Alexander Technique teacher Jennifer Roig-Francoli writes: When you really grasp the full significance of this, you will come to realize that you are just as free to go in the “wrong” direction (a direction that is unhelpful and causes suffering) as you are to aim in the “right” direction (a direction that is helpful and relieves suffering).
This is the reality: you are free to choose to think thoughts that hurt you, and you’re free to do the wrong thing. You’re free to stiffen and tighten your neck. You’re free to collapse and pull down, and you’re free to compress yourself so much that you can’t breathe or play the flute.
You’re free to make your life more difficult, and you’re free to make yourself progressively less happy. You’re even free to do that to other people.
At first glance, this may seem obvious to you. And most of us want to be and feel “good”, and to do the “right” thing. We want to be helpful and healthy and establish good habits that bring happiness to ourselves and others….
Can you grant yourself the freedom to be bad, go wrong, and mess up? Or do you stop halfway and only give yourself partial freedom, because it’s terrifying to imagine what might happen if you recognized the staggeringly immense freedom that you already have?
