Beverly Ryle, Career Coach
I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that Alexander’s idea of achieving greater freedom and ease of movement works also with more than just muscles, nerves and bones. Looking for places in my body where I habitually store stress, it didn’t take long for me to discover what felt like a sizzling mass of hot wires in the back of my neck and left shoulder blade that appeared whenever I was provoked by an unpleasant sensation, e.g. sitting for a long period of time in summer traffic.
But it took a while to figure out where I stashed my emotional patterns of holding. When I heard myself sharing a painful situation in my life exactly the way I’d shared it for the last two years, I knew I’d hit paydirt...
...when I became aware that I was dredging up an old pile of muck by re-telling for the umpteenth time the sad tale of a broken relationship, I asked myself, how could I have responded in a way that would serve me better? Does this story reflect how I see the world right now, and who I want to be? I realized that I was reciting a script I knew by heart, and it came from an unnecessary pattern of holding, just like the ache in my shoulder.