18 March

"Don't be too concerned because you are tense and cannot relax. The very act of being prepared to accept your tenseness relaxes your mind, and relaxation of body gradually follows. You don't have to strive for relaxation. You have to wait for it. When a patient says 'I have tried so hard all day to be relaxed', surely he has had a day of striving, not relaxation? Let your body find its own level without controlling, directing it... The relief of loosening your tense hold on yourself...may bring a calmness you have forgotten existed within you. In your tense effort to control yourself you have been releasing more and more adrenalin and so further exciting your organs to produce the very sensations from which you have been trying to escape." Dr Claire Weekes, the patron saint of a tense world, and a remarkable Australian.