Imagine a pile of sand. Then imagine pouring a bucket of water on top of it. The water would create paths and grooves in the sand as it made its way down the sides of the pile. Then if you did it again, the paths would get deeper and deeper. There would not be many new paths established. The water would take the path of least resistance, which would be the already established paths.
The more water you poured, the deeper the grooves and the harder it would become for any new paths to be established.
My friend shared this metaphor with me the other day explaining how our brains work. We get into patterns of how we do things and it becomes very hard to make changes.
I have been seeing a chiropractor for the last month to heal a 2 decade old neck injury – I got crunched playing hockey.
The paths that I have created to protect the pain in my neck are significant, and for me to get relief, I have to change up those patterns. The game she has me playing is noticing the patterns I have for doing things. For example, I always sit on my bike seat in the same way (particularly noticeable for boys, I suspect). Anyway, I noticed that I always was leaning to the right. It was completely unconscious until I started shifting it.
It felt weird at first.
Oh, there is a great way to explain it…you can do this. Ready?
Cross your arms. Notice that you did it without thinking. Now, cross them the other way (with the other arm on top). How does that feel?
We have those kind of patterns all over our lives.
As I was riding along the other day, leaning to the left, and leaning my body to the left also (in case you just missed that , that was supposed to be funny), thinking about how come it’s so hard for my clients to make changes in their lives and it occurred to me that it is because of these habitual patterns.
I thought further, as I worked to pedal calmly, using my legs, not my back, and I realize that often we try to change patterns as we do them. For example, we try to get more consistent at working out as we are working out. Or we try to stop eating chocolate right when we are about to jam some chocolate in our mouth. And in that moment, there is a lot going on, and it’s a hard moment.
What would happen if we practiced breaking patterns that did not hold so much juice (and defiance/resistence/difficulty)?
For example, what if we practiced by brushing our teeth with the opposite hand? Eating with our off hand? Taking a different route to work? Listening to different music.
As I pedaled along, I wondered how doing these things would help us in the heat of the moment when we were deciding whether to add another scoop of ice cream or more hot fudge (or both!) to that hot fudge sundae.
My hypothesis is that practicing on goofy stuff will make it much easier for us to break the patterns that really matter to us.
What do you think?