Why do our reactions feel true?
If you try to observe yourself, even briefly, something becomes clear quite quickly.
Attention does not hold. It shifts, disappears, returns, and is lost again.
This is the first difficulty.
And yet, despite this, our experience feels convincing.
What we think, feel and perceive—these seem real, immediate, and often certain. Even when we later see that we were mistaken, in the moment itself there is rarely any doubt.
This is the second difficulty.
Not only is attention unstable, but what arises within it carries a sense of authority. What we experience feels true, whether or not it is reliable.
Take a simple case.
You are engaged in a task. Something interrupts it—a delay, a mistake, an unexpected difficulty. Almost immediately, a reaction forms. A thought appears: this shouldn’t be happening. A feeling follows: irritation. The body tightens.
In that moment, the reaction does not appear as one possibility among others. It appears to be the event itself. The thought seems reasonable. The feeling seems appropriate. The whole response feels as though it simply reflects what is happening.
But something else has already taken place.
Before the reaction becomes visible, the situation has already been organised in a particular way—expectation has formed, tension has gathered, the body has adjusted. The reaction is not the beginning of the event, but a later expression of a process already underway.
This is usually missed.
We experience the reaction as the whole event, rather than as part of a wider organisation. And because it arrives with immediacy and conviction, it is taken as true.
Only later—if attention returns—does it become possible to see that what seemed obvious was already shaped. That the reaction was not simply caused by what happened, but by how the whole situation had already been organised.
But in the moment itself, this is not seen.
The reaction carries conviction.
This is not limited to irritation. A passing thought about oneself—I am doing this badly—can feel immediately true. A mood can colour everything, so that the whole situation seems slightly off. A memory can arise with a sense of certainty, even if it is incomplete or distorted.
In each case, what is experienced feels self-validating.
We do not question it, because there is nothing within the experience itself that signals its own limitation.
If anything, the opposite is true.
The more immediate an experience feels, the more convincing it tends to be.
This is why the instability of attention is not the whole problem.
Even if we begin to see that attention wanders, this does not weaken the authority of what arises within it. Thoughts still feel true. Feelings still feel justified.
Something else is needed.
Not more intense experience, and not more analysis, but a different relationship to what is taking place.
If, even briefly, attention is present at the moment a reaction forms, something changes.
A thought appears—but it is seen as a thought. A feeling arises—but it is felt as a movement, not immediately taken as a conclusion.
The reaction is still there, but the sense of certainty begins to loosen.
It becomes possible to see that what feels convincing is not necessarily clear. What is being seen is not simply the reaction, but the process from which it has emerged.
This is a small shift, but it has consequences.
Because if the authority of experience is not absolute, then it cannot serve as a final guide. It becomes something to be observed, not simply followed.
And this raises a further question.
If experience is shaped by conditions we do not usually see—by habit, by reaction, by the state of attention itself—then clarity cannot come from experience alone.
It must depend on something else.
What actually happens when you try to observe yourself
It sounds simple to observe oneself.
You decide, for a moment, to pay attention—to notice what is taking place as it happens. You begin with something ordinary: making a cup of tea, preparing a meal, writing an email. Nothing demanding. Just the intention to be present.
Almost immediately, something else occurs.
Attention shifts. A thought appears—about what comes next, or something left undone. The body continues with the task, but awareness is no longer with it. A moment later, you realise you have been elsewhere. The original intention has already been forgotten.
You return. For a second or two, there is clarity. The movement of the hands, the posture of the body, the sounds in the room—these are noticed directly. But the clarity does not last. Another thought arises. Or a feeling. Or a small irritation. Again, attention is taken, and the act of observing disappears.
This can repeat many times in a short space.
What becomes apparent is not simply that attention wanders, but how quickly and completely the intention to observe vanishes. It is not replaced by anything dramatic. It is simply gone, as if it had never been there.
Look a little more closely, and another feature appears. What feels like a single reaction is made of several processes unfolding at once.
Take a small moment of irritation. Something goes slightly wrong—the kettle takes too long, an email fails to send, an object is misplaced. Almost instantly, a thought appears: this shouldn’t be happening. Alongside it, a feeling: tightness, impatience, heat. And the body responds: a contraction in the shoulders, a change in breathing, a shift in posture.
These are different processes—thought, feeling, sensation—but they are taken as one. We say I am irritated, as though it were a single event. But if attention is present, even briefly, it becomes possible to see that they are not the same. They arise together, influence one another, and pass.
Most of the time, none of this is noticed. The reaction unfolds and carries us with it. Only afterwards—if at all—do we realise anything has happened.
Even this much observation is difficult to sustain.
The difficulty is not in understanding what to do. The idea is simple: to notice what is taking place. What proves difficult is remembering—and maintaining attention for more than a moment. Attention collapses quickly. We become absorbed in the thought, the feeling, the task—and the possibility of observing is lost.
At this point, a familiar assumption begins to look less certain.
We often assume that our experience reflects what is happening, that perception is a reliable guide. But if attention is this unstable—if it shifts so easily, if different processes blend together without being seen—then what we call experience may not be as clear or trustworthy as it feels.
This is not a philosophical conclusion. It is something that can be seen directly, in the midst of ordinary activity.
Try it, if you like.
Choose a simple task you would do anyway, and attempt to observe yourself for a minute or two. Not to analyse or interpret, but simply to notice what is being thought, what is being felt, what is happening in the body.
You may find that attention holds for a few seconds, then disappears. That it returns, then is lost again. That what seemed obvious becomes harder to see the moment you try to look at it directly.
None of this is a failure.
It is the beginning of something more interesting.
Because what starts to become visible is not just the content of experience, but the way it is formed. The instability of attention, the speed of reaction, the blending of processes—these are not exceptions. They are the usual conditions in which experience occurs.
To see this, even briefly, is already to step outside it. Not completely, and not for long. But enough to sense that the thing we call a single, continuous awareness may be far more fragmented than it appears.
And from here, another question emerges—not what we experience, but how we experience, and whether it might be possible, over time, to see more clearly.
All Practices Are Carried Out at Once
“All practices are carried out at once: there is no before or after, and no in between.”
— Zen Dawn: Early Zen Texts from Tun Huang, trans. J. C. Cleary (Shambhala, 1986), p.291
We are inclined to think in sequences.
First awareness.
Then inhibition.
Then choice.
Then direction.
Then movement — or not.
But lived experience does not divide itself so neatly.
The organism is never waiting to begin.
Before visible movement, organisation is already shifting.
Before speech, tone and breath are forming.
Before we are aware of deciding, something in us is orienting.
There is no empty interval between impulse and action.
Preparation, inhibition, orientation and execution are distinguishable in thought.
But in life they are not separate. They are aspects of one unfolding organisation.
Inhibition, then, is not a momentary pause. It is not a gap inserted into time. It is the sustained capacity to remain adaptable while action is forming — not allowing the first familiar pattern to close too quickly around us.
When organisation narrows prematurely, effort localises, breath shortens, perception tightens. Reaction hardens into habit.
When adaptability is sustained, a different quality appears.
Elastic organisation within gravity.
Not lifting away from gravity.
Not collapsing into it.
Not bracing against it.
Simply coherent, responsive support.
We see this easily in an alert animal: upright without stiffness, ready without strain. The head is poised, the spine alive, the whole creature available.
There are moments in which awareness is quiet and purposeless — no project, no vector, no movement forming. That too is a mode of organisation.
There are other moments when movement is about to occur. A direction appears. A trajectory forms. To lead with the head at such a moment is not to perform a separate act before moving. It is to allow orientation to shape the movement from within. Intention, inhibition and execution are not lined up one after another. They are carried together.
Direction is not a command to parts. It is a decision about relationship. To conduct a direction is not to push energy, but to allow that decision to be reflected in the whole of one’s support — in breathing, in balance, in how one meets the horizon.
The system responds to intention, provided we do not interfere.
We are not repairing a mechanism. We are refining participation in a living organisation that is already at work.
All practices are carried out at once.
The question is not what to add between impulse and action, but whether we can remain present as organisation unfolds — adaptable, oriented, and free from premature narrowing.
- I am grateful to Erika Whittaker for drawing my attention to this line which, although not referring specifically to directions, calls to mind Alexander’s phrase “all together, one after the other”, used when describing the giving of directions in The Use of the Self. ↩︎
Forthcoming Workshops & Residentials
In the forthcoming workshops and residentials we will work directly with themes found in my blog posts — particularly the clarity of first-generation teaching, inhibition as a living principle, and the question of how this work stands in the 21st century.
We will return to fundamentals: the head–neck–back relationship, stopping the wrong thing first, and the small but decisive interval in which organisation — in mind and body — either settles into habit or remains fluid. The work will be practical. Ideas will be tested in activity.
We will also look carefully at language. Not to discard what has been handed down, but to ask whether nineteenth-century terminology is always the most exact way of describing what we now understand more fully. The principles themselves are not in question. The precision of their articulation may be.
The value of the work lies in its application — in speaking, teaching, performing, deciding, relating. Lest we forget, “The Alexander Technique is a means to an end, not an end in itself.”
These days and weekends are for those who wish to work seriously and without embellishment — refining perception and strengthening the capacity to remain fluid in mind and body, and to meet life with adaptability rather than habit.
One-day workshops
- Saturday 11 April, 11am to 5.30pm
- Saturday 9 May, 11am to 5.30 pm
- Saturday 6 June, 11am to 5.30pm
Cost: £120 (Students £96) per day; lunch and snacks included
| Saturday Schedule | |
| Time | |
| 10:30-11:00 | Arrival/coffee |
| 11:00-13:00 | First session |
| 13:00-14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00-15:30 | Second session |
| 15:30-16:00 | Tea |
| 16:00-17:30 | Third session |
Weekend Residential Courses
- 31 July to 2 August
- 11 to 13 September
Cost: £420 (Students £336) per weekend; food and accommodation included
| Weekend Schedule | |||
| Time | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
| 08:00-09:00 | Check-in | Breakfast | Breakfast |
| 09:30-11:00 | Session 4 | Session 8 | |
| 11:00-11:30 | Coffee | Coffee | Coffee |
| 11:30-13:00 | Session 1 | Session 5 | Session 9 |
| 13:00-14:00 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
| 15:00-16:30 | Session 2 | Session 6 | Session 10 |
| 16:30-17:00 | Tea | Tea | Tea |
| 17:00-18:30 | Session 3 | Session 7 | Departure |
| 19:30-21:00 | Dinner | Dinner | |
To enquire about availability, contact me by email.
Meeting Reality: An Imagined Contemporary Alexander
Alexander was not primarily a theorist but an experimenter. If he were working now — with access to contemporary language about motor control and anticipation — how might he describe what he discovered? What follows is an imaginative exercise: not a replacement for his words, but an attempt to speak enduring principles in contemporary terms.
When my voice again showed signs of strain, I had access to resources unimaginable in the nineteenth century. I underwent medical examination, worked with skilled voice teachers and therapists, and explored contemporary approaches to breathing, performance, and stress regulation. These were intelligent and often helpful. Yet the essential difficulty remained.
The problem did not lie in the vocal folds, nor in breathing mechanics, nor in posture as alignment. It lay in what occurred the moment I intended to speak.
Before producing a sound, my whole organism prepared itself. My neck stiffened, my head subtly retracted, my torso compressed, my breathing altered. These changes were rapid and largely outside awareness. One might say the nervous system predicts what is about to happen and organises in advance. Prediction is necessary. The difficulty arises when preparation becomes fixed before it is required.
No local correction resolves a problem that begins in premature commitment. When I tried to improve my voice directly, I merely added more doing. The underlying pattern remained.
Only when I learned to pause — to refuse the immediate habitual response to intention — did something different occur. This was not collapse or relaxation. It was the prevention of premature stabilisation — what I once called inhibition: stopping the wrong thing first.
When interference ceased, the relationship between head and torso changed. The head no longer pulled back and down, the neck no longer shortened, the torso lengthened and widened without effort, and breathing reorganised itself. In practice this proved simple: allow the head to go forward and up in relation to the torso, and the organism reorganises; interfere with that relationship, and distortion follows. The improvement in the voice was a consequence.
What became clear was that we do not simply act — we prepare to act, and that preparation often contains the very distortion we later attempt to correct. When habitual commitment is suspended, organisation remains adaptable. Action and adjustment unfold together rather than in rigid sequence. The head–torso relationship is a sensitive place where such fixation shows itself. Prevent fixation there, and interference reduces.
It has become clearer that much of our organisation occurs before consciousness catches up. By the time we intend to act, preparation is underway. Conscious influence therefore does not initiate action so much as prevent misdirection. There is a brief but workable interval in which preparation has begun but has not yet hardened. In that interval one can refrain from adding interference, allowing organisation to remain fluid rather than fixed.
The work therefore concerns more than voice production. It concerns how we meet each moment: through accumulated habit, stabilising in advance of what we expect, or through ongoing adaptability. This I would now describe as adaptive presence — not the absence of anticipation, but the refusal to let anticipation close too soon.
Upward Thought 
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