Exercises To Do Each Day

The time just after arising from sleep is immensely valuable time for self-improvement. Just a few minutes are needed, but doing these exercises on a daily basis will yield a lot. They will improve the way you feel for the day and over time will yield major benefits. There is no loss if you miss days, even weeks, between doing the exercises. However, like time spent in physical exercise at a gym, the more regular you are the more benefit you will get. The exercises take under 15 minutes so there is little reason not to do them. Even when there are young children present, if you have time to shower in the morning then you have the time for these exercises.

Don't expect that you will do these exercises well when you start doing them. Like everything else in life, they require practice. Just doing them, whether well or at the beginner level, will yield benefit. And you will get better at the work over time.

However, even before introducing you to the most basic of the Reichian work, there is an issue that is of such supreme importance that I have put it here prior to even the starting the discussion. It is an issue which is never mentioned in discussions of therapy, whether verbal psychotherapy or body-based psychotherapy. That issue is: courage.

A Note On Courage

Later I write about the big issue of control and how it is an enemy standing in the way of change. Here I want to emphasize — really as strongly as the written word can do — that there is an issue that is critical but that you have probably never heard any therapist talk about.

That issue is: courage! Frankly, there is almost no issue standing in the way of change which is more important than courage. Change is scary. It is unsettling.

In verbal therapy the patient or client is in control of what is happening. Even when dealing with something like a phobia, you are in charge of how much you do in overcoming the issue. But in body-based therapy, the change just happens. You have memories and emotions emerging and your character is changing, all without you planning it or working directly on it.

All of us have things buried in our character. If we did not have things buried we would not have a character (which is to say, we would be dead). But since these things are buried, we have no idea that they are there. Now behaviors, attitudes, memories, moods and feeling emerge seemingly from nowhere; that is scary.

All I can say is that if things are too strong, take a break from the work. As always remember the rule:

ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY. But be careful. Don't let a break be the reason why you never seem to return to the work. Courage is the big issue.

You have to have the guts, the willingness, to let things emerge uncontrolled and unaccounted for and simply accept that what is emerging is just a part of you that you did not know about.

Now don't take that as license to be self-destructive. If the emerging character traits (as manifest in behavior) are getting in the way of living, then step in and deliberately control the behaviors. The job of living is living. Self-improvement — by any means — is good only as long as it aids the job of living. Courage is good, stupidity is bad.

The issue of courage is something I address in the first session with every patient who comes to see me. In my years as a practicing psychotherapist, there is no single issue which has resulted in more patients dropping out than the issue of courage.

As the therapy progresses, whether verbal or Reichian or the normal combination of the two, changes start to happen. The changes are not, usually, under the volitional control of the patient. They just find that they are doing what to them are strange things. Then the fear of change arises. There is even a psychological term for it. It is called "phrenophobia," the fear of going insane. It is not that the new behaviors and sense of the self are bizarre, it is only that the person does not know where they are coming from and where they might end.

Suddenly the person does not know "who am I?" "What's happening to me?" "I'm not sure I like this change." In other words, they are not controlling the change and that is where courage comes in.

Courage is the determination to push through change, to let happen what is happening and to accept; after all, that is the basic purpose of a good therapy process.

Not surprisingly, Shakespeare said it best: "But screw your courage to the sticking-place And we'll not fail" (Macbeth, act 1 sc 7)

Daily Exercises

The Eyes

This exercise needs a mirror. Either a hand mirror, a shaving mirror or a full length mirror will do. It is best if you do not have to hold the mirror.

Figure 4

The Eyes, Step 1

Simply look at your own face. Don't be so near to the mirror that you can see only part of your face at one time. Be far enough away that you can see your whole face as you would look at someone else. The idea here, at this point in the exercise, is that it is NOT your face in the mirror, it is someone else's face. You do not know this person in the mirror, you are seeing him (her) for the first time, perhaps at another table at a restaurant.

Of course this is not that easy to do. We are so accustomed to looking at our own face that it is difficult to separate our own view of ourself from that face in the mirror. But there is also another difficulty.

Sometimes we look at our reflection in a mirror as just our face, but other times we look at that face from the viewpoint of someone else seeing it. We take care to prepare our hair (and our makeup) so that it might create a particular impression in the mind of someone else looking at that face. This fact, this point of view of the face, makes this exercise even more difficult.

What you are trying to accomplish initially in this daily exercise is to separate your self completely from the face in the mirror; you are seeing a stranger (not you) and you are reading that stranger's face.

Question 1

What attitude do you see displayed by that face? Suppose you saw that face at a party, what impression would you have of that person even before you met or spoke to him or her? This is important. It is not your face; it is a stranger's face. Don't judge parts of the face like the lips are too thin, the nose too big, the bags under the eyes make the person look tired.

Use a descriptive word that has some real content. For example: "that looks like a nice person" will not do. "Nice" is way too broad a word. Try to come down to something more specific. Try to come up with a word or phrase that really says something about that stranger's face. Is the person childish or mature? Is the person open or secretive? Is the person approachable or standoffish? Is the person relaxed or wound up? Is the person alert to the moment or pre-occupied? Is the person confident or unsure of himself (herself)? These are just examples of the type of question you want to ask. There are many many other possibilities.

For each of the two models below (Figure 5 on page 40), take a piece of paper for each and answer the following questions. You will have no way of knowing whether you are right or wrong so that is not the issue. The idea is to reach into your own subconscious and see what answers you get.

Figure 5