182: Aaron Alexander – Integrating Movement Into Your Lifestyle

“We’re not just working on the physical body itself, we’re working with the person’s humanity.” Hey, guys, welcome back to ONKEN RADIO (previously NION Radio), the podcast where we explore the body, mind, and soul of the creative entrepreneur. It’s my goal to help you take your creativity, business, and life to the next level. I’m so glad you’re joining me on this journey! Today, I’ve got an extra special guest for you to explore a creative entrepreneur's body, mind, and soul, focusing on movement and how to use it organically in your life.  His name is Aaron Alexander, and he’s the founder of The Align Method. He’s here today to teach you how to integrate movement into your lifestyle. Here’s a little taste of some of his wisdom: “The practice of taking care of our bodies [doesn’t have] to be a thing we drive 30 minutes to and pay a membership. We've never received that education growing up because the people teaching us never received that education either.” - Aaron Alexander Aaron makes such a good point. If previous generations didn’t receive adequate education about fitness, we can’t judge their teaching practices that don’t include functional fitness. We talk about different things ranging from consciousness to death, movement, and integrating exercise into your daily practice, even if it's just getting up from your desk and standing and doing specific stretches. I’m excited to share his wisdom with you — so let’s dive right in! Who Is Aaron Alexander? Aaron Alexander is the founder of The Align Method, which is all about bringing movement into your life naturally and organically. Movement is essential to keep your body flowing and healthy.  Aaron has a podcast, The Align Podcast, that I highly recommend you listen to if you want to walk with confidence, move with ease, and think with clarity. No matter who you are or what stage of life you are in, you are more than capable of applying these practices to your daily life. Aaron just came out with a new book called, The Align Method: Five Movement Principles for a Stronger Body, Sharper Mind, and Stress-Proof Life.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur or just trying to navigate high levels of stress thanks to life's ups and downs, without proper stress management, stress accumulates in life and compounds. Stress is the biggest killer — it causes sickness and can eventually lead to things like cancer. Learning the tools to alleviate stress is enormous for our well-being. What Is the Align Method? Before we dive into some detail, let's discuss an overview of the align method. “Where the aligned method [came from] was to guide people to go outside of the typical norm of fitness — something that you do in a gym. Instead, [it’s] giving people the manual on how to become fitness, wellness, yoga, dance, [and] creativity. We don't need to pay [for] the practice of taking care of our bodies [or] drive 30 minutes [and] pay a membership. We've never received that education growing up, and the reason we never received that education is because the people teaching us never received that education either. The people teaching them, for the most part, are people selling ‘stuff.’” - Aaron Alexander Our credit card is extremely valuable to people trying to sell us something. Exercise is an area where sales have exploded in recent decades as people have learned the value of a healthy body. However, we’ve become trapped in the cycle of looking for magic ways to alleviate the challenges we have in our life.  Problems usually arise because of small things adding up over time. These small things can be as subtle as how we sit and the water we drink. Over time, they have a compounding effect. “I created a manual of sorts for people to gather all that extra energy that we forego. How do we put that back into our cup in the form of movement? Our senses affect our physiology, and we get into bodyline language, and we get into a lot of different wormholes of movement.”