The Power of the Turnaround – Part I

I’ve never been good at forgiving people. 

To forgive someone, I felt I had to force myself to swallow a big, fact rock and look happy while it was travelling down my oesophagus. It hurts - I can’t pretend nothing happened. But then being forever upset isn’t healthy either - what to do?

One day I came across a definition that solved my problem:

“Forgiveness is when you realise that what you thought happened never happened.”

Have you ever noticed that the person you are trying to forgive often doesn’t believe there is anything for you to forgive?

Welcome to the power of the turnaround.

In Science, this idea of being able to recognise two opposing viewpoints was an important discovery. The Principle of Complementarity says that objects or systems can exhibit both particle-like and wave-like properties, but not simultaneously.

This turnaround happens something like this:

SCIENCE: “I believed everything was particles, but now I see they can also be waves.”

BECOMES

HUMANS: “I believed you did wrong, but now I see you did right.”

And so what you thought happened never happened. At least – not on their side.

FM Alexander’s first important discovery started with a turnaround. 

After noticing he only lost his voice while reciting on stage, FM decided to watch what he was doing in a mirror. He noticed that every time he recited, he extended back his head along C1~2* while also flexing forward his spine along C4~7, which he called “depressing his larynx”. In everyday English this came to be called: 

“Pulling the head back and down”

What was his turnaround?

He wondered what would happen if he moved his head forward and up?

The rest was history.

*C1-3 = Cervical vertebrae numbers 1 to 3. In all, there are 7 vertebrae in the cervical spine.