Every chronic muscular spasm is a restriction of the individual freedom of movement and _expression. It is therefore a limitation on his capacity for pleasure.
Every chronically tense muscle is a contracted muscle that has to be stretched to activate its potential for movement. Stretching a contracted muscle, which is elastic tissue, sets it into vibration, which may vary from fine fibrillation to gross shaking depending on the degree of tension and the amount of stretch.
Loss of self awareness is caused by chronic muscle tension. This tension differs from the normal tensions of living by the fact that it is a persistent, unconscious muscular spasticity that has become part of the body structure or way of being. Because of this fact, the person is unaware that he has such chronic tensions until they begin to cause him pain. When this happens, he may sense the underlying tension but he has no awareness of what it means or why it developed. And he is completely helpless to do anything to relieve the tension.
Feeling the pain of the tensions stops the activity or drops the weight. If, however, there is no way to remove the stress, the muscle will go into spasm. An emotional stress is just like a physical one; the muscles are charged with a feeling that they cannot release. They contract to hold or contain the feeling just as they do to support a weight, and if the feeling persists long enough, the muscle will go into spasm because it cannot get rid of the tension.
Any emotion which cannot be released is a stress for the muscle; this is true because an emotion is a charge which presses outward for release.
The tensions that arise through inhibition are chronic tensions which develop slowly, through repeated experiences, and so insidiously that the person is hardly conscious of the tension. Even if he is conscious of the tension, he knows no way to release it.
Tense muscles can only be released by expressive movements, that is, movements in which the activity expresses the repressed feeling. As long as the movement is mechanically performed, the repressed impulses are held back and no release of the tension is effected.
The basic bioenergetic concept is that each chronic muscle tension pattern must be dealt with on 3 levels: 1) its history or origin in the infantile or childhood situation. 2) its present day meaning in terms of the individual character and 3) its effect on bodily functioning this leads to important propositions:
1. Every chronically tense muscle group represents an emotional conflict which is unresolved and probably repressed. The tension results from an impulse seeking _expression that meets a restraint based on fear.
2. Every chronically contracted muscle represents a negative _expression. Since it is blocking the_expression of some impulse, it is in effect saying. I won't. unaware of the impulse and the tension that blocks it, all the individual can sense is can't. And without awareness, he really can't move the part of the body controlled by the muscle. The can't becomes changed into an won't when the person becomes aware of the holding expressed in the tension. By expressing his negative attitude consciously, he frees the muscle from the necessity of unconsciously blocking the impulse, and through this maneuver he gains the choice of expressing the impulse or withholding its _expression.
3. The biological aspect of muscle tension is its relation to the capacity for pleasure. To the degree that chronic tensions immobilize our bodies, our capacity for pleasure is reduced.
Grace is lost when a person is not free to follow his instincts and feelings.
In a human being, the lack of physical grace is due to chronic muscular tensions that block the involuntary rhythmic movements of the body. Each tension pattern represents an emotional conflict that was resolved by the inhibition of certain impulses. This is no true resolution for the suppressed.
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