. At that time to walk for ten minutes was a feat. I remember sitting  
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Unwinding Pain - Memory & Movement

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At Alexander Technique workshops it is common that participants living with chronic pain speak about messages they have received from relatives or teachers. These messages have become part of who they are, and continue to exert an ever-present influence on how they hold and experience themselves. They speak of old messages, about sitting up ‘straight’,   pulling back shoulders, and to stop slouching.   As parents and adults we often wish the best for our children and for those for whom we are responsible. While these messages are well-intentioned they can have long-lasting and sometimes, negative consequences. I myself remember being told as a young child, “You can’t sing”; I believed it and it deterred me from singing for a long time. (In recent years I have joined a choir.) As my colleagues and I gently work with these participants, helping them to experience themselves in more balanced and easier ways, releasing excess effort, faces soften and pain decreases. Many exp
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Unwinding Patterns - A Job for Life

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Many years ago I worked with a wonderful man who inspired me and many others. At his retirement he said something which at the time puzzled me. He went through his working history and as the story unfolded, he kept saying that each job was “the best job he had ever had”. I kept waiting for him to talk about the job which presented him with problems and disappointment. This never came, for each job he was deeply grateful and found many things to be grateful for. It is only in recent years that I have come to understand how this can be so. It was an alien concept in my experience to that point and for a while to come. It was not that I did not have great experiences and work with lovely people but rather that I had learnt at a young age to focus on the difficulties, the problems, the people who “made life difficult or intimidating”. I have come to see that it is the way that we understand ‘our world’ that creates harmony or disharmony with life around us; that it is our habi
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