Finding Midline

In the branch of biology called zoology, the midline is defined as the median plane of a body, the imaginary divider that separates the right and left sides.

In terms of being in your skin, midline is so much more.

When the architecture of anatomy, functioning nervous system, and immediacy of lived experience merge, midline materializes as your sturdy yet supple built-in axis. The basis of support, agility, and resilience, midline is the core of your living infrastructure. This gently curving mainstay defines being vertical, bolsters your internal bearings, and situates you — establishing where and who you are — as you navigate through the world.

The body’s response to shock, stress, illness, or injury disrupts or destroys your once seemingly innate sense of uprightness, of being supported and centered. No matter what type of trauma strikes, you make instantaneous, unconscious, and automatic accommodations to protect yourself. These neuromuscular responses, including limping, guarding, favoring, and other forms of chronic contraction, persist long past their initial causes and lead to what philosopher Thomas Hanna termed “somatic amnesia.”

This process of disconnecting from parts of yourself and forgetting primal patterns of motion, then forgetting that you forgot them, distorts the brain’s map of the body and muddles the midline. When your inner guide is no longer reliable or right, how do you know where you stand? How do you find verticality again, especially if you don’t know you lost it?