The Agonist and the Ecstasy

 In muscular action two muscles around a joint often have opposite roles. One the agonist performs the contraction while the antagonist is one of relaxation. There can also be eccentric contractions which allows a weight to be lowered slowly and smoothly, and both muscles coordinate the action. My current understanding is that my anxiety interferes with my ability to come a more idealized standing and sitting posture. When I am activating my flexors, I don't completely activate my extensors muscles. Over habituation of my lifetime the partial activation of my flexors could no longer be felt consciously.  The incomplete activation of my extensors also became normal, and I lived my life in an inferior musculoskeletal pattern

Working with the mini dramas I am trying to find anxiety provoking subjects and feel what I am doing. The greater the anxiety the more I seem to be able to feel the activation of my flexor pattern.  In this particular drama the wife is a divorce attorney. She professes a great love for her husband even getting his name tattooed on her collar bone. but she recklessly seeks out affairs with other men. During the drama her current lover continually send texts and videos of their affair to the husband.  They even drug him so they can heighten the thrill of their escapade while he is asleep next to them. The plot, the acting, are ridiculous but from the get go I identify with the husband.  In many of the dramas the cheating spouse can't stand the innocent spouse or has been conned by a scumbag which can be partially understood. However, to have a spouse who shows great sincerity in one minute and in the next she is pursuing her own ecstasy evokes a greater sense of loss in me.  If I don't take frequent breaks while watching, I can't easily clue in to what I am doing muscularly.  Taking a pause, I can feel the tightness in my ribs and a significant portion of the flexor pattern that has been cued.  This pattern is always present in me even when doing simple tasks however the greater the anxiety the more I am in conflict with myself.

Always afraid

 Gradually I am starting to realize I am always scared. Even though I can pretend to interact normally with people, behind it there is a systemic muscular patter of anxiety.  Most of the time when I am driving my head is nowhere near the headrest. If I attempt to sit straight, I can force the issue, but it does not feel comfortable. Just recently I have been able to partially interrupt my usual flexion pattern and felt my head resting against the head rest. I wasn't trying to sit up but to relax and inhibit my anxiety patter especially around the upper chest clavicle and sternum.  Again, it is not something I can maintain because as soon as I stop paying attention to it, I reactivate my normal way of being.

In this Chinese mini drama  the female lead finds she really loved her poor substitute boyfriend after all.  At minute 38 she feels the loss and her chest hurts and she can't breathe. I know this is a cheap drama but it reflects the muscular pattern of closing down the chest and restricting the lungs from fully expanding.  I believe it's how I lived my whole life. I remember seeing a risqué film were the young females bosom rose and fell and I thought there is no way my chest and ribs could move like that. I was puzzled at the time but now I am actually starting to feel what I am actively doing and can interrupt the pattern at times

Just a Thought

 Gradually it is becoming clearer that any anxiety causes me to begin the flexion pattern systemically throughout my body.  Just a thought of the slightest anxiety and my shoulder raise, the sternum is pulled downward, the scapulas wing and raise, my spine flexes and withdraws, my ribs anteriorly close and pull together and I rotate my pelvis. posteriorly my femurs rotate inward. The movement is slight but varies in intensity to the amount of stress I am feeling.  The cheap dramas give me a vehicle to monitor the movements, but I am constantly surprised how quickly I forget not to initiate the pattern. It is also very difficult for me to feel and assess if I am completely letting the pattern go.  At times I feel I have accomplished a relaxation which manifests as completely erect relax posture and 5 seconds later I revert to some degree my usual pattern.  It is hard for me to determine how much is an activation or physiological modifications to my skeletal system over time.

Get a Back Jack

 I received an email ad today for a Feldenkrais program. It spent some time on talking about breath and listening to your body as you lay on the floor.  I am in agreement that in order to find what you are doing you have to be able feel instead of blindly following advice. What I think happens if I try to stand or sit in my usual way I have the rounded shoulders, and a posterior tilted pelvis but if I try to counteract by standing straight I put myself in opposition what my anxiety is dictating my body to do. This is felt as work and strain and I collapse myself back into my usual posture very quickly.  I have learned to adapt my way of walking, running and living to this faulty posture and in a way that's who I am.

Using the Asian dramas to promote an increase in my anxiety I am actively trying to increase the feeling of peril and sense what I am doing and interfere with my normal process. When I identify with the protagonist and become immersed in the plot it is almost impossible to feel what I am doing. It is not until step out of the frame and examine that I can feel what I am doing. Then I can relax the shoulders and sit with better posture. I am able to move into the chest relax the pressure on my sternum anterior.

There is another element that is appearing.  Not only do I round myself into a ball I move my center of gravity backward by withdrawing from what is front of me.  It seems to bring in a postural balance reaction. I then need extra muscular contractions to keep from falling backward. It is not until that I move my center of gravity forward that it allows my back to a more normal resting position.  There is a saying about having no backbone which is an accurate picture of my life.  My back is constantly under strain because it is an active response to anxiety

Immature Behavior

 I have been bingeing on cheaply made Chinese dramas. There are a few plots that are repeated over and over with some variations. Some of the most painful emotional experiences I have had are related to infidelity of both my lover at the time and my own botched attempt to cheat during my marriage.  Most of the dramas that I am bingeing on are about infidelity of the wife on the husband.  It feels easier for me to identify with husband and I try to monitor my own muscular response to the emotions being played out.

Moshe Feldenkrais wrote a book many years agon entitled Body and Mature Behavior.  In it there is a diagram of four postures I believe labeled A to D with A being the ideal and D being the opposite. I am in the D-  range for my normal activities.   Watching the dramas in their confrontational parts I can actively feel the global muscular contractions that are a very normal part of my life. Almost instantaneously I round the shoulders collapse my chest tightened my anterior intercostals and posteriorly rotate my pelvis. In effect rolling up into a ball.  There is some degree of this global action always present in the way I go through life.  Watching the dramas and playing with the global action I can feel the activity. However, even though there is some control as soon as I divert my attention I revert back to my normal.