We’re continuing the discussion on patterns in your brain and therefore patterns in your thinking, decisions, and actions.
You know how sometimes when you drive on a familiar route, like to work or home, you’ll park and barely remember the drive? That’s brain patterning. It’s fairly innocent and useful when it comes to familiar and low cost routines like driving to and from work or walking through your house in the dark (unless there are stray legos). In other settings though, you pay a higher price for getting stuck in a pattern.
You know how certain people consistently bring any subject, no matter how innocent, back to them and invent a way to take it personally? That’s brain patterning.
Your brain will not evaluate the patterns it adopts against your goals, priorities, standards, character, or how you want people to experience you. You have to consciously do that.
You know how so many people, no matter what happens, see it as confirmation of their political opinions and an indictment of the opposition, even if it contradicts their previous opinions? That’s brain patterning.
If your brain knows a pattern and even thinks it sees it, your brain will fill in the blanks to create that pattern whether or not it actually exists in that situation. Then, and this is the crazy part, your brain will think that’s what really happened and confuse its invented pattern for reality.
Your brain is mostly blind or indifferent to pattern evaluation. It can’t be trusted to make disciplined, purposeful choices about the patterns it uses, adopts, and rejects. You have to consciously do that.
It starts with self-awareness and starts to improve with self-discipline.
Do everything in your power to keep dysfunctional patterns away from your brain. Once they take hold, they’re hard to recognize and even harder to eradicate. It’s much easier and less painful to establish productive patterns than it is to remove disruptive ones.
Answer the call. Do the work.
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