When I married my handsome, smart, funny, comforting, hard-working husband, my dog Scout and I moved into his house, 2 counties away. It was NOT a hard decision to marry him. Obviously.
It was, however, very hard to decide which of our houses to sell. I loved my house, my neighborhood, my church community, my friends, my proximity to my parents and siblings, and my favorite place to get french fries. Nevertheless, his house was, and is, the very best place for us.
Human brains are really good at autopilot. It’s efficient. It’s how it does its work.
So when we move from one house to another, there is a decent period of time where we have to train our brain on the new routes – how to get to and from work and school and the grocery store and swig, how to find new and safe places to take a walk, and even how to get home fast when traffic is bad or we’ve picked up hot pizza.
I have a client who has been working – so diligently – on not letting a past relationship get the best of her.
I asked her to picture one of any of the houses she used to live in. Then I asked her if she could remember how easy it used to feel to drive there. She nodded.
“Could you still automatically drive there?”, I asked.
“I could probably get there but it would take some effort”, she said.
Exactly.
Her brain no longer drives to that house on auto-pilot because she’s told her brain they don’t live there any more. Those routes and habits and routines she had when she did live there are no longer relevant to her brain.
Why? Because she’s told it that they live somewhere else.
“That’s something you could do with those thoughts about that previous relationship. You’ve processed it, you’ve grieved it, you’ve done the emotional work, you’ve moved on. All that’s left to do is to remind your brain that you live somewhere else, and that those thoughts about it are no longer relevant.”
It will get easier. Our brains are good at adapting.
Kendra Cherry tells us that “as we gain new experiences, some connections [in our brains] are strengthened while others are eliminated. This process is known as synaptic pruning.
Neurons that are used frequently develop stronger connections. Those that are rarely or never used eventually die. By developing new connections and pruning away weak ones, the brain can adapt to the changing environment.
We can help our brains adapt to the changing environment. We can take part in the synaptic pruning.
I was driving through some errands last week and found myself on a road that for many years used to be on my way home from school. Without even thinking about it, my brain went into autopilot and almost got on the freeway going the wrong direction – toward my old house. I caught myself. “Come on brain, we don’t live there any more.”
I can’t wait to hear about the places you’ve moved from – and where you’re telling your brain to live instead.
If you need help finding the new routes, I’m here to help!
