One of the aims of the Alexander Technique is to bring our unconscious habits into our awareness, so that choice may enter in. Over excited Fear Reflexes and the state of what we call “nerves” afflict the majority of humans. In greater and greater numbers, people are taking drugs to calm their nerves and medicate their anxieties. There are many secondary problems that sometimes come along with this way of dealing with stress, not the least of which is that medicating sometimes fails to solve anything at all.
While I’m not advocating against the use of medication in treating emotional problems, I am suggesting that no pill can stop the consequences of a life lived unconsciously. We get what we practice and as we practice the habit of living unconsciously and becoming the slave of fear, we get better at it. We become what we do and how we act.
The only way to change these negative uses of self is to STOP and address it in another way. By becoming fully aware of what one is doing to oneself as one is caught up worrying and in the fear state, and then applying the learned “directions” one can actually change the mind/body habits from taking over one’s behavior. This way we can take charge over our behavior, habits and our lives.