Being at the wheel of our self....

We live in a human body, and we learned at a young age how to ‘drive it’ - whether through happenstance, imitation, a desire to look like someone we admire, initially Mum and Dad, and then influential people in our lives. And we don’t even know that we did that, or that we still do. We think this is how our body, our shape is....”This is how I was put together, this is how I will be forever.” Yet think about car manufacture, because it demonstrates something important. Each car is essentially identical in engineering to the next one off the line. Put drivers in any of those cars and everything becomes almost 100% dependent on each individual driver’s habits. One person drives with a certain tenderness; light on the brakes unless required to stop suddenly. Doesn’t ride the clutch, letting their foot half depress the clutch pedal as the go along. Steers smoothly around the corners without leaving rubber on the road and needing frequent new tyres It’s not all about servicing and oil, you know! Another might service their car regularly, but drive erratically, over-steering, clutch-riding, accelerating with their foot slightly on the brake - yes, it happens! - breaking harshly and accelerating hard and fast, going over kerbs at speed - the list is endless - and their car falls apart very quickly, leaving them complaining about how well they have looked after it, but never realising it is the way the car has been driven that has set up the problems. And it’s not about ‘good and bad‘ driving, it’s about appropriate driving - each moment having its own set of requirements.  Often we have to steer or break suddenly, climb a kerb to get round something....a car is capable of all these things, but it is how it is driven on a day to day basis that determines the eventual outcome. ‘Use affects function’ is not a rule thought up by man, it is just applicable to every single thing in life. And yet rules and guidelines are laid down about nigh on everything to do with ‘overcoming this thing called being human’. Books written, lectures and trainings offered, DVD’s, courses; everyone has The Definitive Answer on how to 'drive badly and get away with it'. 

And now I am going to join in with mine - There Is No One Definitive Answer. There is the opportunity to be present, to be aware, to learn to listen and sense your whole self in any one moment. And to make fresh decisions each time through the re-experiencing of how it is to be back in the ‘blue-print’ of the psycho-physical-emotional-spiritual balance you were designated at birth. And to respond appropriately to the stimulus you are receiving Right Now; not the way you responded to a similar - only similar - stimulus you received 4 minutes, 4 years, or 44 years, ago. And as FM Alexander said it is ‘psycho-physical’ - the both at once, not separately. Not the one on Monday and the other on Tuesday where 'ne'er the twain shall meet'.

You will hear people say, “I have a stiff neck”, or “I have a bad back”, but I ask you to consider, who’s neck have you taken on? Who’s back has climbed aboard yours? By being emotionally involved with a person - especially with negative feelings - you risk taking on their very posture. Note, ‘take on’, not ‘be given’.  So, how (and for heaven’s sake, when you come to think of it, why?!) are you moving like a person you do not have much affection for, or even connection to?! Why are you moving in a way that mirrors your negative emotions inside? Is that really necessary? Looking at the psychology of this is one thing; we can begin to understand the concepts, but really usefully, how are you using your body in relation to the stimulus this person is offering you? (And there is always a person at the centre of each response, even if we can’t see them; they are in our mind’s eye.) Much work is done with our thinking, but you cannot change your mind about something yet leave your body still living with its old habits and expect anything to truly change. We need the both. No, life really has the capacity to change when you realise that rather than you having a bad anything, you are a stiff neck. You are a bad back. 

Believe it or not that is wonderful news, because now it is yours to sort out. No longer are you victim to something happening outside of you. And now, through the teachings of FM Alexander, you have a method to change things for ever. Pain/discomfort of any kind is, in fact, simply your body, or even your soul, sending you powerful messages in the hope that you might, at last, listen to them. Then to discover about the stimulus-response that you have hitherto given away to others and been unaware of, so that the specific tension, or collapse, associated with this stimulus can release. This physical/emotional response can only change by being owner of it, by allowing it to be seen, felt, and released through the perspective now gained. And even if this makes sense and you think, “Yes, well, I will just ‘relax’ “, I will come, in my next blog, to why ‘collapsed-relaxation’ can actually be worse thing to do.