Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others—it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it. —Yo-Yo Ma
As track season comes to an end, I’ve hung up my running shoes. Figuratively—not literally. As a nearly 70-year-old, I’m certainly not in competition form, and it’s been a few years since I ran more than the 50 yards from my house to my daughter’s. I remember my running days, though, and my muscles remember. They remember how it felt to explode from the starting blocks, to make up distance on the first curve, to lengthen my strides on the backstretch, and to run the final curve of the 400 meters into a headwind. They remember the slap of a baton into my palm and the urgent lean across the finish line. In her novel, Dearly, Margaret Atwood writes: You’ll be here but not here, a muscle memory, like hanging a hat on a hook that’s not there any longer. This is it exactly. Unbeknownst to the spectators around me, for years, I’ve been running races from my stadium seat. I’ve been there with them, but not there at all. My muscle memory transports me to the many track meets—high school and collegiate—where I braced myself against the wind, set my starting blocks, and flew down the track.
As we learn and practice a skill, our brains create neural pathways and connections controlling the associated muscles. The more we practice, the more efficient these connections become. Muscle memory, then, is more about brain-building than actual muscle-building. Athletes, musicians, and other professionals testify to how they’ve improved their performance as they’ve strengthened the neural connections created from repetition. I haven’t played the piano for decades, but my fingers still remember how to play the major scales. When I first began taking lessons in elementary school, I often practiced these scales in bed at night, moving my fingers across my percale pillow case as if it were a keyboard, deftly tucking my thumb under my middle finger when I reached F to continue the C major scale. Even though I haven’t practiced or played for years, the neural connections are still there. If I were to sit down at a piano today, I’d be no virtuoso, but my muscle memory would carry me through the scales, one note, one finger at a time.
As we age, muscle memory is both wonderful and awful. Our synapses twitch, our neurons fire, and our muscles remember the way. For a few glorious moments, we feel as though we still have it. We could still run 400 meters in under 60 seconds, no problem. We could still turn a perfect cartwheel, easy peasy. We could still march and play an entire band show, bring it on. For these moments, we remember how it feels to rely on muscle memory. And then, we’re reminded our muscles aren’t what they used to be. Years ago, when my best friend and I chaperoned a group of teenage boys to a Christian music festival, they kept encouraging her to crowd surf. “Do it!” they said. “You know you want to! Just fall back and let yourself be carried along.” For a moment, we both could remember the freedom, how it feels to fall back and float above the heads of concert-goers. Until I broke the reverie with caution. “You really don’t want to break bones and face orthopedic surgery,” I warned. “I speak from experience—don’t do it. You don’t want to be pinned and screwed back together.” Age often does this. It rides in with common sense and caution. It tames a moment of wild glory into a lap dog.
Regardless of our age and muscle condition, however, we can take heart. In her book, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, Krista Tippett tells us that “hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory.” I like this notion of practicing a virtue until it becomes spiritual muscle memory. To do this, you don’t have to have a strong core or biceps. You can do this even if you can no longer play your favorite recital piece or make a lay-up. This is a different kind of muscle memory, neither dependent on age nor physical ability. And consider the smorgasbord of virtues from which you can choose: hope, gratitude, humility, generosity, compassion. Fill your plate, and then go back for seconds. Create new neural pathways and practice until habit becomes spiritual muscle memory.
Some might argue that today, more than ever, a healthy diet of virtues would go a long way toward creating and sustaining a better world. They might argue—and rightfully so—that this is easier said than done, though. It’s likely we all remember the pain and tedium of practicing the same skills again and again. I recall the hours I spent running my fingers through scales when I desperately wanted to play from my Jackson 5 Greatest Hits book for piano beginners. I’m reminded of the hours I spent with relay partners, running through handoffs long after our teammates had gone to the locker rooms. The proverbial words of coaches and teachers still ring true: No pain, no gain. Trusting that temporary pain and tedium will ultimately benefit us, we muscle on through challenging practices.
Whether we’re creating muscle memory or spiritual muscle memory, there’s always a cost. Despite my best intentions, I often struggle to greet the day with gratitude or hope. It doesn’t come easily. The neural pathways I counted on one day are weak—or nonexistent—the next. The spiritual muscle memory I’d previously trusted is gone. When this happens, it’s back to the scales. When my spiritual muscle memory fails me, it’s back to repeated practice. This may take the form of prayer, meditation, or guided reading. I’m reminded of Mother Teresa’s decades-long struggle to feel the presence of God. And yet, she rose each day, and faithfully served India’s most neglected populations, trusting in the God she could neither feel nor see. Through these seasons of darkness, she moved through each day, fully trusting her spiritual muscle memory.
American cellist Yo-Yo Ma reminds us that “your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.” I can imagine myself doing a passable cartwheel, but truthfully, I’m not going to risk it. It could, likely would, end badly. But spiritual muscle memory is another matter. And Yo-Yo Ma reminds us there’s good news. For even when, perhaps especially when, we fail to practice the virtues we’d like to live, we can imagine ourselves practicing them. We can rise each day and imagine moving through the hours with hope, gratitude, generosity, and humility. We can build—or rebuild—these neural pathways by first imagining them. And then? Well, we can trust where our imaginations will take us.