E6 S3 | Reconnecting Mind and Body Through the Alexander Technique with Casey Butterfield

In today’s episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I sit down with Casey Butterfield, a practitioner of the Alexander Technique and somatic movement educator who helps people recognize and release tension in their body. Together, we discuss the importance of body awareness, the impact of chronic pain, and how the Alexander Technique can help individuals use their body in the most functional, optimal way. Casey shares her personal journey through pain, which ultimately led her to discover the Alexander Technique.

Conversation Highlights:

Understanding the Alexander Technique: Casey explains how this practice helps individuals use their bodies efficiently and without pain.

Chronic Pain's Impact: We discuss how chronic pain can affect overall quality of life, work, and daily activities.

The Role of Body Awareness: Understanding how to move effectively begins with heightened body awareness.

The Importance of Touch: We explore how touch can create deeper connections to body awareness and healing.

Lessons from Infants: Infants learn to move through trial and error, informing how adults can reconnect with their movement.

Posture and Movement: We delve into the connection between posture and movement, and how practice can improve both.

The Head-Body Connection: The head plays a critical role in movement, and restoring this connection enhances body function.

Somatic Practices: These practices can help restore healthier movement patterns that many lose due to sedentary lifestyles.

Knowledge Equals Empowerment: Understanding body mechanics can lead to pain relief and improved well-being.

Quotes:

“We can move with more ease and freedom just by knowing a different way about how our body works.” - Casey Butterfield

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Transcript

Leslie Field (00:01.097)

Hello and welcome to the Sick and Seeking Podcast. I'm so excited to have with me Casey Butterfield of Sense and Strength. She helps people recognize and release tension in their bodies. Welcome, Casey.

Casey At Sense & Strength (00:14.598)

Thanks, Leslie. I'm so excited to be here and chat with you today.

Leslie Field (00:18.58)

I am too. So Casey and I met fairly recently and as soon as I heard the work that she does, I'm like, my gosh, a fellow somatic lady. my God, my God, my God. I have to have you on my podcast. I want to know more about your work. And I should also say before we even get started, Casey, when we met and we were chatting and we figured that we were real somatic women about the bodies and movement, and then she touched my arm. I know it just sounds very strange, but this woman,

touched my arm. All I can say is, wow, wow, just from that touch. And so Casey, tell us more about who you are, your work, and I know you have different certifications. I'd love for you to share them and let's just dive in.

Casey At Sense & Strength (01:04.291)

sure, gosh, I just want to talk about touching your arm because that was such an amazing moment that we had together.

Leslie Field (01:08.177)

We did!

Casey At Sense & Strength (01:13.626)

because you are just so open to this work and it's really beautiful and I keep inviting you to events that I'm having and you keep not being able to make it and I'm just dying to give you some more of what we got at that meeting where I put my hands on you when we first met. It was so cool. So yeah, am, my primary certification is in the Alexander Technique. So,

I teach the Alexander Technique, which is an open secret among actors and musicians. Basically, people who use their bodies for a living and need their bodies to function really well, but who aren't necessarily trained in how to do that, in how to use your body without pain, in how to use your body if you're playing somebody with a limp in a Broadway show and you're limping every night.

Leslie Field (01:59.57)

you

Casey At Sense & Strength (02:10.396)

How do you do that in a way that keeps your body healthy, right? So you can just come right out of it at the end of a performance. So that's what the Alexander technique has traditionally been used for. People who need to use their bodies day after day for their livelihood, but who are really head people. They're not dancers, they're not athletes. They don't have this intuition about how

Leslie Field (02:30.663)

huh.

Casey At Sense & Strength (02:38.034)

to use their body in the most functional, optimal way. And I was absolutely that person. I used my body for a living. I was a translator and I typed things, right? People would send me texts. This was, you know, this was in the aughts. So early aughts. I'm not young. I'm not old, but I'm not young. Where I think we're kind of in the same.

Leslie Field (02:43.024)

Leslie Field (02:59.376)

you

Casey At Sense & Strength (03:07.538)

in same place age-wise. We haven't talked about it, but you know, we're, we have the same references, I think. So, so here I am. I'm 24 years old. I'm banging out translations in a fifth floor walk-up in Barcelona in a wooden folding chair. And I specialize in rushed translations because I'm 24, because why not? Right? So,

Leslie Field (03:08.697)

Yes.

Leslie Field (03:13.773)

Yes. Yes.

Leslie Field (03:31.437)

Mmm.

Leslie Field (03:35.555)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (03:36.722)

So people are sending me these things. I'm banging out these translations and just typing, typing, typing all day long, all night long, because I'm poor, right? 24, living in Spain. And my wrists start to hurt. And they start to hurt more. And they start to hurt so much that I can't chop vegetables. I can't...

Leslie Field (03:47.785)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (04:03.492)

I can't have my boyfriend hold my hand. It's unbearable. It is chronic pain and it stays with me. And it gets to the point where I say, well, I guess I can't do my dream job because being a freelance translator, everybody has a dream. This was mine, pretty small scale. I had almost achieved it. And then my body said no. And I stopped doing translations. I went back to school. The pain followed me everywhere I went in this

Leslie Field (04:25.857)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (04:32.792)

three-year long odyssey, which I'm sure that your listeners can relate to, of having this problem with my body that kept me from being able to do what I wanted to do and seeking out every possible solution only to find that that wasn't it. Right? I went to, I saw a chiropractor, I saw an acupuncturist, I went to physical therapy.

Leslie Field (04:52.492)

Casey At Sense & Strength (04:58.478)

on two different continents, because I started out in Spain and then the pain followed me to San Francisco and I saw a physical therapist there. I talked to a hand surgeon in San Francisco and he said, this is just tendonitis and tenosynovitis. You're fine. Just get some PT. And it was like, I've been suffering with this for years now. So fast forward, I go to graduate school. It's a nine month program. And once again, the midterm exams are

Leslie Field (05:04.171)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (05:17.034)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (05:27.366)

banging out stuff on a keyboard. And I go to the disabled student's office, I got a special mouse to use, a special keyboard, and it just about killed me to be doing these typed out papers. It was like six papers in 48 hours or something crazy like that. It was the UK. They're pretty hard on their students. Yeah. So much. my gosh.

Leslie Field (05:29.291)

Wow.

Leslie Field (05:36.94)

No.

Leslie Field (05:46.64)

yes. Yeah. They like to do a lot of writing. There's no multiple choice there. You are gonna, you are gonna write. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (05:54.466)

So many essays and it was just like my chronic pain nightmare, right? And then I finished there and I moved to Germany for reasons we can discuss or not. know, it's just my, the story of my youth lived in Europe. And I saw a flyer for the Alexander Technique and I still had this pain. I was working in an office now, trying to use the computer as little as possible. And I thought, well,

Leslie Field (05:58.174)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (06:07.964)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (06:19.954)

I've heard something about this. you know, I'd heard the term before and I thought I've tried everything else. I'll try this. So I went and it was, and it was 30 euros an hour because it was a student teacher of the Alexander technique. Like it wasn't even a fully qualified person. What did I have to lose? Right. It was, it was affordable. And every like third session or something was with her teacher.

Leslie Field (06:25.876)

Yeah. Yeah.

Leslie Field (06:37.694)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (06:45.104)

because I think I said it's a three year training program to become an Alexander Technique teacher, which is the same amount of years that a physical therapist trains to do what they do. So I go to this person and within 20 lessons with her and her teacher, I quit my office job in Berlin and I went back to freelance translation and I never looked back. Yeah, mean, Alexander Technique was what let me pursue my dream job.

Leslie Field (06:54.907)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (07:02.889)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (07:08.509)

Wow.

Leslie Field (07:14.822)

Casey At Sense & Strength (07:14.884)

And that is true of a lot of people who find this, especially musicians, because you you've got bassists with back pain or violinists whose, you know, their necks cramp up when they're trying to play. And I didn't do any of those things.

Leslie Field (07:27.59)

Yeah. I always think about that. Yeah, I always think about that. People who professionally have to be in a position. And I look at the violinist, I'm so glad you said that. And I was like, how do they live their life when their job and most of the day they're practicing, whether they're performing, whatever, they're in this one position. So thank you for illuminating that moment. Because I was like, how do you not have that impact you the rest of your life when you're not doing it?

Casey At Sense & Strength (07:56.176)

Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing that they can do that? And it's because most of them have trained, if not in the Alexander Technique, which is offered at Juilliard and CalArts and music and theater conservatories all over the world, they have an Alexander Technique teacher on faculty to teach.

Leslie Field (07:57.448)

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Leslie Field (08:15.088)

Wow.

Casey At Sense & Strength (08:18.02)

it's because they learn how to do this. I'm so glad that you brought that up because really the best way to explain what I do is that I teach people how to use their bodies the way they were meant to be used, how to enjoy our muscles and our skeletons and all of these parts of ourselves that we kind of...

Leslie Field (08:36.615)

you

Casey At Sense & Strength (08:44.406)

know, if you're a head person like I am, I speak four languages, you know, I said my first love was translation. So, right. And it is, you know, I love, I do a lot of stuff with my mouth, right. You can tell I talk a lot. I sing jazz. I love languages, all that stuff.

Leslie Field (08:49.446)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (09:00.39)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (09:06.274)

and I totally lost my train of thought. I'm like going someplace with this. yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no no no no I know. So like I'm a mouth person. I don't understand my body. I didn't understand my body until I until I learned all of these things with the Alexander technique and and the crux of what I do is I help people to use our bodies the way that

Leslie Field (09:10.992)

No, it's all right. It happens.

Leslie Field (09:16.493)

Okay.

Leslie Field (09:21.188)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (09:35.652)

we do when we're very, young. And we've learned by example and we've learned through trial and error what works for our body. And then we go to school and we forget it all.

Leslie Field (09:37.658)

Hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (09:48.198)

you know, when we sit in an office for half our life and our bodies go, I'm just going to be sitting all the time. So I can, I can adapt to that. I'm going to change many parts of myself because I know I'm not going to be moving around a lot. I'm going to be sitting. And then when I do move around a lot, it's just going to be for these sports, short spurts, you know, like 45 minutes in the gym or whatever. we're not, a lot of us are just not prepared by our culture.

Leslie Field (10:15.107)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (10:15.822)

to use our bodies in a way that works for us. Nobody tells us how to do that because we're supposed to know, right? We figure that out when we're little and then nobody helps us keep going with it.

Leslie Field (10:18.787)

you

Leslie Field (10:27.854)

So I think that's so interesting. And like Casey said, I've been trying to come to one of our classes and I will, it will happen. By the time this episode comes out and we look back, I'll have been to so many. But this is something very interesting that's been going on in my body recently. And boy, do I have a lot going on in my body. But one of the things I don't always share on the podcast is that I swear to you, Casey, I'm not sure I know how to walk anymore.

Casey At Sense & Strength (10:34.834)

I

Casey At Sense & Strength (10:54.21)

my God, I can so relate to that, Leslie. I can so relate to that. And I have so many clients with the same, absolutely, completely. But tell me, tell me what that looks like for you or tell me what that sounds like for you since we're on a podcast.

Leslie Field (10:57.997)

Do you understand that?

Yes. Okay. Yes. my gosh. my gosh. Looks and sounds. You know, I'm not joking about every day. There's one moment in the day where I go, I just don't know like what is going on with my walking patterns. And I know some things help it. Like for instance, if I'm stretching, you know, I'm more relaxed or...

Casey At Sense & Strength (11:27.536)

right. Sure.

Leslie Field (11:28.309)

You know, I know some things or like I notice after Pilates, my body seems a little bit more balanced, but then slowly everything starts to go back into the old patterns again. And I'm like, goodness, what do I do? Can someone please help me? Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (11:44.034)

I just, I just can't wait to work with you. I can't, I can't wait to give you this gift that the Alexander technique has given to me that I just love sharing with people. I mean, I love sharing it so much that, that now that I, I certified as a teacher a few years ago, I'm, really doing that more than translation because it's much more fun to just

Leslie Field (11:46.753)

you

Leslie Field (12:05.867)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (12:07.034)

to just share that experience with a person where you go, I don't know how to walk. And that's good because it means I can choose how I want to walk now. I can choose how I want to walk in the future. Yeah.

Leslie Field (12:23.402)

So that's bringing back the ownership over it. So when we met briefly at the wellness fair, and that's what I was watching. For instance, we're just taking walking right now, but like, I know we have many joints in many parts of the body, but we're just talking about walking for a moment. I was watching you walk with people, or you were watching them walk and you were walking with them. Tell me about like, what was happening there? Yeah, I did.

Casey At Sense & Strength (12:26.758)

Very much so.

Casey At Sense & Strength (12:36.218)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (12:43.748)

Yes. my gosh. I love that you saw that. I love that you saw that. This is this new thing I'm trying that I absolutely love that I just suddenly realized I could do like, like a lot of things with the Alexander Technique. Like I, I, I've been singing for a very long time. And then, and then one day in 2009, I was singing with my band and I, I, resumed my Alexander Technique sessions and I just suddenly had this other voice.

this amazing, powerful, muscular, gospel voice. It was incredible. And I was like singing Aretha Franklin songs. And I'd been like a very heady mezzo-soprano. And when I say heady, I mean like I had a head voice. So just like that, when I was at this wellness fair, I just had this, I thought, what am I going to do tabling at a wellness fair? I've never done this before.

Leslie Field (13:11.643)

when

Casey At Sense & Strength (13:39.182)

What can I give people while I'm here to give them a little taste of what they can get if they work with me and if they get more exposure to this, which, you know, I gave you the little touch on your arm. I was giving people five minute posture tuneups and people loved it. And it was so cool because I realized, wow, how much of this can I give somebody in just five minutes? And it's actually an amazing amount.

Leslie Field (14:07.229)

Well.

Casey At Sense & Strength (14:07.888)

And that's also where my other title comes in. I'm also a registered somatic movement educator, which basically means I can show you how to walk. I can help you have an experience of walking that will just blow your mind open and help you see how many different ways there are to be in your body that aren't

Leslie Field (14:15.772)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (14:20.284)

Leslie Field (14:29.372)

Mmm, okay, yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (14:38.106)

dance or kind of or going to the gym or something special, right? Just how you are in your body all the time should feel like that feeling you get when you dance. And that's what I was doing for people. I have a there are a few

Leslie Field (14:42.801)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (14:55.836)

fundamental movements and positions that we can do in five minutes that will give you a different sense of your body, a more expansive sense.

Leslie Field (15:08.252)

Mmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (15:08.44)

of what you can do, how you can move. And the moving that I always use is walking because it's such a fundamental human movement. so once we, once we get that posture sorted out in that first five minutes, the last step is just to take a walk with that. Take a walk with that.

Leslie Field (15:27.803)

yes, okay, so the few times Casey has touched my arm, I know that you've touched my head, neck, and shoulders a few times, and again, we're talking like 30 seconds to a minute, people. Like this is me, like, you're right. Full session, I'm gonna probably need to lay down like in a good way afterwards, because my body's gonna be like, whoa, I probably am gonna be a puddle. Yeah, I actually look forward to that moment, but I think.

Casey At Sense & Strength (15:40.154)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (15:46.02)

You're going to be a puddle. You're going to be a puddle on the floor. Yeah.

Leslie Field (15:54.101)

So what is it about that positioning? And I know we talked about this, you were sharing that one of the, there's so many fundamentals and tenants of the Alexander technique, but I know there's something to do with the head area or the bottom of the spine or the, what is it? Tell me what it is.

Casey At Sense & Strength (16:08.58)

what a wonderful question. And again, I can just speak on these things forever. So feel free to cut me off because I'm so passionate about this and I'm so passionate about giving people a more expansive experience of their own body and giving people that freedom back to move that we have when we're children. And the first movement that we learn when we're children, when we're infants, right? It's the first thing we learn how to do for ourselves.

that we can control as opposed to all of those reflexive involuntary movements that you see a newborn baby doing. And any parents who are listening to this podcast, we've all done tummy time, right? They tell us how important that is. And I tend to talk in kind of a spiral getting to the middle of things, and this is definitely that. When you ask someone why we do tummy time, when you ask your pediatrician,

Leslie Field (16:45.88)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (17:07.866)

why we do tummy time. They will not give you the full answer because they will tell you what they've learned. And what they've learned is kind of the muscle focused version. We give our babies tummy time because we want them to be able to lift their heads up off the floor for themselves. This is the first movement that we learn how to do is lifting your head up off the floor. But what

Leslie Field (17:31.745)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (17:37.362)

The big myth about lifting your head off the floor. Why does a baby need to be able to lift their head off the floor? they need to strengthen their neck muscles, right? So they can get their head up off the floor. But the thing is, if you feel you're like, go ahead and touch your neck right now. Does it feel strong or does it feel more like soft and vulnerable? Unless you're, you know, we're not Arnold Schwarzenegger here. So just, yeah. Yes, it is soft and vulnerable.

Leslie Field (17:45.759)

Okay.

Leslie Field (17:54.454)

Bye.

Leslie Field (18:00.99)

Yeah, it's pretty soft and vulnerable, I'd say.

Casey At Sense & Strength (18:06.22)

Imagine if you use that soft and vulnerable thing to pick up the human head, which on a baby, right, is even bigger proportionate to their body weight than ours is, right? It's like a third of their body. A baby's neck would look like a truck tire if they were lifting their head with just their neck.

Leslie Field (18:14.068)

Yeah. Yes.

Yes.

Leslie Field (18:26.101)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (18:29.597)

Mmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (18:31.556)

It's another example of how we can move with more ease and freedom just by knowing a different way about how our body works. so infants, so small newborn babies are figuring this out when you give them tummy time. Cause first they try to lift it with their necks and they don't have any neck muscle to do that. So trial and error. They try again.

Leslie Field (18:53.768)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (18:59.826)

and they move their eyes. Here, let me get into profile here. I don't even know. I don't have my camera on, so I don't know how my posture looks or whatever, if you can see it, but they move their eyes up. They look up and their head moves with their eyes. Now, as I do that, am I moving from my neck or am I moving from somewhere else? Can you see that? Can you see that how it's somewhere else? So this is

Leslie Field (19:23.86)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (19:29.616)

the big thing that sets the Alexander Technique apart from every other modality out there, which is that we are totally obsessed with the top of the spine.

Leslie Field (19:38.299)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (19:43.187)

Hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (19:43.674)

And the top of our spine, it's not right here, right? That's your neck. That's the middle of your cervical spine. It's over here. It's like right here. And this is one of the first things that I do in my posture classes. And when I put my hands on your neck, on your, excuse me, on your head, I was giving you a little piece of what that newborn baby is realizing.

Leslie Field (19:57.937)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (20:09.491)

you

Casey At Sense & Strength (20:09.742)

that if they go from the very top of the spine, they can use their whole body to lift up the neck. And it starts at that very top and it's super easy. And it takes away all that neck tension and it lets us lengthen the whole body. If you look at a cat or a dog or a cow, they all lead with their heads, just like we do when we're crawling.

Leslie Field (20:22.715)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (20:26.746)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (20:33.392)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (20:37.061)

Yeah

Casey At Sense & Strength (20:39.458)

And so big part of what I do is teaching people how our movement can be easier if we lead with the head. Eyes lead the head, head leads the body. I say that all the time because that's how we learn to move when we're younger. And that's what I'm helping people to restore in themselves because there's a part of you that remembers that and that knows that. And just with that little 30 seconds of

Leslie Field (20:47.345)

Mmm.

Leslie Field (21:08.888)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (21:09.298)

putting my hands on your head in that special place and helping you see how the head moves on that joint. And you, it, it, it, well, how did it feel for you? What was that like to experience that?

Leslie Field (21:19.235)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (21:27.639)

You know, I think you've done it a couple times. Like we're like, we're saying goodbye to each other and you're like, wait, wait, wait. And you're like, you're like, you're like, and where Casey's touching is like kind of, I'm just gonna, this is what I can see, kind of right behind the earlobes kind of area is where you were sort of pointing. Is that right? Right in there?

Casey At Sense & Strength (21:30.768)

Mm-hmm.

Hahaha!

Casey At Sense & Strength (21:42.212)

Yes. Yeah, there's this vulnerable area if you touch with your fingers right behind your earlobes. And it's vulnerable because it needs to sense your environment in so many different ways. So it's really open. It's hidden behind your earlobes, but it's open. And if you put your fingers there, you will notice how vulnerable it feels.

Leslie Field (21:49.242)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (22:07.316)

Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (22:08.206)

and how it's not that fun to put your fingers there. It's because right in that cross section, like if you made your hands into a line, if you made your fingers into a horizontal axis, that's where all the magic and power is happening in your body.

Leslie Field (22:19.694)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (22:26.91)

Hmm, I see. Well, because again, this was 30 seconds. This isn't doing an actual like, you know, whole experience with Casey. I think one time it was like, it felt really like, like very soothing and super just like, my gosh. And I like that. What is that? I want more of that. So that was one time. The other time, I think I was probably, what it felt like was I was so off kilter.

Casey At Sense & Strength (22:35.577)

Yeah. Yeah.

Leslie Field (22:55.701)

and were just trying to bring it back and it felt like, my gosh, that's where it's supposed to be. That's how it felt like the second time. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (22:56.466)

Mmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (23:01.668)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, both of those reactions are, you're not alone. In my very first Alexander Technique session, which I had with this student teacher's teacher, in my very first Alexander Technique session, I walked out of there feeling like I had more room in my head to be happy.

Leslie Field (23:19.127)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (23:29.296)

I didn't know how to explain it any other way. It was like more room physically and more room emotionally and like, like there was this room in my body, in my house of myself that I'd never been to before and it had been there this whole time.

Leslie Field (23:32.275)

Wow.

Leslie Field (23:42.496)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (23:46.547)

Yes, I love how you just said the house of my body. I totally relate to that. Okay, but this is the moment that I'm having a connection problem here. How are we getting from the top of spine down to someone like you with the wrists and the pain and the chronic pain in the wrist? Like tell me, how do we go from there down there?

Casey At Sense & Strength (23:50.617)

You

Casey At Sense & Strength (23:58.108)

Okay.

Casey At Sense & Strength (24:11.902)

thank you for bringing me back to that because I'm sure that I just went very, very far away from it in these anecdotes for you. So why does restoring this connection at the top of the head help at the, why does restoring this connection at the top of the spine help you with every other part of your body? And it's because

Leslie Field (24:15.37)

No, no, no.

Leslie Field (24:34.772)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (24:38.768)

That's how we started when we were crawling, when you look at your cat, when you look at a dog, all of these four-legged animals, they lead with the head.

And the leading starts with that tiny little connection where your head balances on top of the spine. So when I do this to people and it's not like phrenology or craniosacral or anything like that where where one thing where I only do one thing, right? I'm in a private session. I'm going to work with your arms. I'm going to work with your hip joints. I'm going to work with your legs and your feet and all of these other parts of your body. But it starts with the head.

Leslie Field (25:06.951)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (25:19.614)

And so because we are organized around a spine, right? It's called our central nervous system for a reason. If you think about a person on all fours, or if that's not comfortable for you, if you think about a toddler on all fours or a baby on all fours, they've got this giant head that's leading them, right? They're looking at what's in front of them. And then,

Leslie Field (25:24.455)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (25:28.539)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (25:36.568)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (25:47.406)

Their spine is what's holding the rest of them up, right? Your big powerful back, your core. We have lots of different words for it. But when your core is stable and supported and peaceful, because you have that connection open and your body can work in this beautifully coordinated way,

Leslie Field (25:53.575)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (26:03.781)

Mmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (26:12.954)

then all of the tension that you're holding in your neck and your shoulder joints, which for me was very true, can melt away. And then the tension here, these wrists can just stop working so hard. So what I was doing when I had this pain, what caused this pain for me was several different reasons, right? My core didn't feel stable.

Leslie Field (26:18.971)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (26:41.286)

Okay.

Casey At Sense & Strength (26:41.762)

So then my shoulders and my arms were trying to do the work of holding me up, even while I was typing on a computer. And they're not built to do that, but they will. Right? We're grownups. We have lots and lots of very strong muscles that will do what we ask them to, but they don't want to do it forever. The parts that are built to do it forever are in our core.

Leslie Field (26:47.718)

Hmm.

Leslie Field (26:53.005)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (26:58.64)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (27:04.262)

you

Casey At Sense & Strength (27:08.828)

They're these deep postural muscles in our core. And part of activating them is using our vision and it's opening up this connection and becoming aware that our neck doesn't have to work so hard, that we can start from up there and get this feeling of lightness. But what it really is is a lengthening stability in the core. Like I don't want to get too technical about it, but

Leslie Field (27:08.966)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (27:25.699)

Hmm.

Leslie Field (27:36.675)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (27:38.662)

It is just as important, and you see this in Pilates, but what is just as important as muscle strength is muscle control and being able to let go of those really big muscles closer to the surface that want to step in and help us with everything.

Leslie Field (27:45.581)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (27:50.596)

yeah.

Leslie Field (27:56.479)

Mm-hmm. Yes. this actually, there's a lot of overlap in the different sort of somatic work that I'm doing with other types of movement. So it's like we are under the same umbrella, but we're looking and doing sort of different things because a lot comes up in, and my work is chronic tension patterns as well. And the idea that if there's breath, there's length, there's more awareness, time to let the body just do what it needs to do to sort of move, whatever.

Casey At Sense & Strength (28:10.926)

so much so.

Casey At Sense & Strength (28:15.207)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (28:25.442)

Same we're getting to the same places just in a different ways to go there mine's more dance oriented more breath more stretch more awareness oriented what have you so anyway, it's just super cool because I'm I wanted to have you on this podcast to remind people that we have so many incredible people like Casey out in the world that when you have this chronic pain, you know, it could be Could be something else. It could be I don't know like we've you had a car accident. What what have you not saying something else, but

Casey At Sense & Strength (28:30.96)

Yes.

Leslie Field (28:55.339)

Where am I going with this? There might be another modality that's really supporting you, right? Maybe it's not Alexander technique is what I'm saying, but maybe it is. Maybe it is the thing that you haven't tried yet, that you've been to the acupuncturist, you've taken, I don't know, pain medication forever, and you just want to try to something new. This is why I had Casey on today, because this might be the thing that gets you out of the discomfort, gets you out of those chronic tension patterns, gets you out of pain.

And I mean, this is a big thing that when I go to see all the doctors that I do, I got to tell you in the past, I'd say five to 10 years, I am asked, even though I've never told them I have pain. And I know it's part of the protocol I think now that they ask like the general set of questions. Have you vomited? Have you been vomiting? Have you been unwell? The new one that keeps coming a lot now is have you been in pain? And that to me is just telling me that we have a society out there like you were saying, because of how we're living and our culture.

Casey At Sense & Strength (29:44.21)

Mm. Mm.

Leslie Field (29:54.622)

and what we do now for work, that there's so much chronic pain floating around. And I just want people to know that people like Casey exist so that we can help them. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (30:06.908)

Thank you and thank you for getting the word out because in our culture, when something's wrong, we go to somebody to fix it, right? But if what's wrong is coming from a habit or a pattern, then we just keep going back to get that same fix and they're really happy to take our money. But I would rather change the pattern itself.

Leslie Field (30:15.2)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (30:27.975)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (30:32.36)

Yeah. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (30:34.084)

so that people can really become free of pain. That's what I'm interested in.

Leslie Field (30:38.664)

Yeah.

Wow, very, very beautiful and so, so important. So I just want to go back again, because it's kind of like good I haven't had a session, but like also like it have been good to have one before this conversation. You know, there's, I say that because, you know, it sounds like if I were to have a session with you, as I'm learning these techniques from you so that in time I can learn to, guess, you know, the tools to repattern.

to get out of pain or whatever it is. Are you using a lot of hands on the body? Is that how it works in the beginning?

Casey At Sense & Strength (31:17.936)

Very much so, and I'm glad you brought that up because there is a difference in how I teach the Alexander Technique compared to most teachers.

When I first started taking lessons in the Alexander Technique and I said that I quit my job and I went back into my dream of freelance translation, I didn't say that I said, wow, I can live my dream now. All I have to do is keep going back to Alexander Technique teachers for my entire life so that these patterns don't come back. And nobody wants to do that.

Leslie Field (31:56.605)

Mmm.

Yeah.

No.

Casey At Sense & Strength (32:02.31)

Right? You don't, nobody needs to go see somebody every single week to tell them how to use their own body. I would much rather that you know how to use your own body because you learned it from me. And then maybe you come see me once every three months, you know, maybe you come see me once a month and we do a little touch-up so that you remember, yeah, I can do this. So I work with my hands.

Leslie Field (32:18.973)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (32:26.109)

Mmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (32:29.318)

but I also want you to have these discoveries for yourself. So I have changed how I teach to give my clients more agency and to give them more control over what's happening to help them understand why this works. So I talk a lot more than most Alexander Technique teachers as well, because I really want, I mean, even at the risk of kind of flooding you with information, I always feel like knowledge is power.

Leslie Field (32:42.801)

Mmm.

Leslie Field (32:50.383)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (32:59.236)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (32:59.694)

So, I want you to know why this is working for you. I want you to know what is happening. So, for a lot of people, I mean, pretty much everybody, to be honest, if your posture involves sticking your chest out, like we're told that soldiers do, that's proper posture, if you're listening right now, just correct your posture and tell me what you do. You stick your chest out, you pull your shoulders back and

Leslie Field (33:14.893)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (33:19.459)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (33:26.596)

Yes.

Casey At Sense & Strength (33:28.09)

You couldn't do this forever, right? That's, that's, yeah, yeah. Well, one thing that you do is something that I put my hands on you to help you do, but then you do it yourself. So you see where my hands are right now. You can't tell if you're listening, but my hands are on my sternum, also called your breastbone. And that's that super, super strong place.

Leslie Field (33:29.818)

No. So then like, what do I do? What do I do?

Leslie Field (33:44.633)

Mmm. Yeah.

Leslie Field (33:51.481)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (33:56.784)

where the two sides of your rib cage meet. And you can put your hands all over that and feel fine.

Leslie Field (34:02.979)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (34:04.386)

It's very well armored. It is my personal belief that this is the most well armored and sturdy place in our whole body. And if you are with someone, if you're with a child and you want them to feel safe, you touch them there as opposed to like up above it or down below it, which are super vulnerable spots because they don't have the protection of that nice sternum. So, and I'm getting to my point here, because this is directly related to what you said.

Leslie Field (34:12.505)

Wow.

Casey At Sense & Strength (34:34.354)

in a session and actually in these posture tune-ups, it's one of the last things I do in a posture tune-up, I will put my fingers on your sternum, just the four fingers with my pinky on the bottom and my index finger on the top, so they're spread out there. And you can do this for yourself right now. I hope you have your fingers on you. I want you to use just your bones, not your muscles.

Leslie Field (34:53.997)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie Field (34:58.809)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (35:01.05)

to move your pinky finger closer to your feet, closer to the ground.

Leslie Field (35:07.479)

Mm-hmm.

Casey At Sense & Strength (35:11.066)

So I can't see what's happening for you right now. And I can't see what's happening for your listeners, but what happens for most people is first they try to, you know, tense their stomach muscles to pull that down, but that's not what we're doing. When we can really pull that down and you think about just doing it with your ribs or just doing it with your body, first of all, it'll feel like you're slumping because

Leslie Field (35:22.425)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (35:37.203)

Yeah, I was like, that's what I was like, is this right?

Casey At Sense & Strength (35:40.319)

Yeah, that's right. If you feel like you're slumping, you're doing it right. And this is what I said, where pretty much everybody thinks that they're slumping, so we don't, we have this sense of ourselves.

that involves holding this little ball of tension right below where your fingers are. And when you try to get your fingers down to your feet, using just your bones, you release that tension underneath your ribs and your rib cage falls slightly and it feels like you're slumping. But what actually is happening is that your posture is improving because you're not poking out your chest. Poking out your chest,

is not what your body wants to do. And when other people see you doing that, it looks like tension. It looks like discomfort. It looks like anything other than being relaxed, right? It makes us think of a soldier at attention.

Leslie Field (36:34.634)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (36:35.462)

When you're talking to somebody at a cocktail party or you're trying to impress somebody that you just met, do you want them to think that you're at tense attention or do you want them to think that you're relaxed and confident and comfortable in your own body?

Leslie Field (36:49.666)

Hmm. Yeah, we want the ladder. So, okay. So wait, do the... I did, and you're telling me this is the right position.

Casey At Sense & Strength (36:53.392)

Yeah. So you just did that for yourself. You did it. Yeah. I'm telling you that this in combination with several other things that I would do for you. But that no, it's it's if you're standing on your feet and I've worked with your feet first and then I've worked with your pelvis and then we move up to the sternum area. That's when the penny drops and you go, whoa.

Leslie Field (37:03.237)

Okay, okay good, because I like, Casey, this is it? Okay, I'm with you.

Casey At Sense & Strength (37:23.218)

this is standing up straight. And then hopefully we're in a group class. Cause then I can, so I just finished up a class with PCC extension. have another one starting in 2025. It's called five secrets to great posture. And it had 20 people in it. I had never taught that many people at once. It was so exciting and fun. So I had somebody up in the middle of the class, right? Everybody else is in a circle around them. And we did that thing that I just did with you where they drop that rib cage.

Leslie Field (37:27.7)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (37:45.29)

Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (37:52.238)

And they felt like they were slumping. And I turned to everybody in the class. said, does anybody else think they look like they're slumping? And everybody said, no way. No way. So our idea of ourselves can be different from what we're actually capable of. it's so, sometimes you have to, it feels like going into being wrong.

Leslie Field (38:18.441)

Yes.

Casey At Sense & Strength (38:18.674)

Because I'm sure when you let, yes. So it feels wrong, right? It feels like, whoa, I'm slumping. Girl, you could do this all day and it would make your body feel so much better. And nobody would think you were slumping.

Leslie Field (38:28.803)

Hahaha

That is so, that's a really, really fascinating point. And you've been talking about this. We've learned these patterns over time, or better for worse, they're just new patterns that are in the body. And then like you said, when we start to look at them and address them and say, hey, what about this pattern? It makes sense that at first you're gonna go, well, that's not right. This was really weird. Yeah, so makes sense.

Casey At Sense & Strength (38:42.694)

That's right.

Casey At Sense & Strength (38:53.104)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a difference between what's familiar to us and what we do when we just smash that box and we can do so many more things with our bodies, which I know is very related to what you do.

Leslie Field (39:02.581)

Mmm.

Leslie Field (39:08.595)

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, what I think is also really interesting about this conversation, and I hope people are enjoying it, but at the end of the day, we're talking about something that is a very feeling-oriented thing, right? So we can get in our head about it, we can talk about technique and whatever, but I mean, Casey is demonstrating things that I know she's doing a fabulous job of trying to describe what she looks like when she's showing things, and also talking about actually the effect in the body.

And this is the thing that comes back to my work, and I'm sure you're understanding this too. Concepts and words, we can understand them, but actually feeling is a very different process. It's something that your body, we're talking about something that we're putting a lot of words to, but it's actually felt sense. And so I always encourage people that if they're curious, go and be open to that feeling experience. Yeah, so that's what I wanted to say.

Casey At Sense & Strength (40:04.41)

So much so, so much so, and beautifully said. And it's a trip, right? It can be really shocking to find out that you had this feeling and you could have something completely different that would also be true. You know, this feeling of like, okay, part of the way I stand is having that little bit of tension.

Leslie Field (40:21.355)

Hmm. Yeah.

Leslie Field (40:30.079)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (40:30.094)

under my sternum. I didn't know that that was part of the way I stand because my brain just erases that. That's just standing, right? And so recognizing that tension and releasing it. And sometimes the release comes before you recognize the tension and you don't really know what happened. And it just feels like, I'm slumping. And that's when it's helpful to have a teacher or a mirror or even other people to help you see what's going on.

Leslie Field (40:36.265)

Yeah. Yeah.

Leslie Field (40:47.433)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (40:53.322)

Yes.

Leslie Field (40:59.229)

No.

Casey At Sense & Strength (41:00.09)

because it's an undiscovered country and yet it's ourselves.

Leslie Field (41:04.701)

It's ourselves. It's right there, just waiting for us to rediscover and learn something new. It's just right there. This has been so, so illuminating. I just wanted to just offer, if there's anything else about the Alexander Technique that you think that we should speak about before we close.

Casey At Sense & Strength (41:07.45)

Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (41:25.598)

gosh. It just, the Alexander Technique has given me so much. It has changed my life. It has changed my experience of my body. It's such a joy to teach it to other people. And it's a really unsexy name. I wish, I wish, I, I'm, if you've worked with me and you're listening to this podcast.

Give me your suggestions as to what I should call this because I've, I've, I still, I'm certified in the Alexander technique, but I teach so much more than that now. And trying to get that across from people to people.

Leslie Field (42:02.505)

Yeah. Yeah.

Casey At Sense & Strength (42:07.472)

Well, it's like trying to figure out what's going on in your own body when there's so many other things happening. That's why I called my business Sense and Strength, though, because these, to me, the fundamentals. Sense and Strength are the fundamentals of how we understand ourselves, and they're also the key to being able to do more with what we already have. Having that

Leslie Field (42:12.902)

Yeah.

Leslie Field (42:16.789)

you

Casey At Sense & Strength (42:37.752)

expanded sense of ourselves so that we can move with more strength and freedom and ease and grace. So that's why I said that to me. Sense and strength is the essence of the Alexander Technique. It's using that mind-body connection to use all of ourselves, to really get to know all of ourselves and find freedom in that.

Leslie Field (43:05.415)

Yes. so much overlap. I really feel the struggle here at KC because I tell people I'm a somatic practitioner, which I've already lost them almost. And then I say I've embodied movement. And then they're just like, that was just a bunch of words. So I feel you so deeply right now, literally feel you because we are doing something that, you know,

Casey At Sense & Strength (43:16.892)

Yep.

Leslie Field (43:30.513)

It's growing in popularity. The word somatic is becoming more popular. People don't really totally understand what it is. And plus it's a giant umbrella and there's so many pieces that are housed underneath. And not just the overlap of the work that you're doing, I help people find more freedom, spaciousness, and even put the pain in the back seat when they're moving, when they're dancing, when they're breathing. Now you actually give them the tools to help realign or.

or how to stand differently or find a different posture, which I think is really beautiful that that can help people learn to actually reset and find new patterns and way of moving. So how can people reach out to you and find you?

Casey At Sense & Strength (44:11.972)

you can find me on Instagram at Sense and Strength or on the web at SenseAndStrength.com.

And I've got events and workshops and even self-care retreats happening all the time. And I'm also looking into providing an online course so that I can give this work to more people and help more people recognize and release tension in their own bodies and find out what they do. So yeah, just sense and strength. can Google it. You can find me on Instagram. I think I'm on Facebook.

I don't have Facebook page, but yeah, Instagram and the web send some strength.

Leslie Field (44:55.496)

I'll also link everything in the show notes so that people can find it really, really easily. And I definitely think that you should get the online program going. It sounds awesome. And I know people would definitely benefit from it. So thank you, Casey, for being on the Sick and Seeking podcast.

Casey At Sense & Strength (45:11.452)

Thank you so much, Leslie. It was a pleasure.