Sometimes great help is given toward relaxing the
muscles of the chest and spine by pushing the body up as if to roll
it over, first one side and then the other, and letting it roll back
from its own weight. It is always good, after helping the separate
parts to a restful state, to take the body as a whole and roll it
over and over, carefully, and see if the owner can let you do so
without the slightest effort to assist you. It will be easily seen
that the power, once gained, of remaining perfectly passive while
another moves you, means a steadily increasing ability to relax at
all times when the body should be given to perfect rest. This power
to "let go" causes an increasing sensitiveness to all tension,
which, unpleasant as it always is to find mistakes of any kind in
ourselves, brings a very happy result in the end; for we can never
shun evils, physical or spiritual, until we have recognized them
fully, and every mistaken way of using our machine, when studiously
avoided, brings us nearer to that beautiful unconscious use of it
which makes it possible for us to forget it entirely in giving it
the more truly to its highest use.
After having been helped in some degree by another, and often
without that preliminary help, come the motions by which we are
enabled to free ourselves; and it is interesting to see how much
more easily the body will move after following this course of
exercises.
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