Fundamentals Archives - Page 13 of 15

“You let the tiredness out!” – Fatigue and Alexander Technique

Last week I wrote about why it is that working with the Alexander Technique can have a dramatic improvement upon your energy levels. But what about when it doesn’t? What if you experience a short-term fatigue?

The quote in the title is from my husband. When he has Alexander lessons, it is a common experience for him to feel all the usual beneficial stuff – lighter, freer, less muscular discomfort – but also one less welcome sensation. Tiredness.

Similarly, I have had students who experience a tiredness reaction to a lesson so extreme that they could barely keep awake!

So what happened to my husband and my students? Why did they feel so tired? What follows is my best guess on the subject.

Habits of body, habits of thought.

In his first book Man’s Supreme Inheritance, FM Alexander is very clear that there is a relationship between movement and thought. He writes: “the majority of people fall into a mechanical habit of thought quite as easily as they fall into the mechanical habit of body which is the immediate consequence.”

So – what we do with our bodies is the consequence of beliefs we have or decisions we make. If this is so – and I believe that it is – then we could create a story of a hypothetical student.

I can well imagine that, if our hypothetical student has had a particularly tiring or stressful time, they may well make the decision that, for whatever reason, they are not able to allow themselves to rest. They decide to keep going. And in order to keep going and keep concentrating on their work, they turn on muscles (FM writes about this in Man’s Supreme Inheritance too).

And then they keep them turned on. And on. And on.

They forget, in fact, to turn them off.

So now, in addition to the original fatigue, our hypothetical student is expending energy on the needless use of muscles.

When, therefore, they come for their Alexander Technique lesson, and the teacher convinces them to give up the excess muscular energy that they were using to counteract the fatigue, our student is going to feel the full force of the tiredness that they were originally fighting. In the short term, they will probably feel terrible. But if they allow themselves to rest, in the long term they will feel better because they will have stopped the unnecessary muscular activity that was not just masking but adding to the fatigue.

My question to you is: does this ring true for you? Do you think you might be masking your fatigue with extra activity? If so, can I urge you to stop, allow yourself to feel tired, and rest? It might not be great in the short term, but in the long run you’ll be so much more effective!

Let me know what you think!

Image by Ambro from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Can the Alexander Technique Improve my Energy Levels?

The question of energy levels is an important one to many of my students. Perhaps it is important to you, too. Life seems to be so busy, and there always seems to be more that needs to be done. Some of my students have had the experience of struggling to maintain energy levels through a busy day. And what makes it all the more galling is that colleagues or friends may have similarly stressful, action-packed days, and yet apparently breeze through them unscathed.

How can this be? Are those of us who struggle with energy lacking stamina? Short of tearing up our To do lists, is there a way of improving our energy levels? Can the Alexander Technique help us to have more energy and vitality?

Why the answer is yes…

It is a common experience of Alexander technique students to feel more ‘alive’ after a lesson. They often report feeling more awake, more alert, lighter, and somehow more able to concentrate on tasks. So why does this happen?

The secret lies in the stuff we do to ourselves – unnecessary muscular activity.

FM Alexander noticed in himself, and subsequently in others, that it was something that he was doing in the way he went about activities that was causing his problems – the problems that led him to create the work we call the Alexander Technique. He noticed defects in the way he was using himself.

And in his first book, Alexander noted that when defects in the poise of the body are present, “the condition thus evidenced is the result of an undue rigidity of parts of the muscular mechanisms … Which are forced to perform duties other than those intended by nature.” In other words, if we are experiencing problems, it is likely that some of our muscles are working far too hard, and probably in ways that they are not designed to do.

So it makes sense that if we are using more muscular activity than we need, and using the wrong muscles anyway, that we would start to feel fatigued.

This is why feeling an increase in energy is a common experience in Alexander Technique lessons. Students not only decrease the work done by their muscles, but they work out for themselves (with the teacher’s assistance) the most effective way of carrying out the activity they are working on. They work out which muscles they need to use, and then experience using just those muscles, doing just the right amount of work.

2 things you can do to improve your energy levels.

Here are two simple things you can do to help yourself improve your energy levels.

1. A bit of brainpower. Have a think about the activity that is causing you fatigue. What is involved in the activity? What is the least number of muscles and joints you need to use to carry out the activity?

2. The 50% less game. Pick an activity, and try using half as much energy as normal. For example, can you use half as much energy to type on your computer? Hold a pen? Click a mouse? This is a great game to play. My students usually discover that they don’t need to use nearly as much energy for most activities. Just pick the activity wisely- holding a kitchen knife or a steering wheel might require a little caution!

Are you willing to give these ideas a go? Tell me about it in the comments!

Image by Richard Styles, stock.xchng

Surviving the Dark with FM Alexander

Last year, in my other blog I wrote a post about my worries around going a bit nuts in the darkest part of the year. Well, I thought I should write a bit about how I am getting on.

You see, this year I haven’t suffered nearly as much from the chronic sleepiness or craziness that I have in previous years. And I think the reason why is straight out of my day job as an Alexander Technique teacher. I had a change in my point of view, and that has shifted everything for the better.

Like millions of others, for Christmas 2010 I watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special, that year entitled A Christmas Carol. It starred Michael Gambon as a Scrooge-like figure called Kazran Sardick, and began with a shot panning over a snowy Victorian-style streetscape covered by Kazran’s words in voiceover from Gambon:

“On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of winter, at the exact mid-point, everybody stops and turns and hugs. As if to say, ‘Well done, everyone! We’re halfway out of the dark.’ “

This simple line of dialogue caught my attention. I had never thought about the Winter Solstice like that before. I knew all about it, of course. I knew on a scientific level that it was the date when the sun’s maximum elevation in the sky is at its lowest, and therefore the hours of daylight are at their shortest. I knew that many cultures and religions celebrated this day. But it had never occurred to me that they were celebrating being halfway out of the dark.

Put simply, I had not linked together my scientific knowledge of solstices and my cultural knowledge. Nor had I linked in my personal experience of days getting shorter before the solstice, and then longer afterwards.

FM Alexander believed that the linking up of knowledge was vitally important. He said, “Knowledge is of little use in itself; it is the linking up of what we know with that which comes to us daily in the shape of new ideas and new experiences which is of value.”

Doctor Who script writer Steven Moffat gave me a new experience of the solstice, and it was the spur to me to link up all my bits of knowledge. On the day of the solstice, I had a little private celebration.

The result?

My experience of this winter is profoundly different to previous years. I have not gone crazy. Though I’m still struggling a bit to get up in the mornings, it isn’t as draining to my energy or my mood as in previous years. More interestingly, since the solstice I have been acutely conscious of the days getting longer. Every few days I rejoice in how much more daylight there is. I feel more in contact with nature.

The lesson to take from this? If you have a problem that feels intractable:

Don’t despair. It isn’t impossible; you just don’t have the answer yet.
Look back over all the information you have about the problem. There may be a link you haven’t seen yet.
Get out there in the world and do things that aren’t related to the problem. Like me, you may well find inspiration comes from a very unlikely source!

FM was right. Linking up knowledge is a good thing.

Why sitting up straight could be bad for your posture

Last week I wrote a post about Professor Roy Baumeister‘s appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, talking about willpower. Prof Baumeister, if you recall, advocates us spending time each day reminding ourselves to sit or stand up straight. He has evidence to suggest that spending time exercising willpower over something like ‘posture’ will improve our self-control in other areas.

This week I want to talk about why Prof Baumeister’s advice may help your willpower, but may in the end do you more harm than good. Quite simply, today I am going to tell you why it could be positively harmful to ‘sit up straight.’

People and their people-ness*

FM Alexander wrote in his final book about how each one of us has a psycho-physical unity equipped with “marvellous mechanisms” – that is, we all have a body (and mind), and all work pretty similarly. But each of us chooses how we use this marvellous mechanism we have been given. This is our manner of use. And our manner of use of ourselves can influence our general functioning for ill or for good.**

In other words, we each use our psycho-physical unity uniquely, according to our ideas, beliefs and preconceptions. We each have a me-nes that determines the effectiveness (or not) of our general functioning.

Alexander believed, I suspect with some justification, that “the great majority of civilized people have come to use themselves in such a way that in everything they are doing they are constantly interfering” with the mechanisms that determine the standard of their general functioning.*** Their me-ness gets in their own way.

This means that if we are asked to do an exercise designed to improve our standard of functioning, we will do it through the filter of our me-ness – the very me-ness that Alexander says got us into trouble in the first place.

Me-ness says ‘sit up straight’

Sitting up ‘straight’ is a classic example pf this problem. When we try to ‘sit up straight’, we do this through the filter of our me-ness. Probably without knowing it, we have a whole catalogue of beliefs and preconceptions of what this act will involve. And the likelihood is that most of those preconceptions will be wrong and unhelpful. They will, on evidence from my classes, involve excess tension (frequently of the muscles of the mid- and lower back) and arching of the spine, the onset of muscle fatigue and sometimes even outright discomfort.

Imagine what would happen if you did that every day, as Prof Baumeister suggests, whenever you think of it?

Don’t sit up straight!

So don’t try to ‘sit up straight’. Not, that is, until you’ve had a good think about what that might involve. You could think about (or even research) the location of your hip joints. You could think about which muscles actually need to be involved in sitting (fewer than you’d think). You could think about the part the spine plays in keeping you upright, and what shape it is.

If you think of these things, you won’t be just trotting out your old me-ness. You’ll be adventuring into the unknown, and exercising that wonderful gift that Alexander said was the secret of our ability to govern the circumstances of our lives – our reasoning intelligence.****

* With a nod to Prof DF Kennedy of Bristol University for this wonderful phrase
** FM Alexander, Universal Constant in Living in the Irdeat Complete Edition, pp.523-4.
*** ibid., p.526.
**** FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.17.

Image by Stuart Miles, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

‘Sit Up Straight!’ – Does Alexander Technique help with self-control?

Is there a link between self control and the Alexander Technique?

On Monday morning on BBC Radio 4, the presenters of the Today programme interviewed Professor Roy Baumeister, author of Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength. In the interview, he suggested that “self control is really the best thing you can give your chilrdren,” and gave an example of a simple way to improve one’s willpower as an adult.

“The good news about self control is that it’s never too late. We’ve done studies even with adults, showing that a couple of weeks of training and practice, even things like working on your posture, can strengthen your willpower … The first study we did, we told people, ‘Whenever you think about it, sit up straight, stand up straight.’ The thing about willpower is that if you strengthen it in one sphere makes you better at everything else.” *

So… If you tell people to sit up straight or stand up straight, their self control improves. And if their self control improves, the evidence is that they become more successful and better liked. So far, so good…

I have a couple of things I’d like to talk about off the back of this interview:
1. How the Alexander Technique can explain the basis behind the positive changes Baumeister witnessed;
2. Why it is that Baumeister’s approach may end up doing more harm than good.
I will cover point 2 next week.

Alexander on habits and self control

FM Alexander stated all the way through his books that he believed that the troubles people experienced (with things like bad habits) were the result of what he called subconscious control – depending upon instinct and feeling for guidance, “so that today man walks, talks sits, stands, performs in fact the innumerable mechanical acts of daily life without giving a thought to the psychical and physical processes involved.” **

Alexander wanted us to move beyond this subconscious guidance, and to enliven our reasoning faculties. “For in the mind of man lies the secret of his ability to resist, to conquer, and finally to govern the circumstance of his life…” ***

So how do we bring to life our reasoning faculties? Well, Alexander said we could change to something more beneficial “if once we can clear away that first impeding habit of thought which stands between us and conscious control.” ****

In other words, if we make an effort to change the way we think, then we start to change not just towards more beneficial physical conditions, but more beneficial mental ones too. We will begin to develop a reasoning facility that will actually help us to keep changing and improving. As Alexander says:

For when real conscious control has been obtained habit need never become fixed. It is not truly a habit at all, but an order or series of orders given to the subordinte controls of the body…”

And interestingly, this sounds errily similar to statement made by reviewer Jamie Holmes in his assessment of Baumeister’s book: “One implication is already apparent.Since repeated behaviors eventually turn into habits, improving willpower long term requires a unique strategy—a habit of changing habits, of continually expanding our zones of comfort.”

The way forward?

All of this so far, I fear, may have sounded a bit dry. But it is actually really important. Alexander is telling us that nothing is fixed.

Let me repeat that. Nothing is fixed.

If we begin to use our brains and take a good hard look at the things we do, we can make beneficial changes. If you habitually slump, for example, you can reason out where you would bend to sit if not slumping. You can reason out where the muscles are that do the job of bending your legs. You can find out what a curvy shape the spine actually has. You can think about whether different chairs would need different approaches to sitting. these are just some of the questions you could ask yourself.

You can do all these things. You are resourceful, intelligent, and determined. You have the power to change for the better. So what are you going to start to change today?

*Prof Baumeister, transcribed from the BBC interview. The link is in the text above.
**FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.16.
*** ibid., p.58.
**** ibid.
Image (C) STROINSKI.PL

3 steps for changing bad habits

My son recently reported that his teacher had said, in class, that ‘it is important to make sure that when you learn to do something, you are careful to learn the right way to do things. Otherwise, you could develop bad habits. And’, she said, ‘it is very hard to break a bad habit.’

What do you think? Was she right?

I’ll give you a moment to think about it.

Ready? Let’s investigate!

The average view of habit.

Most people talk about habits as though the habit is something external to them: “I have this bad habit of slumping,” one of my students might be hear to say. The habit seems to have a separate existence, and has atached itself, carbuncle-like, upon the student. It sneakily intrudes into the student’s day without permission, and certainly without consent. And if the student could just detach this nasty habit, then all would be well.

FM on habit.

FM Alexander wrote very clearly against this conception of habits. He said:

“the establishment of a habit in a particular person is associated in that person with a certain habitual manner of using the self, and that because the organism works as an integrated whole, change of a particular habit in the fundamental sense is impossible as long as this habitual manner of use persists.”*

In other words, I have a ‘manner of use’ of myself that is particular to me. It is my ‘me-ness’. Any habits that I have are not additions to this me-ness. They are a part of the me-ness (manner of use of myself).

And if I want to change the habit, I have to make a change to the me-ness.

Changing the me-ness

So… It sounds quite heavy, doesn’t it? It sounds like my son’s teacher might be right – changing habits is hard work!

Except…

Making a change to the me-ness is relatively fast and simple. Because we control our me-ness. We just need to change our thinking. So, for example, I could decide that I don’t want to be lumbered with the extra kilos that I gained over Christmas, and that I am going to be more controlled in my calorie intake over the next few weeks.

Ah! I hear you say. But that’s just a decision! How are you going to stick to it?

By using Alexander’s secret. He wrote: “all those who wish to change something in themselves must learn to make it a principle of life to inhibit their immediate reaction… They must continue this inhibition whilst they employ the new direction of their use.” **

To carry on with my dieting example, the next time I feel peckish and head for the kitchen, I can stop and, prior to picking up that biscuit, I can remember my decision and renew my decision to carry on with my calorie control.

My son’s teacher is right that learning the best way to do things is important. But changing habits is only as long and hard as you choose to make it. And that’s your ‘me-ness’ at work, too.

The process?

1. Make a decision. Change happens at the speed of thought!
2. When you are tempted to respond in the old way, STOP!
3. Keep stopping your old response, and carry on with your new response.

Give it a go, and let me know what you think.

*FM Alexander, Universal Constant in Living in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p,580.
** FM Alexander, The Use of the Self in the Irdeat Edition, p,473f.
Image by Ariel da Silva Parreira, stock.xchng

Annual Check-up: the easy route to noticing change

One night last week my son went to bed in pyjamas that fitted. When he got out of bed the next morning, they were conspicuously short in the leg. He had had a growth spurt overnight.

Now such things happen – changes that are sudden and instantly visible. But often change isn’t so obvious. It is gradual and incremental. It creeps up on you. The classic example is not noticing that your child has grown until someone comes to visit who hasn’t been for a while. When they exclaim how tall your child has become, you also look on them with new eyes. Yes, they have grown, haven’t they?!

It is very easy to just let life slide past and thus not notice the effect of the accumulation of small changes, whether for good or ill. Our child grows, the bedroom carpet gets shabbier, our confidence in our new job increases, our favourite shoes develop worn heels…

Small changes. It can be hard to notice the small changes. FM Alexander knew this. In the opening chapter of his very first book he wrote:

“The evils of a personal bad habit do not reveal themselves in a day or in a week, perhaps not in a year, a remark that is also true of the benefits of a good habit.” *

What Alexander means here is that, if we sit or stand or go about any of the “innumerable acts of daily life” in a way that is less than optimal (or even downright harmful), we may not notice the effects immediately. They might not appear for weeks, or months, or maybe even a year.

But notice that he also says that this is “also true of the benefits of a good habit.” When we make changes that are good and beneficial, we might not notice the benefits immediately. They might be gradual and incremental. They might creep up on us. We might not even notice the improvement for weeks. Or months. Or maybe even a year.

Annual check-up time.

Some years ago I decided to take Alexander’s words seriously, and set up for myself a sort of informal annual check-up. At a certain time each year, I think back to that time the previous year. I think back to what was feeling emotionally and physically. I check my diary and look at the sorts of things I was doing each week. I look for the accumulation of the small changes.

Would you like to do something similar?

The end of the year is a good, standard, traditional time to carry out that sort of annual review. One of my favourite writers, Chris Guillebeau, is even making part of his public at the moment on his blog.

Sample questions for your review:

How was I physically this time last year? Are there things I can do now that I couldn’t do back then?

What was I thinking about this time last year? What preoccupied me? Has my thinking changed, and if so, how?
How was I feeling this time last year? Am I feeling differently now? If so, how?

If you haven’t done a review before, give it go, and tell me in the comments how you found the exercise. And if you do this each year, tell me, how does it help you?

* FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.16.

5 Alexander Technique steps to everyday happiness: 5. Keep experimenting

In my reading of FM Alexander’s works recently, I was reminded very strongly of the supreme importance of experimentation. Alexander writes:

“We must always remember that the vast majority of human beings live very narrow lives, doing the same thing and thinking the same thoughts day by day, and it is this fact that makes it so necessary that we should acquire conscious control of the mental and physical powers as a whole, for we otherwise run the risk of losing that versatility which is an essential factor in their development.” *

The phrase in this that stopped me in my tracks was that first one, “the vast majority of human beings live very narrow lives, doing the same thing and thinking the same thoughts day by day…” Is this me? I asked myself.

Is this you? And even if it is true of me or you, does it really matter if we do and think the same things day by day?

Why it matters.

I am about to say something controversial. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter if you decide to spend the next decade or three slumping. It isn’t going to kill you. With only a few potential exceptions, the way you sit or walk isn’t going to be a life or death issue.

But it is a quality of life issue.

If we choose to do the same things in the same way day after day, or worse, if we don’t even realise we are doing the same things in the same way day after day, we risk dulling our ability to be versatile. We lose our skill at rolling with the punches. Which means that when we experience some sort of (possibly externally initiated) form of sudden change, like an injury or illness or sudden redundancy from work, we struggle to know what to do.

Even if we don’t experience anything so major, if we stay content with doing and thinking the same stuff day by day, we risk a far more subtle kind of injury – the dulling of our enjoyment of things.

Alexander’s definition of happiness is the kind of absorption seen in a child doing something that interests it. And having watched my own son, what I have noticed is that this absorption is most apparent when he is experimenting.

He doesn’t build the same structures with his Lego, slavishly following the instruction book. He builds the bricks that way once, takes it apart, and then goes freeform. He experiments. He plays. He messes up, gets frustrated, pulls it apart, then tries again. And each thing he builds is fascinating.

According to Alexander, versatility is important. And we build versatility by playing and experimenting. We build it by getting things wrong, getting frustrated, going back to the beginning and trying again.

So. Tell me: what will you experiment with this week?

* FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.65.
Image by Afonso Lima, stock.xchng

5 Alexander Technique steps to everyday happiness: 4. Live in the present moment

Next week my recorder quartet will be playing a concert, and my thoughts about the rehearsal process are what have led me to today’s tip for everyday happiness: being in and reacting to the present moment.

The piece that my quartet will play to begin our concert is called The Jogger, by Dick Koomans (the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet play it extremely well here). It is one of those pieces of music where one person starts, then the next person comes in, copying what the first person does. Then the third person joins, copying the first two players.

The trouble we had initially with this piece as a quartet is that the third player didn’t exactly following the style of playing (intonation) set up by the first two players. And if all the players don’t agree, then the result can sound a little odd.

What happens is that each player goes away and practises the piece on their own. They spend time working on their own style of playing it. But when we get together to practise as a group, we have to find a way to play the music together, sounding as one unit. This means that we really need to spend time listening to each other, and responding in the moment to what we hear going on around us. And if we don’t listen to each other and just press on and play the way we practised, then the result just doesn’t sound the same.

Lifting past chairs

But it isn’t only musicians who need to spend time in the present moment. Even on the simplest of tasks we can fall into the trap of not sticking with the present moment, but either dallying in the past or straying into the future. FM Alexander used as his example a person asking a friend to lift a chair:

“You will see at once that your friend will approach the task with a definite preconception as to the amount of physical tension necessary. His mind is exclusively occupied with the question of his own muscular effort, instead of with the purpose in front of him and the best means to undertake it.” *

Our friend lifting the chair approaches the task with “a definite preconception” – they will probably have decided upon the likely weight of the chair and tensed muscles in readiness long before their fingers touch the object. To all intents and purposes, they aren’t really picking up the chair in front of them. They are picking up all the chairs they have picked up in the past!

Most of the time it won’t be the end of the world – misjudging the weight of the chair isn’t likely to have serious consequences! But if we keep relying on our preconceptions, to the point where we forget that we are even doing so, then we are locking ourselves out of the present moment. And that will make it so much harder to react quickly when it really counts.

So my task for you this week is this:

Think about the times and places where you do genuinely experience the present moment. For blogger Jamey Burrell, it is when he is running. What about you?
And for the next week, keep an eye on yourself. See how often you operate on preconceptions, and whether it sometimes trips you up.

Oh, and if you’re in Bristol next Wednesday lunchtime and have nothing to do, come along to my concert!

* FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.63.
Image by Gregor O’Gorman

5 Alexander Technique steps to everyday happiness: 2. Rejoice that you are fallible

In my teaching room, I have a cupboard. It has two main uses. Firstly, it stows my computer away out of sight. This is its practical use. But it has a far more important function than that.

It stores all of my students’ sticks.

Sticks? I hear you ask.

Yes, sticks. The sticks they beat themselves up with.

Mental sticks

Obviously I don’t mean actual physical sticks. I’m talking about something far more insidious, though just as damaging. I am talking about the things that people believe about themselves and say to me during their lessons.

“I have such terrible posture.”
“I sit really badly.”
“My right leg is okay. But my left leg is really bad.”
“I know that my walking isn’t good, but there’s nothing I can do to make it better.”
“If my furniture at work was better, I wouldn’t have this neck pain.”

Why these statements are sticks

1. They are examples of what I was talking about last week: they are examples of thinking that is stuck in a groove. They are conclusions masquerading as statements of fact, and the reasoning on which those conclusions are based has long been forgotten. The assumptions are hidden. And hidden assumptions are dangerous!

2. They are conclusions that assume that improvement is impossible. When someone says “I have terrible posture,” typically the unstated ending to the sentence is something like “and it can’t change.” And the student sincerely believes this, because so far they haven’t been able to change what is bothering them. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t change.

3. Because these statements assume that change is impossible, they are a means of abdicating self-responsibility. Think about it. If something can’t change, the how much responsibility do we need to take for changing it? None! Instead, we claim the apparently unchangeable behaviour and use it to make ourselves feel bad.

Give up the stick!

This is what I tell my students. I fact, I hold out my hand and require them to give them up! Here is why.

1. Change is possible.

2. Change begins by owning up to the things that we do to ourselves. Or as FM Alexander would put it, we need to “acknowledge in fact that [we] suffer from mental delusions regarding [our] physical acts.” *

3. Doing this is not an admission of failure. It is an admission of power. As soon as we stop beating ourselves up and own up to the unnecessary muscular activity we are doing to ourselves, we have gained power over it. We are no longer slaves to discomfort. We have, in fact, taken the first major step to mastering it.

So give up your sticks. Send them to me – write them down in the comments and leave them there. And then you’ll have taken a leap away from discomfort and towards everyday happiness.

* FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.59.

Image by Mati Martek, stock.xchng