Are you aware there is such a thing called muscle memory?
The truth is our body stores memories in different parts of the organs and muscles. Muscle memory is responsible for the spontaneous way in which we react to every situation before even we are actually aware of it. They come from the past memories of this body, meaning the memories of this birth. After many unconscious repeated actions, it is stored in our muscles and we respond to life out of these unconscious past memories. By and by, these incompletions become patterns in us over time and they start creating more and more trouble and suffering in our life.
I’ve started a new yoga Module called ‘Yoga for Women’ last week and one of the things that we are exploring is the re-programming of engraved memories of a female physiology. The common engraved memories that all human beings tend to suffer is that of laziness pattern. Breaking the muscle memory of laziness is the first step in spiritual awakening. If laziness pattern gets settled into the body’s muscle memory, for a female, it will lead to indulgence in past suffering and engrams. However, for a male body, it leads to indulgence of sense pleasures and new engrams.
If you scan into your whole life objectively, you may be able to identify some other patterns or incompletions such as tendency to eat when in low mood or boredom, getting angry or even becoming violent when being confronted or agitated. Some feel insecure when they are not getting enough attention. Even the symptoms of pre-menstrual cramp and migraine are also muscle memories that get developed over time.
How can we re-program the muscle memory?
The great news is we can transform our body with yoga. Yoga is a very powerful science which puts us first in a relaxed state of awareness to witness our internal feeling and happening. Only in a space of deep relaxation that we are able to provide authentic listening to our self (Shraavana) and become aware of the incompletions or unconscious patterns of our muscle memory. Pure listening without judgment is the first step in spiritual transformation. The daily practice of yoga through yoga asana (poses) and breath awareness (pranayama) is an excellent way to create a new neural pathway in our brain grooves. That’s the reason why the setting of a powerful intention at the beginning of each practice is such an important conscious process. When we move the entire body with a single-minded intention, a new pathway gets created for message to travel on to go from the brain to the muscle and back to the brain again. A regular practice makes it easier and automatic because the messages are travelling across not on a new pathway but a well-travelled one. This is how yoga practice transforms our muscle memory.
A deeper level of transformation can happen at the bio-memory level when we work with our mind with power of discrimination and unclutching. This is a straight technique for coming out of ignorance. The mind, by its nature, tends to brood on negative thoughts just like a replay of tape recorder due to incompletions. Whenever negative thoughts which are against yoga enters into you, immediately put a break, do manana (contemplation or intranalising) to derive the right understanding and take the thought to its logical conclusion, unclutch from the negative thought and raise the opposite thoughts and your coherence to the peak of consciousness.
After the contemplation, simply living it (nidhiyasana) i.e. radiating the truth. Literally, it means let your thought, words and actions be aligned with what you internalized and ‘intranalised’ of the highest truth into living. If the first 2 components – authentic listening and intranalising are done properly, radiating the truth happens automatically. Simply you will start creating new muscle memory and bio-memory of higher consciousness. Your presence will never be the same anymore.
Sometimes, we are not able to work on past-lives memories directly by ourselves, this is when an enlightened master’s guidance and initiations are required for us to transform the deeper past lives bio-memories. Blessed are those who have a feeling connection with an enlightened master to allow him to work directly on their muscle memory and bio memory.
In essence, we can re-program our muscle memory and inner space through the Science of Yoga. However, when we don’t understand fully this Science, we reduce it into an exercise or physical workout which is such a big missing! Let us revive the authenticity of Yoga in its full glory. Namaste 😀