Personal sensitiveness is, to a great degree, a form of nervous
tension. An individual case of the relief of this sensitiveness,
although laughable in the means of cure, is so perfectly
illustrative of it that it is worth telling. A lady who suffered
very much from having her feelings hurt came to me for advice. I
told her whenever anything was said to wound her, at once to imagine
her legs heavy,--that relaxed her muscles, freed her nerves, and
relieved the tension caused by her sensitive feelings. The cure
seemed to her wonderful. It would not have done for her to think a
table heavy, or a chair, or to have diverted her mind in any other
way, for it was the effect of relaxation in her own body that she
wanted, which came from persistently thinking her legs heavy.
Neither could her sensitiveness have taken a very deep hold, or mere
outside relaxation would not have reached it; but that outside
process had the effect of greatly assisting in the power to use a
higher philosophy with the mind.
Self-consciousness and all the personal annoyances that come with or
follow it are to so great an extent nervous tension, that the ease
with which they may be helped seems sometimes like a miracle to
those who study for a better guidance of their bodies.
Of worries, from the big worries with a real foundation to the
miserable, petty, nagging worries that wear a woman's nervous system
more than any amount of steady work, there is so much to be said
that it would prove tedious, and indeed unnecessary to recount them.
A few words will suggest enough toward their remedy to those who are
looking in the right direction, and to others many words would be of
no avail.
The petty worries are the most wearing, and they fortunately are the
most easily helped. By relaxing the muscular contractions invariably
accompanying them we seem to make an open channel, and they slip
through,--which expression I am well aware is not scientific. The
common saying, "Cares roll off her like water off a duck's back,"
means the same thing. Some human ducks are made with backs eminently
fitted for cares to slip from; but those whose backs seem to be made
to hold the cares can remould themselves to the right proportions,
and there is great compensation in their appreciation of the
contrast.
Never resist a worry. It is increased many times by the effort to
overcome it. The strain of the effort makes it constantly more
difficult to drop the strain of the worry. When we quietly go to
work to relax the muscles and so quiet the nerves, ignoring a worry,
the way in which it disappears is surprising. Then is the time to
meet it with a broad philosophizing on the uselessness of worry,
etc., and "clinch" our freedom, so to speak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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