Interrupting the pattern
I’ve been talking with my kids a lot about interrupting patterns that aren’t working for us anymore. It’s been a really important part of my own healing and growth. Healing and growth in my marriage, and in navigating chronic illness. As Donald Hebb famously said, “neurons that fire together, wire together”. This is why we are always practicing something. We are always strengthening some part of our mind, strengthening some neurological connection.
When I talk to my kids, I call these pathways moguls of the mind ⛷🧠. It was something our kids could visualize. They saw the way moguls were created on the non-groomed ski slopes and how over the course of a season those moguls deepened. They know from experience how hard it is to break away from a mogul once you head down one; the deeper the moguls are, the more effort it takes to break away and carve a new path.
It was simple for them to grasp the idea that it’s easier to choose a new path earlier in the process than once we have momentum …