"Rerouting" Your Mindset GPS

What are we talking about when we say “rewire the brain” or “new neural pathways”? Let’s get really clear about it before it gets thrown around enough to become a mere soundbyte. Imagine the process as orienting yourself in a new city. You spend time driving or walking from place A to place B and place C, and over time you begin to develop a series of “if, then” conditions. “If I arrive at the intersection of Main and 24th, then I turn right. If there’s traffic on 28th, then I go around via Broadway.” Over time these conditions become rules and we abide by them as such. We forget we have the option to create new pathways. Maybe they aren’t always the most efficient routes we discovered. Maybe they aren’t even the most common routes. But there are alternatives to the paths we’ve begun to believe are the rules of the game.

Our mind can do the same thing. As we arrive at an “if, then” moment in our own lives, we can begin to pause between the 2 and perhaps choose (or maybe even just consider choosing) a different then. “If I’m running late, then I have no time to organize my things so I’ll forget something…. “ can become “If I’m running late, then I can take 10 seconds to pause and evaluate my top priority…”. “If the neighbor is loud upstairs after 10pm on a weeknight, then I won’t be able to sleep and I’ll be pissed off…” can become “If the neighbor is loud upstairs then I’ll throw on that meditation to help me go to bed…”

This doesn’t happen after 1 try. Remember how long it took you to know the routes around your city without using your phone’s GPS. You created an internal GPS and stuck to it. Now give yourself the grace to explore alternate routes that may not be based on the quickest or most efficient way towards your destination, but may be based on the quality you’d like to experience. Maybe you choose the most efficient route to “calm” when in the face of feeling “rushed”. Which approach in your mental wiring will get you there sooner? Rewire the brain and create new neural pathways in the same way that you navigate a new city – treat yourself like a tourist and sometimes take the scenic route to get there. You never know what adventure lives beyond the well-worn paths.