“The trouble is most of us grow up with the idea that just thinking about doing something is one thing and actually doing it is another. In the Alexander work we soon find out that there is no wall or line separating the former from the latter. We learn that whatever boundary there is is so tenuous that to distinguish between the thinking-about-doing and doing is of little use or value except academically. The distinction may have theoretical value, but…
In all our activities, we tend to pull our heads back and contract or shorten ourselves. We give ourselves an order or direction to do a certain thing, and then we fight against ourselves in doing it. Whereas the head naturally wants to go forward and up and the back to lengthen and widen. That’s all there is to it. But it works. Whatever we may think about it, there it is!F.M. Alexander as recounted by Goddard Binkley (Taken from…
Six or seven places in my books I have made a remark which no one ever seems to remember, and that is that ends come of themselves. When you sit down you are in too much of a hurry to do so. You drive right for the end. Don’t think about the end! Don’t think about sitting down! What you do want to do, however, is to think of the means that are right for you to attain the end….
When we set out to do a thing, getting it done is not the really important thing. Rather, what is, above all, important, is to pay attention to what we are doing to ourselves while in the process of doing that which we set out to do.F.M. Alexander as recounted by Goddard Binkley (“The Expanding Self” p90)