Stopping, Looking and Seeing

Today I start with a quote from the opening paragraph of art historian John Berger's, 'The Art of Seeing' – something I wish I had written as it expresses beautifully, something fundamental, not just about the work that I do, but about life and what it is to be in the world.

 'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.'

This quote resonates with me so much, because when I am working I often make a distinction between looking and seeing, listen and hearing, feeling and touching, and for that matter feeling and being touched. Of these, I place the most emphasis on vision, as when we begin to allow ourselves to stop look and see, our relationship with all our senses changes, improves. We experience the world differently, we see the world differently, we hear the world differently and we can touch and be touched by it differently.

Use in effecting function, as Alexander noted affects ourselves, how we see our possibilities, whether we have can have hope. Hope in our darkest hours is a light that can lead us onwards, finding a way to a new future. We do not have to ‘paint ourselves into a corner’ as George Kelly observed and to free ourselves we need not just words but the ability to see a situation differently, to see the alternatives. Only then do we have a choice where we can weigh up the implications before committing ourselves to action.

Stopping which I blogged about last week, involves a commitment to look at a situation, to see it, to become focussed. The experience of which, is a coherence not just towards the situation but within ourselves, as it includes us, as we release, lengthen and widen, breathe, prepare. This reflects the fact that most of our experience is both pre and non verbal – words giving the handles that allow for patterns and sequences to be identified, thought about, and communicated to others.

Stopping also allows us to look at others, be with them, be alongside them and I will be blogging more about this aspect of my work in coming weeks. For the use of the eyes and the facial muscles involves our earliest habits, habits that link us to others in an inter-personal world, an inter-personal world that is sometimes hidden, but always there. This world, the world of love and attachments is the source of our deepest anguish, profoundest sadness, as well as moments of immense joy, happiness. It is a world to be understood, that in our being with others, we can take a conscious stance towards.

Which brings me back as always to the Primary Control its importance in organising not just ourselves but our experience of the world, whether we want to better understand others, perform better or simply free ourselves from aches and pains that interfere with everyday living. The Primary Control is the means through which conscious control can become established and constructive – it is what makes Alexander’s work unique and it is freely available to anybody who knows how to stop, look, listen, become aware of themselves and allow themselves to begin to see and hear the rhythms and patterns of their lives, their worlds.