Mind-Body Connection

It’s funny how you can be reflecting on your kid’s baseball game one minute, and the next minute, you see your therapy couples with similar dilemmas flashing before your eyes. Themes of fear, risk, and dissonance between the mind and the body fit within both spaces. For my son, it started during his first game of a new league - kid-pitch. For those who haven’t experienced a kid-pitch baseball league, let me remind you of the saying, “practice makes perfect”; these new pitchers often don’t achieve perfection during that first year or two! There are many balls thrown, a few wild pitches, and not so infrequently, batters getting hit with the ball. Nonetheless, my son was a confident and excited batter and he carried this with him into the batter’s box for his first at-bat. It ended the way no parent wants it to - with the sound of a ball hitting flesh, the wincing of pain you see in your kid’s face, and their brave attempt at fighting back tears.

Fast forward a week later and there was no more pain and the stitches of the ball and bruising it left behind had faded. There was no physical, external reminder of him getting hit by a ball. And yet, his next at-bat, and every one thereafter, my son would step into the batter’s box, timidly stand the furthest back, and jump back every time the ball crossed the plate. The thing is, even when our mind can convince us that the likelihood of getting hurt again is low, and acknowledge that the pain doesn’t last and heals, and have hope that a positive experience may happen, our body is assessing something different. Our body remembers the pain. Our body tells us to jump, to protect. It took a lot of at-bats, talks, and bribes, to start to ease my son’s fear and build his confidence back up. And even still, he would get in the box and his body would jump back in fear. Eventually I was able to encourage him to simply stay in the box and swing (this is where bribery came in). I wasn’t asking him to get a hit, but to just swing the bat. He stepped into the batter’s box, and swung. He still jumped, but he managed to connect and fouled off a ball. This connection changed everything. He struck out that time, but he swung the bat. He made contact. His next at bat, he hit a double. The joy on his face was priceless. His fear was eased and his confidence was coming back, all because he took a risk, stepped into the box, and swung. His body was able to experience something different and this made all the difference.

Our relationships really aren’t much different. We can enter into a relationship with excitement and confidence. We have no reason to mistrust, to fear something bad happening. And then it does. We get hit. Not physically, but emotionally. And our body registered this pain. Interestingly, the part of our brain that registers physical pain is the same part that registers emotional pain. Our body remembers this pain and does what it was created to do, it acts to keep you alive. Maybe it doesn’t react after just one negative experience, but eventually your mind and your body recognize the pattern of being hurt and it makes a plan. It protects. It minimizes risks. It puts up walls. It pulls away. The challenging part is no matter how many “I’m sorry’s”, no matter how much we want and choose to forgive, no matter how much we desire to go back to the way things were, sometimes our mind and our body aren’t on the same page. I think of a partner (A) who has pursued for years to connect with her withdrawn partner (B) to no avail, and how this pursuer (A) eventually starts to shutdown. The years of pain, rejection, and failed attempts at connection build up and become unbearable. The body starts to protect. Sometimes this can trigger a wake-up call to the withdrawn parter (B) who starts to seek out his partner. Unfortunately, even though partner A’s been longing for this for so long, the fear of hurt and the lack of confidence/trust is high. Partner A doesn’t want to get in the batter’s box. It’s too scary, the risk and pain too much. Eventually, with intentional work on both partners parts, partner A might build up courage to reengage. Sometimes they may swing for connection. Even if it’s small, these moments of making contact start to rebuild safety and trust, decreasing fears, increasing confidence. If these experiences feel different, change can happen, in both the mind and the body. When we feel safe to risk, we have opportunities for connection. You can’t get a hit unless you stay in the box and swing.

Authentically,

Joey