Eyes Open At All Times

At all times, unless a given exercises says otherwise, the eyes should be open. Some exercises in Part Two specifically call for the eyes to be closed (for example, the tonic eyes closed exercise on page 185). Reich termed this demand for the eyes to be open as "staying in contact." He was correct. It is all too easy to drop context and leave the body focus of the work when you allow your eyes to close.

Don't Overtax

I want to emphasize that you should not overtax yourself in these exercises. Far better to do too little, then to do too much. This is not a race, it is not a performance, it is not a competition. In each session, do no more than seems to be appropriate to your body and to your reactions. Whatever you leave undone, will still be there the next time and ready for the work. Here is the rule:

ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY

Frequency

Leave at least 48 hours between sessions. If you do a session on Monday, do not do another one before Thursday. Give your dreams time to work on the material.

On the other hand, doing the exercises only once every several weeks is too long. One time per week should be your minimum frequency

Duration

When you are doing the exercises, continue each exercise until your performance drops off dramatically (that is, you are physically tired or you simply can no longer do the exercise properly) or until you are getting so strong a response that you think it best to stop for this session.

As before, there is no harm in stopping early; but you also do not want to use a decrease in performance as a ready excuse to not proceed. Simple common sense is your best guide.

The maximum duration of work for any one session is one hour.

Post Exercise Sensing And Feeling

After each work session lie flat on the bed and sense your body. Don't stretch or move. Just extend your legs and lay quietly sensing your body. It works much better if you report the sensations out loud (talk to the ceiling). I could give you a list of all the possible reports, but that would be leading and I want you to have your own experience, not a copy of others' experiences. Take as long as you need to fully report. The sensations might weaken, they might strengthen, they might change in location or feel. Just report what you experience. Take as long as there is anything more that you can report. Keep in mind that there is a tendency to fall asleep. Don't worry if you do fall asleep; it only means that you have achieved significant relaxation.

It is crucial that the report be verbal. If you allow yourself to only think the report then almost immediately you will start to fantasize or you leave the sensations from your body and start thinking of something else. The only way to force yourself to stay with a report of your body sensations is to audibly speak the report.

Every sessions, even if it is a short one, should be followed by a sense and feel session. Extend your legs, don't move, just report out loud on any body sensations. This is an important part of the work.

Order Of The Exercises

Start with the daily work and with the breathing. You can either mostly complete Part One of this book before you go to Part Two or when you have the breathing down fairly well (you will see in this book that there is a lot to do — but the main thing is the belly-chest order and the sound), then you can go to Part Two in the book and work on the body. My recommendation, repeated several times, is that you get a good start on the breathing; then, while still working on the breathing in Part One of the book, start on the forehead and eyes exercises in Chapter 11.

Here is a shocker: everyone is different. You will move at your own pace. There is no harm in progressing quickly to the work in Part Two, but don't use that as a trick to short change the work to be done in Part One. In any event, do not do the work in Chapters 12 through 22, the work on the body, before you have fully worked on the forehead and eyes in Chapter 11.

Don't Punish Yourself

What is the most important word to parents? It is "discipline." What is the most important word to teachers? It is "behave." What is the most important word to statists? It is "obey."

In our life we are pushed to control, submit, inhibit. Now you are going to try to get rid of a lot of that obey burden. But you bring with you to the work the attitude of submission, of doing things properly. That "do it right attitude" is going to cause you no end of trouble with this work. You are going to have to fight that attitude throughout this work.

Reichian work is different from any verbal therapy you are in or have been in. The goal here — and this is really important — is that you allow rather than cause. This point needs emphasis.

If there is one error that people make more than any other in doing this type of work, that is body-oriented psychotherapy, it is that they try to "get something." They try to "make something happen." If you take that attitude I guarantee you that you will fail in this work. You will not get the desirable changes; you will not get insight; your character errors will not change, they will become more set and fixed. Don't seek after any particular experience, don't seek after any particular change; just do the work and allow to happen whatever happens.

Now, you might take that to mean license to allow destructive traits to emerge. So let me make it quite clear: the job of living is living.. A change that gets in the way of living is not a good change. If you notice that happening, if you notice at all that you are starting to act out in self-damaging ways, then consciously step in and stop it. To allow change to occur is not license to be self-destructive.

THE JOB OF LIVING IS LIVING. It is not the job of living to do therapy. This type of work should only be done to the extent that it aids you in the job of living. There is no reason, no excuse, to use therapy for self-destructive ends

When discussing the various exercises, I often mention errors that people make in the exercises.

Don't condemn yourself for not doing things perfectly. That fact that I mention the errors that I frequently see when I am working with patients is testimony that the respective error is seen often. That, in turn, means that it is a reasonable assumption that you, too, will make a lot of these errors. OK. Accept that. All too often students condemn themselves for not doing a given thing properly. That condemnation is not part of self-improvement, it is part of stuck-in-the-obey-attitude.

Can you name anything in life that you did perfectly from the start? If you can, you are a messiah. You are going to make errors, you are going to find things you can not do. Accept that fact. As you attempt each exercise, realize ahead of time that you are going to have to learn to do the exercise and you will not do it properly at the start. Yes there are some exercises that are easier to do than others but if you demand of yourself that you be able to do any given exercise only in the absolutely correct way then you are going to fail at this work.

Instead of demanding perfection of yourself and condemning yourself when you can't meet that standard, treat each exercise as a learning experience. The idea is to observe your errors with acceptance, not with condemnation.

Keep in mind that you are correcting a lifetime of character errors and that demands on your self and self-condemnation are exactly the opposite of correction. A principle and attitude to maintain throughout this work is: I am a student, I am learning, I will not be tested, I will not be graded, the more I learn over time the better I will be at my studies but overall I will accept my limitations at any given point in the work.