clear intentions, lightly held ᐧ playful, feral free agent ᐧ I teach Alexander Technique, which gets you out of your own way: https://t.co/e0qcOYJBfG
2 added to My Authors
Jan 13 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together" – Vincent Van Gogh
This is a thread of all of Vincent's paintings of sunflowers. 🌻
First series: The Paris Sunflowers
Sunflowers, study (F377), Oil on canvas, 21 x 27 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Sunflowers (F375), Oil on canvas, 43.2 x 61 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Jan 12 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I have a horrible feeling that learning a whole bunch of stuff about Personal Knowledge Management and getting nerdy about tools and workflows has made me rather less effective at managing my personal knowledge
and if not less effective then certainly more anxious
Jan 12 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I have a talking point that I want to bang on about more in different ways
that is "you can only respond to what you notice"
not being able to notice something (if it lies outside your awareness) renders you choiceless
expanding your capacity to notice things gives you agency
"expanded awareness" is experienced spatially, but extends just as effectively into conceptual spaces
if you can't notice the bus coming, you can't step out of the way
if you can't notice the belief you hold, you can't question it
Jan 11 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I'm sick (testing negative for COVID though) and it's funny that the absence of a positive COVID test kinda makes me feel like whatever it is that is making me feel crappy is somehow... illegitimate?
weird times, to need a positive test to feel like feeling sick is justified
"well I don't have COVID"
"yes but I clearly feel unwell"
"yes but there are no tests for that"
...
"but this is how things *have always been*"
Sep 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Literally just had a nightmare about ghosts and woke up with my heart racing at 5am, how’s everyone else doing? 😂
No Oura I’m pretty sure I had more REM than that, because you know, all the ghosts
Sep 13, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I've decided to stop doing launches for my course for reasons I'll explain in more detail soon.
This means that my Alexander Technique online course is now available for purchase any time if you are the kind of person who might want to buy it.
Turns out that doing every aspect of running a business on your own is quite a complex endeavour huh
as he swings wildly between thinking about new materials for the course, getting a Profit First system going again and hanging out in the community forum answering questions
May 6, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/ "the mere copying of quotes almost always changes their meaning by stripping them out of context, even though the words aren’t changed."
I'm going to riff on how profound this is below.
2/ An idea sits within a wider context.
A sentence within a paragraph, a paragraph within a page, a page within a chapter, a chapter within a book, a book within a body of work, a body of work within a life of knowledge, experiences, memories and beliefs.
They are inseparable.
May 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I increasingly see thoughts as being mapped onto my field of spatial awareness.
"The idea that I could eat a cookie" has a felt sense of being 'over there' in space.
I notice a collapse of awareness around the idea, which limits my ability to choose not to eat the cookie.
I also notice a subjective compression of space between "me as the observer" and "the idea that I could eat the cookie".
This compression indicates a habitual response.
I 'inhibit' this response by gently reasserting that space between, allowing that thought to be where it is.
May 3, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
For someone now living an entirely self-directed life my calendar is ludicrously full of 'stuff' that is getting in the way.
I need go to Walden Pond or something
Seriously I have like 3x more meetings this week than I would have in a normal week at my old consulting job
Jan 28, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Tomorrow is my last day of work before I start my own adventures.
I have many thoughts, feelings and reflections that I’ll share in time, but for now I want to talk about a reframe that really helped me take the leap: the idea that even failure is a success.
(Yes it’s a thread)
I’ve wanted to make a move like this for a long time, but I’ve always been worried about how I’d survive without a job.
Interestingly, the amount of money I have saved (about $40k) isn’t what gave me the confidence to quit.
No, that came from making $5k from my online course.
Jan 27, 2021 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
What is an egregore?
Wrong answers only.
Egregore is the bitter taste in Al's mouth when he realised the election was taken from him.
Egregore is a character from the Russian translation of Winnie the Pooh
1] I want to learn to communicate the benefits of Alexander Technique clearly.
So let's start with something concrete: Alexander Technique has massively improved my public speaking ability.
A thread 👇
(And here's my ultimate guide to public speaking: michaelashcroft.org/blog/my-ultima…)
2] First of all, let me say that I used to be someone who would do anything to avoid public speaking.
During a presentation at my first job I was so anxious I was visibly shaking. I had to put my notes down.
I kept my head down when asked to 'report back' during team meetings.