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learned practical things like how to get off my bed and how to get in and out of a car more easily” (Veteran’s comments paraphrased).
Repeated experience is necessary to learn this work for your habits to change. Walk the same pathway on the grass, and you will wear away the grass. Change your pathway, and you will create a new path leaving the old one to regrow.
With movement and the Alexander Technique, you are creating new “neurological” pathways and allowing old ones to fade. The former pathway is still in your memory; however, you can make a choice to use and reinforce the new one, thus allowing the old pathway to fade. You learn to bring intention to your movement in the same way a baby is motivated by their environment to roll over and crawl. Babies become curious about something they see and want to touch, which motivates them to move in that direction. Their desire to move has a purpose and a motivation.
Even without purposeful practice, research tells us the experience from lessons will find their way into your thinking, and you are likely to experience change. “After one year the results of this work remain effective. Six lessons followed by exercise prescription were as effective as 24 lessons.” You may think of the process of learning the Alexander Technique as noticing how you think in your body. If you think, “I'm in a rush, hurry up," you will move differently than if you invite in the thought of “ease,” “connectivity,” “fluidity,” and, “I have all the time in the world.” The change in your thinking may slow you down slightly, and it will increase your efficiency and reduce your tension. You will find you achieve more with less effort. The Alexander Technique allows you to respond to your environment without the baggage of old muscular memories. You see, hear and respond to the situation as it is happening in real time, without the judgmental thoughts
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