Desire Lines

A new way of thinking about neural pathways.

I often describe nervous system patterns as pathways that form through continued use.

Imagine you're taking a shortcut across a field for the first time. The grass is long, and it's slow going. When you return, it's hard to find the exact path you took - there may be a few bent stalks of grass to guide your way, but it's still a slog. If you start taking that shortcut every day, it becomes easier to retrace your path - those bent blades of grass become increasingly trampled, and with continued use, grass stops growing, the earth becomes hard-packed, and it's easier to use that path than to walk anywhere else on the field.

One day, you decide to go to a new place, take a different direction across the field - but you forgot how hard it is to walk through the tall grass.

It's just so much easier to keep using the old, familiar trail. You might even convince yourself that the old destination is better than the new one, just to avoid the work of creating a new path.

Patterns in your nervous system are like those hard-packed paths.

How you walk, talk, and decide what's for dinner; how you think about yourself, others and the world around you... these are all patterns - a result of repeated actions, thoughts and behaviours that become the neural pathways that you use in every moment of every day.

Patterns are not bad or good - they're just what happens when you repeat a behaviour, thought or action.

Urban planners refer to those shortcuts across the field as Desire Lines. I like that name - it reminds me that we can choose our neural pathways, based on our desires.

What are your desires - for your thoughts, actions and behaviours in your relationships, your self-care, how you want to show up in the world?

• What Desire Lines do you want to create?

• What is your first step across the field?

• What do you want to tell yourself when you're avoiding the tall grass?

• What are the tools you need to create your new neural pathways?

Although patterns show up in our minds, they're part of our bodies. So, when it comes to creating new neural pathways, changing the way you think isn't always enough. When you learn to feel comfortable in the tall grass, creating new pathways is so much easier.

If you'd like to experience that for yourself, please join me from 7-8pm ET tomorrow evening (Wednesday, May 20) for a free webinar to help you make friends with your nervous system. I'll teach you a tool you can use right away for getting comfortable in the tall grass.

Can't make it tomorrow? There's another webinar scheduled for Tuesday, June 9.
Find more information about both webinars here.