Do you ever notice how the brain tries to make sense of an image it has not seen before by trying to match it to something it has already seen in order to make sense of it?
Maybe not all of us process it in this type of way and maybe we don’t realize it’s happening. I'm including an article here that references this, but I believe most of us experience this.
Here is an example: Often, I will be out driving, in different areas locally, and I will see a car that looks exactly like someone’s I know (if it isn’t them already haha) and I will look at the person in the car and my brain will try to match them to the image I have of that person [I’m thinking of from memory/experiences] stored in my brain.
Maybe for about 10 seconds I will actually think it’s them, because my brain wants me to- because it can’t reference an image of something it doesn’t know. Once I get a closer view of them, my brain then goes “abort” and I realize it’s someone else completely [who I don’t know]. Sometimes they don’t even look anything like them!
Crazy, right? (let me know if you’ve experienced this in the comments). Our brain is predicating everything we do in order to keep us alive and well (without us knowing it-read the article I linked).
Now, I have a very creative type of brain but I also think I almost have a photographic memory or maybe iconic memory when it comes to images and sounds. I have the ability, where, if I see something that is really aesthetically pleasing to me or I hear a sound that is memorable in some way, my brain takes a screenshot.
Some may argue I don’t have a photographic memory in the sense of, yeah, I can’t take a screenshot of math problems with answers and then take a test (that is not my strong suite) but if it’s a story I find interesting, a captivating tune, or a physical image incorporated into the material (or one I make up in my head to imagine what is happening through the text), I remember it pretty much as if it’s right in front of me.
Yes, you could say it’s selective, but I did get straight A’s all through college, just about, and I rarely “studied.” A lot of my college education was writing and thinking based.
Now, I was thinking about this the other day and how it connects into experiences we have, good and bad, and how it plays into our trauma and why we might subconsciously [not realizing] hold different values towards things [experiences/ new and old or actual physical objects/places etc]. So, basically, how the senses hold memories and how they continue to affect us through similar new experiences.
Story time.
I signed up for a class at the YMCA (this is the second time in the past two months) with one of my friends. It was a BodyPump class. Now, going into this, I should have read the description because I am not a super big fitness buff, but I enjoy getting my body moving.
Anyways, we went to the class right on time (probably should have come earlier but I digress) and from the start, it was a negative experience.
As soon as we walked up to the door, there was an instructor walking up to shut the door. As soon as she saw us, she said in an annoyed tone, shaking her head (frown on her face), something along the lines of, “hurry up, come in.”
Now, I am a certified Yoga instructor with my RYT and I understand how classes work (I have for about 10 years) and whenever a new person has joined a class I taught in the past, I wait for them. Not only that, I introduce them to everyone else, I make them feel comfortable and help them integrate onto the floor by getting them set up with their mat and props (even if they’re not there 10 minutes early, I find a way)... Because I want them to continue coming to my class.
No one introduced themselves, not only that, there were zero spaces open on the floor, I instantly felt overwhelmed. Not only that, I felt like I was ruining their class (from everyone’s behavior), I was so late (one minute) and I had no clue what I needed or where to find it.
A few of the women taking the class ran to help my friend and got her all the equipment and I was left fluttering around trying to understand if everyone was already all set up or if the instructor set everything up in advance and I was just supposed to take my place (because a good instructor does this when there are new people showing up to the class). Granted, let me tell you the instructor knew because we had to sign up so she should have been expecting two brand new clients.
Well, that was not the case. I was left to fend for myself as I had one person give me a weight and while I stood there in a frenzy while the instructor took her spot in the front of the room, grilling me and my friend and looking at the clock. She then said, “you really should have gotten here about 10 minutes earlier to set up…” and that set me off.
My panic attack became full blown, I had no room left in my mind to think about everyone else and how I was impacting their workout by 2 minutes, so, I just ran.
Now, I will never do a BodyPump class again, I kept telling myself (or the usual narrative I have fluttering around my mind once the flight or fight instinct kicks in.
I ran out of that room as if a bomb was about to go off and then I went to the one room where no one could track me down [the stretch room- a separate room hidden inside the machines area] because I was afraid someone from the class was going to come after me. Once I got to the stretching room, there were two other women in there [another instructor and coach doing a one on one warm up] and I ran again. Finally, I found a mat in the main area and just sat down in a crossed legged position and folded into my lap, hiding my face.
My friend came and found me, she had left as well, but she did it a lot gracefully. She explained that once they got started, she was on her way out. She said they had tried to convince her to stay and to bring me back. She had felt similar to me, but had kept herself together a bit more. I was clearly experiencing some PTSD and couldn’t wrap my head around why it was happening, for this situation in particular.
Shortly after that, a woman from the class came out and chatted with us. She was friendly and introduced herself. She told us she didn’t participate in the exercise they were doing at the moment due to her knees and then told us if we wanted to go on Monday, Wednesday or Friday’s again, she would be there and help us. That is what the instructor should have done.
My nerves finally calmed down, she was thoughtful and nice. Then, my friend and I resumed our usual rounds at the gym.
For myself in general, I don’t love super intense workout classes, but, at times, I try to get myself to try them if I’m going with a friend. It can be challenging for me to do things I don’t feel 100% comfortable doing especially when other people or strangers are involved (especially women). I usually manage to do them, but I hate to admit it—this was the second time I’d done this at the gym, when it came to a fitness class (the first time I just turned around as I walked through the door).
I probably will never do that class, more so for the fact that I don’t want a high intensity workout class, but also because the instructor was not helpful or very kind.
Instructors, if you’re reading, take notes if you want to keep clients!
Anyways, it got me thinking—how does this all relate into my brain? Where is this PTSD coming from and what triggered it?
Remember how I said that thing earlier about our brains?—where our brains are constantly trying to make present situations, things, places, people, etc. into something we’ve experienced before---because it’s trying to match it, the best way it can, to comprehend or understand what is going on around us- by using past experiences to relate it to? Schema Theory sneaking its way in here somehow, check out this in depth scholarly journal: Schema Theory, Linguistic Theory, and Representations of Reading Comprehension By Donald J. Richgels for further research if you’re interested! (It’s not a well known theory to the public so it’s not free I’m sorry).
Well, that was what was happening to me, but in the negative sense—and it was bringing up past emotions and triggers from a similar situation.
Let me break it down—
When I went through my Yoga teacher training, about 10 years ago, I was 22 years old and in a pretty lonely part of my life. I won’t go into too much detail about my personal life but, a few years prior I was trapped living in a cult and after that I was on my own (at a very young age) trying to find myself through spirituality (Christianity at the time) and yoga. My training was all happening right after a two year relationship where I had been cheated on (left for that woman) and they now have 2 kids). So you can imagine how I felt.
The Yoga training program I was doing was great, I was able to channel all my energy into it, I loved my teacher and she was really and (still is) the sweetest and most amazing woman. I learned a lot from her, but she had two instructors in the studio (women) who were very uptight instructors and I hate to say it but they were both from the UK. So, they were click-y and not from around here [I want to preface this by saying that I don’t despise women from England, but these two were not very friendly].
Now, these women were also in their late 40’s early 50’s and they had been teaching for a while. At first, I liked the one lady, she seemed cool and I liked her class- she was more chill than the other one, who specialized in high intensity yoga workouts, Kundalini and was what I like to think of as very hard core fitness minded. Kundalini Yoga kind of terrified me at the time, or maybe it still does because let's be real, to the average person it's weird. It’s a spiritual based practice and if you know anything about Christianity this is a big no because it requires you to summon some snake spirit within, through using the chakras or portals of the body etc. but this is besides the point- I never took any of her classes. She terrified me.
Anyways, my main instructor [owner of the studio and head of the program] understood my reservations and my beliefs and worked with me on them.
In the beginning of the program, I had an option to choose a mentor and there were tons but a lot of them already had a mentorship going so I chose the one from the one woman from the UK. I initially actually liked her, because I took her class once and enjoyed it.
She was more reserved than the other and seemed more friendly, but, man, was that a mistake on my judgment. She really didn’t engage with me that much and that was fine, I went to her class [each week] often and if I had questions or a thought I would bring it up in class. That was a mistake also.
I distinctly remember one specific class, where I brought up how I was relating a certain stretch and (in a class where everyone is mostly chatty) I made a suggestion. I can’t remember exactly the stretch I was talking about when I spoke out in class but it was along the lines of, “if I do this stretch doesn’t it also work these same muscles as this other stretch or good for this stretch or no?” type of question/remark. A rhetorical question rather.
But she took it as me trying to teach her class and therefore she reprimanded me in front of her class of 20 older ladies (I say older because they were all older than me). She then, after class, asked me to stay and she pulled me aside and told me to never do that in her class again, because it made her feel inferior or something. I was like, “that was not my intention at all, I was just asking a question.”
Immediately after, I stopped going to her classes and prioritized a few other women’s classes who I never felt weird like that around. She never reached out to me (I don’t even think she ever got my number). I spoke about it briefly with the head teacher and she didn’t seem to care if I had a particular mentor. She just thought it could be helpful if I found it helpful but it was optional.
I finished out the teacher training while having to do a practicum at the end where I taught a “mock” class in front of all the students, like myself, and a lot of the instructors at the studio.
At the end of my “mock” class, I had ended with “Shalom [peace with you]” in Hebrew instead of “Namaste” and explained that to the class as I felt it was more relatable to me in my practice at the time and wanted to share it with everyone. The head teacher smiled and I could tell that she thoroughly appreciated that I had incorporated my own practice into it and made it something other than the standard.
Then, the floor was open for critique and praise. Those two women from the UK went to town and tore me apart. They told me I shouldn’t even be certified and said I was a terrible instructor with poor teaching capabilities, in front of the whole room. Then, the head teacher addressed the situation in a way that was appropriate but also disagreed with them.
They had not only embarrassed me, but promoted this behavior by making it okay. The one was a mentor to another student in my class.
We all know being up in front of a room full of people, who have done what you’re doing a lot longer than you, is intense and nerve racking, but when they are there to give you pointers, it doesn’t require judgment or negativity, especially if you consider yourself a master of the practice of Yoga. It also doesn’t warrant telling someone they shouldn’t be certified unless you have a bone to pick and are extremely rude.
Amazingly, I held it together, until afterwards when I sobbed alone in my car. I obviously got certified because I completed the program and, I promise you, I wasn’t a bad instructor. Those two women clearly had it out to get me and hated me for no good reason, besides possibly me not ever taking the one woman’s class? and the weird miscommunication in the other’s? I’m assuming.
This flash back jogged my memory when I was laying head down on the mat at the YMCA, the other day.
In reflecting back, I was pretty fragile during that time and it still shocks me how well I handled myself.
Not only that, I had been struggling with some major depression after the break up.
My brain seemed to remember it so vividly.
After completing my RYT, I taught in a studio, I taught in-home yoga and eventually I taught online for a few years with some great women, but I rarely set foot in a studio after that (in that sense, I mean going to a class for myself and I was also pretty broke).
I went to a Zumba class a few times with my sister, but shortly after that, Covid happened so attending classes in person became more of a thing of the past.
I have since forgotten about that incident or maybe I just put it so far back in my mind that I didn’t think it was really that important to bring up. Until now…
Brains are funny things, so when you avoid certain events that may have “shook” you to your core, you will have to face them eventually.
I’ve heard that so many times before, but I think I’m finally starting to get it. It doesn’t mean you need to heal from it now in that sense but even just talking about it and acknowledging that that wasn’t okay or what could I have done in that moment to stick up for myself if it were to happen again? Just some validation is sometimes all we need and some support from those closest to us. And maybe we need it a lot more than just once or twice.
Now I am recognizing that walking into that fitness class, it might have held a similar energy to those two women and especially on the day of my practicum. I’m convinced she was overcome with the Kundalini snake 😂
My brain was triggered into relieving that familiar moment because it must have somehow fit in or matched up with that past experience. It was trying to grasp onto what it was familiar with.
At this time of my life now, I would have stood up and given those two women a piece of my mind and called them out. I might have been shaking in my response but I definitely would have not let myself be treated like that regardless of the environment, which is why I think my brain re-lived it there for a few minutes at the gym.
Maybe my brain was like, “what do we do here?” Trying to get confirmation of if I were going to put up with it again (like I did with the Yoga class) or maybe it was predicting the present from the experiences and actions of the past.
I feel, on some level, my brain knew I didn’t have those types of experiences (not recently anyhow), or rather, that I didn’t try to. Not saying anyone does, but I rarely am out at fitness classes like I said I haven’t gone much since Covid.
My brain was trying to make sense of that past experience because it doesn’t fit in anywhere, not now anyhow, but it could have accepted that as the norm (if I did) if I had stayed and sucked it up. Since when do I take orders (rudely) from strangers who I paid? Not this millennial… haha
Next time I am in a class that makes me feel uncomfortable, maybe my new response will be (instead of running) to just go up to the instructor and say, “I thought I might like this class but I think it’s not my thing,” and then leave. Or, I could just leave without running and be able to look at people while they judge me and respect my own decisions without feeling like I am in the wrong.
What I’m getting at, is sometimes, in experiences we’ve not yet had and are maybe going through are experiences that we don’t really know how to handle because we have not learned how to handle them yet. And that’s okay!!!! How could we?
But, our brain is here to help, we just need to take the reins sometimes and trust ourselves, or be open to a different perspective (a healing one) that can redirect our focus on what it is we need to do to help ourselves in those moments. And they aren’t going to look the same for everyone.