Habit and Identity
We know ourselves by our habitual reactions, invisible as those habits might be. The mental chatter, muscular responses and emotional textures that we bring to daily life is how we define ourselves. We sometimes even value ourselves by perceived effort rather than by our ease.
There is a story of a little girl with many physical challenges having a lesson with F.M. Alexander. After he had assisted her in restoring an overall balance of tone, she exclaimed to her mother, “Mummy, look! He has pulled me all out of shape!”. She no longer recognized herself in a changed and improved condition, and even believed she was worse despite clear improvement.
One of my pupils observed during her lesson, “My outline has been softened”. The interference that was previously a given state had eased, and the edges between her and not-her had also eased.
My habitual way of being in the world shifted dramatically with my injury. This was not an example of suddenly improved use, but of suddenly challenged use. The activity levels, strength, and associated mind chatter that informed who I was went off-line. As I move through the world now, my identity is suddenly ephemeral, unfixed, undefined. Underlying habits of being have been revealed as they can no longer have physical expression. It is when we relinquish a habit (or are forced to do so) that we become fully conscious of the habit’s breadth and power. Invisibility is the nature of habit. When it is gone, we perceive its ghostly remains.
This is an opportunity, of course, a chance to allow my “outlines to soften”, as my pupil so articulately expressed. I could end-gain my way back to a familiar sense of self, with great effort, but that seems to run counter to the offered opportunity.
I miss myself as I believed I was, and I am doing my best to be open to the new self I will be, with an unfamiliar shape, new mind chatter, and a possibly softer edge between me and not-me. No doubt my previous habits will resume to some extent. My intention is to choose elastic response over habit as much as I am capable, and to bring all this experience to my teaching.
And, I fully intend to run joyously on the wet sand in Kauai in the pre-dawn, with stars reflected in the surf, by December!