Moving Beyond Habit: Be Free When We Notice How We Move

The theme of my September workshop is Moving Beyond Habit.

This might sound as though habit is something we should avoid. But it's not.

Habit is not inherently good or bad.

Habit is brushing our teeth every morning. Habit is a familiar way of making our coffee, or a favourite route home.

These habits can be comforting. They give our days a certain rhythm and predictability. They can create a sense of safety, familiarity, even home.

Imagine having to consciously decide how to brush your teeth every morning.

We would be exhausted before breakfast.

Habit is one of the ways our bodies and minds make life possible.

But there is another side to habit.

When Familiar Becomes Invisible

Because something is repeated so often, we eventually stop noticing it.

We don't consciously decide how to walk into our kitchen, how to sit down, how to reach for our phone, or how to turn our head when we look behind us.

Our bodies become extraordinarily efficient at repeating what they already know.

This is useful, up to a certain point.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to a particular way of moving that we no longer notice the alternatives.

We may always shift our weight onto the same leg. Always turn from the same side. Always breathe in a particular pattern. Always hold tension in the same place. Always move around an old injury in ways we have long forgotten we are doing.

None of this hurts if it's a one-off thing. But the accumulation of it for years, the body holds onto the same bodyset, creating stiffness, conditions for injuries and restriction of range of motion etc.

From Unawareness to Awareness

This is where I find the ancient teachings of yoga particularly relevant.

One of the recurring invitations in yoga is to move from what is unconscious toward what is conscious—to notice what we normally don't notice.

The famous mantra asato mā sad gamaya is often translated as:

Lead me from untruth to truth.
From darkness to light.
From the unreal to the real.

So as I blend yoga with somatics, I ask:

• Can I become aware of what I have been doing on autopilot? 

• Can I see a pattern that I couldn't see before?

• Can I create enough space between impulse and action to discover that I have another choice?

Yoga, in this sense, isn't asking us to eliminate habit.

It is asking us to become conscious within it.

The Body Has Habits Too

We often talk about habits as though they belong to the mind. But the body has habits of its own.

Our posture, gait, breathing, muscle tone, gestures and ways of organizing movement are all influenced by what we repeatedly do.

The body doesn't need to be told that a movement is habitual. It simply remembers.

This is why I am interested in introducing movement that may feel unfamiliar.

Not because unfamiliar movement is inherently better.

But because novelty gives us something to notice.

What If We Interrupted the Pattern?

In the workshop I guide participants to unguided, intuitive movement. Is this an oxymoron? No it's intentional.

If you're someone like me—fiery, quick, and impatient—perhaps your invitation is to move slowly.

Slower than feels necessary.

Slow enough that your body has time to notice itself.

If you tend toward stagnation, lethargy, or a sedentary way of moving, perhaps your invitation is the opposite.

Wake up the muscles.

Explore your joints.

Let yourself move with more energy than you usually allow.

There is no universally correct direction.

The practice is to notice your own tendency and gently explore its edges. And once we heck our habitual patterns, you free up space and distance from the autopilot and can usually relate to yourself differently.

Habit Is Not the Enemy

If there is one thing you take away from this post, I don't want to leave you with the impression that habit is something we need to escape.

We need habit. Habit gives us structure. Habit saves energy. Habit gives us familiarity and, sometimes, a profound sense of belonging.

The question isn't whether we have habits.

The question is whether we know we have them.

There is a difference between repeating something because we consciously choose it and repeating it because we no longer realize there is a choice.

Moving beyond habit, then, isn't about rejecting the familiar.

It is about becoming conscious of it.

The body simply deserves the opportunity to surprise us once in a while.

And sometimes, a small unfamiliar movement is enough to remind us that we are not as rigid as we thought, and that's where freedom begins.