AEQ method® is an innovative method that allows us to better understand and connect with ourselves through a higher awareness of the body. With the help of the AEQ method®, we can learn to feel ourselves more authentically and meet our needs more effectively. The AEQ method® offers us knowledge that helps us understand the discomfort we feel when increasing contact with ourselves, and allows us not to be afraid of our own reality, which is stored in our body and subconscious.
The first step in using the AEQ Method® is to develop self-awareness. This means that we begin to observe our actions, our thoughts, fears, beliefs, habits, actions and also our inactions. We often believe that we are in complete control of our lives and that we make decisions completely independently. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we will find that most of the time we operate like robots, automatically carrying out old habits that have developed from emotional reactions to past events. This way of functioning affects our physical and psychological state, which can manifest as chronic pain, depression, anxiety, anger and emotional instability.
By learning the AEQ Method®, we can learn to act consciously. We become observers of our own thoughts, allowing our decisions and actions to support our goals and desires. The method teaches us self-awareness and control of movement, thinking and actions. By learning it, we can regain the ability to manage muscles, body, own will and thinking. In addition, the AEQ method® offers us an innovative way to relax muscles, which also has a positive effect on reducing stress.
It is important to develop the ability to feel your own body. AEQ exercises® allow us to improve and maintain this ability. Paying attention to your body and observing its functioning with a conscious mind is extremely pleasant and beneficial. Each individual is as important as the people around him, so it is important that we try to get to know ourselves in depth and nurture the spirit of self-exploration.
However, our body sometimes becomes an obstacle in the way of exploration. We feel pain or tension and feel restricted in certain movements. This is due to the fact that we are no longer able to move with full awareness. Movement becomes something taken for granted that we do not need to specifically observe or control. However, we can only control and improve what we are aware of. By learning to develop awareness, we can better control our thoughts, words, actions and even movement.
With the help of somatic research and the AEQ method®, we not only coordinate our movement, but also improve the efficiency of our work and life.
By developing self-awareness, we live life to the full. We gradually give up harmful habits, both mental and physical. Our response to situations becomes more appropriate as we use our newfound potentials. Our personality is made up of hereditary material, the influence of our primary family and society. Beliefs, habits, patterns of behaviour and thinking, and information guide us when we are awake and attentive to inner events and our behaviour. In this way, we can more easily recognise the burdensome patterns we are repeating and decide to change them. Beliefs and behaviours that are in line with our desires and intentions will support our control over our body and mind. We become active creators of our lives, constantly evaluating, changing and improving our actions.
It is true that heredity and spiritual aspects can influence our personality, but most of what shapes us comes from beliefs, imitation and information from other people.
Beliefs are not necessarily right or wrong, true or false, but are passed down from generation to generation until they reach us. When we realize this and feel the consequences of inappropriate habits, we can consciously decide to abandon all beliefs and behaviors that do not support our desires and replace them with beliefs that will support better control of the body and mind.
It is important to know that thoughts lead to feelings, and feelings lead to actions, and actions lead to results and these shape our lives.
The AEQ Method® is a safe, gentle, sensible and permanent method to address the causes of chronic pain. It is an educational process that allows us to "retrain" and consciously change our behaviour, posture and movement. It is an active method of learning sensory-motor skills that helps us to address the causes of most chronic muscle pain and movement limitations in our lives.
The AEQ Method® is an extension of clinical somatics, which is the study of the body and its control (from the Latin word "clinice" - the science of healing the recumbent, and the Greek word "sôma" - the body). Soma represents the total sensory-motor function of the body, which includes both the conscious and voluntary movements we make with our will, as well as the movements we learned as children but have since forgotten.
Chronic muscle tension is caused by a loss of conscious sensation and control of muscle tone. We lose the ability to stop the movement and perform completely different movements. This condition is called sensory-motor amnesia and develops as a result of injury, habit and stress. Sensorimotor amnesia causes muscles to get used to being tense even when they don't need to be. Stretching, massage, chiropractic care or painkillers are not a long-term solution. If we really want to fix the problem, we need to learn how to feel the muscles that are tense and how to relax them.
The AEQ Method® offers solutions to reverse unnecessary muscle tension. The changes take place in our brain and nervous system, and in their control over muscles and movement. Due to sensory-motor amnesia, our brain is unaware of tension and simply forgets how to relax tense muscles when it is not necessary.
Most pain relief methods focus on addressing pain in a specific part of the body such as the neck, hips, back, etc., but the AEQ Method® understands that pain in the body is only part of a wider pattern of dysfunction. These patterns reflect our typical responses to stress, which include muscle contractions. Sensory-motor amnesia and the dysfunctions it causes are expressed in three overall movement patterns: the green light reflex (go forward), the red light reflex (stand still, go backwards) and the trauma reflex (due to injury).
The primary aim of the AEQ Method® is to increase the regularity of the shortening and lengthening of the muscles that are or should be involved in movement. Muscles participate in a movement in two ways: shortening (contraction) and relaxing (lengthening). In any movement, all muscles must work together in harmony in order to perform the movement in an orderly and efficient manner. This can only be achieved in the absence of sensory-motor amnesia.
The brain's role is to guide the muscles and coordinate how they work together during movement. This also requires good sensation. In the soma, the brain creates a certain order that allows movements to be performed without pain, with a pleasant sensation and without resistance. However, with more complex movements, we may feel fear, resistance and the need to overcome ourselves in order to perform the movement. This happens when our neuromuscular system is not yet sufficiently trained to perform such movements. Children are not aware of this, as they only perform the movements they are ready for and stay within the limits of their current knowledge.
For children, the learning process is guided by curiosity, which allows them to progress gradually without struggling and overcoming themselves. Despite the slowness of their approach to improving the development of new skills, children make progress that adults cannot achieve, even with diligence, effort and overcoming themselves.
The AEQ Method® enables lasting changes in our bodies and minds. It can help us learn to regain conscious control of our muscles and movement, and to release unnecessary tensions.
source: Aleš Ernst, aeq.si