Flip on a light switch or turn on the water.
Do you ever think about all the people and processes necessary to make that happen? Do you think about how to generate, control, and transmit power or pressurize, purify, and move water? I’d say most people don’t give it a second thought.
The same was true for me almost 35 years ago when I desperately sought a way to avoid surgery from chronic, debilitating back pain. Many skilled practitioners had tried to help me by some form of manipulation or state of the art exercises, exercises that are still used today. Their efforts were well intentioned but ultimately fruitless.
As a last ditch effort, I agreed to try the Alexander Technique, which is a psychophysical reeducation process posthumously named for its founder, F. M. Alexander. Initially, I was baffled by an unusual approach.
First I was asked to get out of a chair. OK, simple enough, just stand up and sit down. After three repetitions of what I thought was my best effort, (always wanting to be a good student), I was surprised to hear the question.
“Why do you do it that way?”
I don’t know? I answered, I don’t think about it, I just do it. And with a look of compassion, she said, “It’s time you thought about it”.
Why should I think about how I move in and out of a chair, I wondered? Wasn’t it obvious that I performed the movement reasonably well? Or was there something she was seeing that I could not, like walking around with the tags on your clothes hanging out. It was a bit unnerving for me to know someone was perceiving something I didn’t.
Although unusual, I was assured my experience was not uncommon.
As I was to discover, most movement patterns like getting in and out of a chair are, by design, unconscious. Even the simplest human movements are enormously complex, so the brain has to consolidate past experiences into concepts.
Concepts, according to the brain scientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, are used by the brain to group both internal and external sensations. The concept then operates through the unconscious brain for speed and efficiency. Later, I was to learn of many concepts filled with errors, beliefs I thought were correct, but proved to be incorrect and harmful.
Concept errors like all people who wear plaid flannel shirts look like Paul Bunyan are easy to change. But concepts like the way I move is not damaging to the tissues in my body because it feels right, can have serious repercussions and are not easy to change. Unknowingly I had imbued a simple movement like getting out of a chair with harmful habits that were responsible for my back pain. And the simple movements were indicative of how I did all movements
Although simple, the movements opened a window for me to see and feel what had been hidden in plain sight.
Hidden because the movements were unconscious, but in plain sight, because I moved up and down in space many times every day.
There are a number of takeaways from this and other experiences like it, but I will highlight two.
The first was for me to develop a healthy skepticism about feelings/sensations. They are often inaccurate and need to be corrected.
The second, can I be open to change errors in my unconscious concepts?
It took a generous attitude to change brain/body concepts and take responsibility for what I did to myself…. however unintended.
~ Edward Bilanchone
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