Toothache

Prevention or cure?

The Alexander Technique can relieve a lot of pain but unfortunately not toothache! Having been recently afflicted by this particular kind of unpleasantness, I was reflecting upon my immense gratitude to the power of modern antibiotics. There is such a sense of relief when you can swallow a few pills and hey presto! the pain is gone. I can fully understand why most people would prefer the quick fix to the long term learning. That’s probably why the osteopath or chiropractor has more clients than the Alexander teacher.

Why such a reluctance to take responsibility for our own health and well being?

We wouldn’t treat an expensive piece of furniture or a new car with such carelessness. Yet every day we treat ourselves without due respect - bending and loading our bodies into shapes they are not designed to withstand, rushing breathlessly from one task to the next. We get so wrapped up in what we are doing that we fail to notice how we are doing it.

Maybe I could have prevented my toothache. And maybe not. Stuff happens and we have the task of making the best use of what we have. The body is an amazingly adaptable organism responding to each and every change that comes along. By getting out of our own way and by this I mean letting go of fixed ways of doing things and rigid ways of thinking, we can allow our amazingly adaptable organism to heal and continue living smoothly and unruffled.