If you think you cannot control the way you feel, consider that you may feel that way out of habit.
Remember what it was like to learn how to ride a bike? First a tricycle, then training wheels, then the magical day when you could freely ride on two wheels. It was a process. This is the same way paths in the brain are formed— with practice. Now as an adult, you still remember how to ride a bike even though you may not have ridden in years. Why? Because the neural paths and muscle memories are still in place.
Forming paths in the brain are like treading a path in the woods where a path has never been before. At first you can’t see the path, but every day as you walk it, you can see it more clearly, and it becomes more natural to take. Yet you can get stuck in emotional patterns because you take the same path every day. This may cause you to feel “this is the way I am; I can’t change.” However, this is not true due to neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity (also known as cortical remapping) refers to the ability of the human brain to change as a result of one’s experience. The brain is “plastic” and “malleable.” Even if it doesn’t feel like it at first, making consistent decisions to access a new path leads to change. You don’t have to go down destructive, unproductive emotional paths forever. Forge a new path…one that takes you to a better place.
Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions, such as happiness and compassion, can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas.
– Andrew Weil
Fresh Ideas to Extend Your Expiration Date
It may seem like you can’t change the way you behave. First, lose the mindset that you cannot change the way you react. This sets you up for failure. Second, you have to set down new patterns. You can’t just get rid of the old ones without replacements.
When you are sad, a common response is to act or express anger, even though sadness is the true emotional feeling. It often doesn’t work to tell yourself, “I am just not going to be sad or angry.” That is the path you have always taken—the same emotional pathway every day for your entire life. You can’t just quit your old emotional responses; you have to replace them with a new behavior. The new behavior may be to express the sadness or anger by telling the person you are sad, by crying, or by another healthier outlet. Write down the new behavior and visualize yourself acting out that new behavior.
When the situation arises again, you will be tempted to choose the well-traveled path to get angry. However, when you begin to choose the new, more productive path you have laid down, then you can begin making healthier emotional decisions. It may seem more difficult at first, but if you stick with it, then it will begin to feel more natural.
As we lay the path with consistent action, then that path will be there for us to access. Making consistent decisions to access a new path leads to change, even if it doesn’t feel like it at first.
Learn More
The Emotional Life of Your Brain, by Richard J. Davidson and Sharon Begley, is a heavily researched, in-depth look at the role of emotions in the brain, which helps you to understand your emotions with an explanation of brain chemistry.
Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life, by John B. Arden, is an easily readable book, which describes how your brain can change and how you can easily foster healthy changes. It’s the why and how of neuroplasticity and what you can do to enhance it.
