Consequently, we mimic other people, who have themselves lost their own awareness of, and subsequently their access to, support. In practical terms, if we are to reclaim our experience of being supported, we must find out how and when we are interfering with interaction, cease to reinforce the inconsonant patterns, and return to an awareness of the whole. However, only when support is part of one's awareness will this experience be available. Otherwise, voluntary muscular effort impedes postural reflex and muscular response, and we use ourselves in ways that we have not been designed to be used in our attempt to accomplish hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Then, living through a day is more effort than pleasure.
Relationships remain strangely unfulfilled, more burdening than mutually sustaining.
Movement, though purposeful, is strained. His 'means' of returning to this simple state of being requires a commitment to change moment by moment in the ongoing present. His teaching posits a highly disciplined personal observation of the way you use yourself while pursuing whatever purpose, goal, or 'end' you have in mind. The phrase 'come to full stop' meant to Alexander the withholding of consent to any reaction discovered in the moment to be non-constructive and out of harmony with the whole, while simultaneously allowing awareness to expand within that moment to include the possibility of an altogether different response. Accomplishing this involves using a specific 'means,' whereby the person directs attention towards enlivening the postural reflexes which, because of their interactive functional design, foster a unified field of awareness and perception.