The Infinite Errand
Toward the end of my grandmother’s life, you could not visit her unless you were prepared to overeat or spend the entire time fending her off. Friedrich Nietzsche must have endured a long afternoon of being serially offered coffee and nutrolls by my grandmother when he wrote, “Is not giving a need? Is not receiving a mercy?”
What Does Allowing Really Mean?
The following is an audio recording from my Monday night Zoom class, free to all, "Focus & Relax." This week's theme is exploring what is meant when we talk about allowing pain or difficult feelings. I guide participants through a body centering practice at the beginning, and then through a progression of meditation practices that show us what it feels like when we aren't constantly hassling ourselves to be better. We can contact the calm and friendliness that's inside us all.
Home Ergonomics: A DIY Guide
How awkward is your work (at home) setup?
Many of us have had to suddenly create workstations right in the middle of our homes, conscripting kitchen counters, coffee tables and the like as our full-time office. I’m an Alexander Technique teacher (which means I work with posture and alignment) and I put together a short guide to making your DIY workspace more ergonomic and less of a musculoskeletal disaster. Most of these changes can be done easily and without purchasing anything, but will help you avoid extra tension, aches, or injury. An artist I am not, but attached is a one-page visual guide. I’m also offering short remote assessments for your individual workstation.
Video Alexander And Meditation Teaching
Well, it looks like we are going to be in our homes for a while and if, like me, you’d like to occasionally operate with less fretting/tensing, I have some options. I want to keep the Alexander Technique flowing and bring this profound practice right up against the stress and uncertainty of the situation. There’s nothing wrong with breathing and opening our posture, lengthening the spine to our full stature and not collapsing right down into one’s newsfeed.
How Does It Feel to Not Know?
Like everyone I know, I’ve tried and failed to stop thinking, talking, and now writing about the coronavirus. This week has been like watching an expensive piece of fabric methodically ripped, a piece of fabric we’ve been sitting on for a long while.
Spend Less, Appreciate More: A Few of My Favourite Things
The other day I dragged my two-year-old daughter on a lengthy series of errands. She protested in the beginning — “Playground! Playground!” — but once the first storeowner slipped her a black cherry lollipop, she warmed to the idea of making the rounds. “Another store?” she’d ask conspiratorially as we walked back to the car.
Are You Doing Your Art?
I never planned on being an Alexander Technique teacher (neither did FM Alexander; he started out as an actor). I was going to be a writer, which was where I had aptitude, where there was flow and promise, facility and praise. But at a certain point in my health crisis, the pain relief and tremendous healing I found from the Alexander Technique seemed more real, and certainly more important, than my previously held career plan.
Group Workshops at My Westchester Studio (Less Than an Hour from Grand Central)
Atop a hill on my property is a large two floor studio (shown above) Up until now, my kids have been smooshing play dough and pretending to be dogs in there. Starting this spring, however, I’m kicking them out! (Okay, just relocating them.) I will start hosting half-day retreats, workshops, and all-around meditation hoedowns in the studio. I’d love for you to come.
Machines That Grind Wonder
We have this recurring nightmare in my house where my wife and I are sitting in the kitchen after putting the kids to bed. After 20 minutes of silence upstairs, just as our withered and awkward adult personalities are again beginning to emerge, we hear a crackle from the baby video monitor which means someone is physically handling the microphone in my daughter’s room. We sink into our stools and resign ourselves to the punishment ahead. My 2 ½-year-old has rocked her wheeled crib across the room and is now cupping the baby monitor in her hands like an evil sorceress. Her nose and mouth fill the small video screen in the kitchen as she asks, brightly, “Can I wake up now?”
A New Year’s Practice: Get Pulled in the Wake of Great People
Typically, the new year is when we try to cut ties with our piteous ways and get on the path of higher living. But where are we supposed to find the motivation to last through January? The self-improvement industry depends upon most resolutions petering out year after year.
“In Your Light: Miraculous Courage”—A Hanukkah Guest Post
In this special Hanukkah edition, I’m delighted to share this short piece from my friend and colleague, Emily Herzlin, founder of Mindful Astoria. Emily is a writer and mindfulness teacher at Weill-Cornell Medicine, and is writing a book on the connections between Jewish traditions and mindfulness. Enjoy. —Dan Cayer
Originally published on Kveller.
Why I Lie
Lying has long presented an attractive option for diverting attention from uncomfortable details of my life. When I was in elementary school, soon after my parents’ divorce, I told my class that I went to Bill Clinton’s inauguration (which I did) and shook his hand as he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue (which I didn’t).
A Poor Epitaph: He Tried to Free His Neck
There’s this very important point in the healing process that’s difficult to detect: it’s when the quest to get better becomes a test of one’s self-worth. “Am I the kind of person who can heal themselves, overcome this challenge, or is it true, as I have quietly believed, that I don’t have what it takes?”
How to get out of a cellar
In recent weeks, I’ve reluctantly become acquainted with my 200-year-old cellar. When it rains all day, the concrete floor becomes damp like a thin layer of perspiration on my forehead. Though empty, the cellar is not uninhabited. Small creatures with large, receptive eyes move around in the thick darkness and drink up the moisture.
Leaving Brooklyn
About two months ago, my family and I drove our car out of Brooklyn, trailed by a 26 foot moving truck which was packed to the gills with our belongings. We’re out! Finito! Brooklyn no more (except for visiting friends, my wife’s haircuts, a concert next month…).
Vinnie & The Goose - A Westchester Fairytale
Within days of moving up here, I found myself chasing a goose across a Metro-North parking lot at 11 p.m. Had I lost it already?
Microdosing (for underachievers)
Originally published in Human Shift Magazine, a bi-annual book where culture, sport and spirituality meet.
You might take acid and go to work. In fact, you might take acid specifically because you are going to work.
In Silicon Valley, because coffee only goes so far, the search for greater focus and productivity has led to a reboot of psychedelics: microdosing. To microdose is to take a small enough quantity of a drug to elicit no adverse side effects (i.e., no hugging of office plants), yet high enough to experience subtle physiological benefits. A typical microdoser takes about one-tenth of a full psychedelic dose. This is not the presentation of psychedelics as in the 1960s; no one is climbing aboard painted school buses at LinkedIn HQ. Timothy Leary’s famous call to “Turn on, tune in, drop out” has been adapted to fit within the constraints of family and even corporate life. Hell, you might make a lot more money on drugs. Tim Ferriss, the Silicon Valley investor and author of The 4-Hour Workweek, has said, “The billionaires I know, almost without exception, use hallucinogenics on a regular basis.”
Three Ways to Make Your Work Set-up Healthier
Consider your office set-up and work habits like investing. Each day that you work has an effect on your body and, like our financial situation, ignoring the body doesn’t make it any less real! You can make a few changes that will be a long-term investment in your health (and therefore your ability to be productive and earn that $).