Practically the way is opened to this better control through a physical training which gives us the power of relaxing at will, and so of maintaining a natural, wholesome equilibrium of nerves and muscles.

Personal sensitiveness is, to a great degree, a form of nervous tension.  An individual case of the relief of this sensitiveness, although laughable in the means of cure, is so perfectly illustrative of it that it is worth telling.  A lady who suffered very much from having her feelings hurt came to me for advice.  I told her whenever anything was said to wound her, at once to imagine her legs heavy,—­that relaxed her muscles, freed her nerves, and relieved the tension caused by her sensitive feelings.  The cure seemed to her wonderful.  It would not have done for her to think a table heavy, or a chair, or to have diverted her mind in any other way, for it was the effect of relaxation in her own body that she wanted, which came from persistently thinking her legs heavy.  Neither could her sensitiveness have taken a very deep hold, or mere outside relaxation would not have reached it; but that outside process had the effect of greatly assisting in the power to use a higher philosophy with the mind.

Self-consciousness and all the personal annoyances that come with or follow it are to so great an extent nervous tension, that the ease with which they may be helped seems sometimes like a miracle to those who study for a better guidance of their bodies.

Of worries, from the big worries with a real foundation to the miserable, petty, nagging worries that wear a woman’s nervous system more than any amount of steady work, there is so much to be said that it would prove tedious, and indeed unnecessary to recount them.  A few words will suggest enough toward their remedy to those who are looking in the right direction, and to others many words would be of no avail.

The petty worries are the most wearing, and they fortunately are the most easily helped.  By relaxing the muscular contractions invariably accompanying them we seem to make an open channel, and they slip through,—­which expression I am well aware is not scientific.  The common saying, “Cares roll off her like water off a duck’s back,” means the same thing.  Some human ducks are made with backs eminently fitted for cares to slip from; but those whose backs seem to be made to hold the cares can remould themselves to the right proportions, and there is great compensation in their appreciation of the contrast.

Never resist a worry.  It is increased many times by the effort to overcome it.  The strain of the effort makes it constantly more difficult to drop the strain of the worry.  When we quietly go to work to relax the muscles and so quiet the nerves, ignoring a worry, the way in which it disappears is surprising.  Then is the time to meet it with a broad philosophizing on the uselessness of worry, etc., and “clinch” our freedom, so to speak.