Sublime

Figure 1.20. The lengthening of the myofascia is sensed by the muscle spindle, which signals the spinal cord. The spinal cord responds with an efferent (motor) nerve signal for the muscle to contract.

Sometimes you will exhibit reflexive agency - agency as an automatic response to the situation you’re in. You have a preference, you have the ability to satisfy it, so you do that. What could be more natural?

More than a century after Pavlov’s characterization, our bodily reaction to change is no longer called a reflex. It’s termed the orienting response,

When a muscle is stretched and the stretch reflex is activated, an inhibitory interneuron in the spinal cord sends a message to the opposite muscle group to relax.

The reflex arc creates the contraction of the muscle, which is predominately isometric. Further deceleration of the body’s movement then loads the connective tissue, which eventually reaches a point at which the force required to lengthen it farther has been absorbed by the increasing stiffness of the elastic fiber. Once it reaches the point at whi

The spinal cord also coordinates certain reflexes and movement patterns independent of the brain and brain stem.

the investigatory reflex. He understood that in order to survive, any animal needs to be acutely aware of immediate changes to its environment, investigating and evaluating these differences for the dangers or opportunities

Research using IRAP tests has shown that our quick relational responses (or subconscious thoughts, if you will) often predict our behavior more strongly than claims we make about what we think—what RFT researchers call our extended and elaborated relational responses.