Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

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Emotional release

There is a box of tissues in my room on the edge of the bookcase. It's always there with a fresh tissue poking out ready for use. Springtime in London usually brings a bout of hay fever, winter brings its dose of flu and colds, but more importantly, during Alexander Technique lessons, there can also be a little flood of tears as my client finds a new release from some physical tensions and emotions well to the surface.

I've written before about Body and emotions and that the physical and emotional cannot be separated; one affects the other and they are inextricably linked. Peanuts also has something to say about it too.

Being aware now that I may be giving the impression that every second person who comes for Alexander Technique lessons experience floods of tears, I want to assure you that this is certainly not the case and the occurrence only happens on rare occasions. But then one could ask, are they tears of sadness.....or are they tears of happiness? Well sometimes there is no knowing which they are as in one moment they appear to be the former but they the next moment they appear to be of happiness or relief; they are both all at the same time. Sometimes people just can't stop laughing and fits of giggles ensue; no tears, but a wonderful emotional release.

As an aside, I would like to quote from July issue of The Strad magazine for violinists and string players, and Simon Fischer's excellent and wonderfully enlightening page on technique where he offers advice on vibrato. (He must have known about my own endeavours and two months work on vibrato!) Simon talks of 'The throb of pure emotion', (wow). "The quivers of vibrato are closely connected with those of emotion. When you laugh or cry, you make physical motions in your breathing, muscle movements of your chest, stomach, solar plexus an so on.

Yet supposedly 'opposite' feelings are like two sides of the same coin. Joy and sorrow are so closely related that sometimes you cannot tell if someone who has become hysterical is laughing or crying - A musical phrase may seem happy one moment and sad the next or it may contain equal feelings of both at the same time. The throb of vibrato on a stringed instrument is like pure emotion - but is it one of joy or sorrow?"

Is it one, or is it the other? Do we really need to know? Whatever the description, we are being simply or profoundly 'moved'. Music is a language just as any other, and it can touch our soul. But where in our body is our 'soul' to be found? It's not in the heart, the head, stomach or any other place. It does not show itself in any anatomical illustrations, yet we talk of our soul as though it is an identifiable part of us. 'Body and Soul' implies they are separate, so maybe our body 'houses' our soul and we are told that it can eventually move on. Whatever it is and wherever it is, I feel that it is my soul that's being moved when I listen to beautiful music and I don't know whether I am happy or sad. The emotion is not in any distinct part of me, in my heart, head or anywhere else; I feel it throughout my whole self. I am consumed by it. And of course our 'whole self' is made up of muscles, bones organs, tissue, water, etc and it must be within our total psycho-physical self that we feel the emotion.

F.M Alexander often referred to his technique in terms of relearning poise, the re-education of the psycho-physical self. We access our 'whole self' through our thinking and we can change our postural habits. It is also accessed through our subconscious; what is it about music that can transport us so to another place and lift or lower our spirits? What is it about music, or a poem, a dance or a story that can turn on the waterworks and cause us to reach for the tissues? On a physical level when we let go of unnecessary tensions we are changing the state of our whole 'psycho-physical' self. The human touch in physical contact, treatment, therapy, a friendly supportive hug, are all extremely strong stimuli that through our proprioception, our senses, the nerve endings in our skin and musculature, can trigger whole changes on a total psycho-physical level. There is not one bit of us that we can leave out.

With a release of physical tension there can often be an emotional release. When we hear beautiful music that touches our soul we may release a few tears. And with such we are changing our current state; we are moving on. We have been moved. Afterwards we are not in the same state as we were before and I'll tell you this. When I get moved, be it through Alexander work, music, theatre or any other means, I'm so glad to feel the release, sometimes joy, laughter and tears. Because when we really let go, we're letting 'stuff' out. We're no longer hanging on to what it was that we previously held onto. We're shifting 'stuff' out. Afterwards we feel refreshed, washed and tumbled in the washing machine, rinsed and spun-dry and how good it feels! It's good to let go, by any means possible.

It's good to have a box of tissues handy and I'm always pleased to see them being used. Whether the reason is extreme sadness from loss, or ecstatic happiness at gain or just joy at being alive.....we're letting go. We're moving on. And that is what this is all about.

:-)

Posted by Noël on June 22, 2007 8:29 AM | Permalink