In this blog, I’ll be presenting muscle memory as a metaphor for understanding, and validating, how challenging changing our patterns of coping can be.

Beginnings in Ballet

“Relax! Keep your feet outside your hips, chin down, shorten your torso” Melissa my boxing coach instructed me, for the umpteenth time. I try to do what she says but, I can’t seem to get my body to abide by all her instructions. I blame ballet. 

I started dancing at age 3. I first learned the Cecchetti method, studying their booklet on posture, poses, technique, and terms to pass the annual exam. I later transitioned to a ballet academy designed to prepare you for a career in dance. At my level we were required to take five ballet classes a week.

Ultimately, this was not the path for me and I stopped my formal training before starting high school. I stayed dancing through vigorous participation in the musical theater department at my high school. Then I took classes throughout college, and after, at local studios. However, since starting graduate school, over a decade ago, my attendance in a ballet class is few and far between.

And yet, until today, it didn’t click just how much a hold that muscle memory of “chin up! Imagine a string is attached to the top of your head pulling you upwards, think of your lines, and you must be precise!” still has on me.

Learning to Box

When moving around the ring, I want to bring my feet together with each movement by doing a sashay.  I don’t want to be light on my feet, keeping my weight relatively equally distributed in the center so I can adjust to my opponent. Instead, I want to shift my weight with each step to ensure I have a “standing leg” and a “working leg.” I struggle to be fluid with my punches fearing looking sloppy and uncontrolled.  I want to have “choreography.” As a result, I end up moving robotically with my chin up, my torso long, and my feet too close together. Basically, I’m setting myself up to be immediately knocked-out.

I’m not intentionally trying to apply ballet to boxing and yet that is exactly what my body is doing.  Even without recent practice, my body remembers. It automatically calls upon what it knows, even when it’s not remotely helpful.

What does this have to do with mental health?

Everything.   

Schemas and Muscle Memory

Our thoughts, our bodily reactions, and our behaviors are all influenced by essentially a psychological muscle memory.  We become hard-wired to respond to our environment. This is based on what we observe and the feedback we receive from others, starting at birth. From this input, we develop a set of expectations and beliefs, called schemas. Our schemas are about ourselves, others, and the world. We also learn what our bodies need to do to keep us safe. 

Good Enough

When our environments are stable enough, supportive enough and that feedback is generally positive -(e.g., warm enough, predictable enough, encouraging enough of a balance of self-soothing independence and reliance on others), then our schemas generally allow us to believe we are good enough, even when we make mistakes. We can trust others to stand by us because others are also generally good enough and trustworthy enough for us to be able to bond with and rely upon. And the world, while a messy and at times scary place, is generally a decent, and safe enough, place to be. 

In turn, our bodies can function with relative calm and ease. They only need to become activated when encountering a real threat. For example, a car cutting us off with milliseconds to break, a snake on our path during a desert hike, or our partner doing something hurtful and threatening to the stability of our relationship. We can assess this threat and problem-solve. We can break and honk the horn, give the snake lots of space to cross, and tell our partner how they hurt us and what we need to heal.

Not Good Enough

Many of us aren’t fortunate to have such “good enough” experiences. Instead, we get messaging that we are bad, unworthy, and not enough. We observe that others are confusing, unpredictable, and untrustworthy. We learn that the world is a dangerous place. As we are receiving these messages our bodies are learning as well. Our bodies are learning what we can do to find and secure safety. And it learns how to survive if safety can’t be found. This can lead to muscle memories threat responses of going into overdrive (like with anxiety or panic) or shutting down (like with depression or dissociation).

We carry these messages, and bodily patterns of responding, with us unconsciously. Just like I, without conscious awareness, applied ballet philosophy to boxing. And just like that hasn’t been serving me very well in the ring, our encoded and automatic behaviors, while crucial in their original development, tend not to serve us well in our current lives. 

Great, so now what?

This is where therapy and other forms of healing come in. Therapy can help us bring into awareness the messaging we received and how our bodies operate to protect us. With this awareness we can seek healing and change. We can develop new ways of thinking about ourselves, others, and the world. We can enjoy ease, peace, and freedom in our bodies.  

And this kind of change is hard. It takes time. Just like Melissa telling me once to tuck my chin has not made much difference in my stance, telling your body to “relax you’re safe now” isn’t going to do much.  Even in something as benign as learning to box, my body, and mind, fight the feedback, wanting to hold on to what I know, to what feels right. 

Naturally, seeking change in something more serious than a hobby is going to be that much harder. And there will be that much more natural resistance. Even though change may be deeply wanted, it is inherently scary. This is especially true when we are working to challenge our muscle memory about how we know ourselves, how we interact with others, and overall, how we strive to feel safe, in a messy complicated world.

For clinicians: I hope this helps with your conceptualizations around trauma and change, particularly the highly interwoven influences of schemas and the body. I hope it also helps you have patience and compassion towards yourself, your clients, and the process. It takes as long as it takes (and I hope you work in a system that supports this.)

For those seeking healing: I hope this piece helps you give yourself grace, patience, and compassion. You are embarking on an incredible journey – one more noble than learning boxing after years of ballet! – that will take time, effort, risk, repetition, learning the hard way, and great reward. Be kind to yourself in the process.