Why can’t I stop doing that?
I work from a cabin in my garden, so several times a day I walk down my garden and back. In summer, this isn’t really noticeable, but in winter, when the grass is longer and the ground is damper, a distinct ‘path’ forms. Even though I notice this and try to make myself walk a different route to save the grass, I just can’t seem to absentmindedly stop following this path. It’s crazy because I could literally walk anywhere else in the garden, but still, my mind just follows this indented pathway.
I was thinking about this and how it’s a perfect metaphor for why I also have other things I struggle to stop doing, like eating in the evening. I can change what I eat to healthy food, but my mind is so used to sitting on the sofa nibbling something that it genuinely feels like something is missing when I don’t. I had to take up knitting to shift it!
In your brain, neural pathways form as you experience life. These pathways send you off down a certain path of thought, behaviour, or action, not caring that there is a whole ‘garden’ of pathways available for you to choose. Your brain might create false beliefs that keep you on those pathways, things like, "You won’t be safe if you try to create a new one," or "People won’t like you," and so on. It’s a bit like that game we played as kids where, if you stood on a crack in the pavement, a bear would eat you (who started that one?).
The problem is that this stops you enjoying the whole garden. What about walking past the water feature, or the bush with golden leaves in autumn, or that section of the garden that is bathed in winter sun? They would definitely give me more enjoyment of my garden. So often, we are so focused on the target – my cabin – that we can forget or ignore things that would give us more enjoyment. For example, we can be so focused on being successful in work that we ignore our home life until it explodes.
What really made this even more powerful was that on Sunday, my grandson came to see me. I was catching up on some last-minute work while waiting for them, and so he came to find me. I watched him step out of my back door, and even at two years old, he followed the exact path I have created. Even at two years old, he was instantly and without conscious awareness copying this visual pathway. Remember, it’s just an indentation in the grass – not a proper path.
This is a huge part of the problem. Our parents – our grandparents even – create pathways that their unconscious mind thinks are a good idea (some really are), and we just pick them up and absorb them, even as tiny little people, when we are so young we don’t even stop to question them. This is where generational patterns, traumas, and behaviours get set in place. There was once an animal experiment (which I don’t agree with) where they hung bananas from the roof of a room full of monkeys. When the monkeys touched the bananas, they got an electric shock. The monkeys started to teach each other, and then their babies, and then their babies’ babies, not to touch the bananas. A few generations later, when there were none of the original monkeys who had been shocked left, no monkey touched the bananas.
This was replicated in humans. Researchers set up a waiting room. Several people in it were actors, and on hearing a bell, they stood up and then sat down again for no reason. As the ‘real’ test subjects came in, they saw this and, while initially baffled and without asking, it only took a few times for them to stand up and sit down when the others did. Again, the actors all slowly left, and the real ones continued to stand up and sit down on the bell, as did everyone who came in after them…
I looked at my grandson running down the path I’d created, and it really hit home.
I don’t want you to want to change for those that come after you. I want you to want to change for yourself. You may not have children or family around you, after all. I want you to start questioning all that you do and double-check that the things you think, act upon, and say are exactly what you want them to be. However, if you do have family or friends that are close to you, think about the effect you may be absentmindedly passing down without question.
I have taught my kids – now all adults – to take from my modelling only what is good. To dump everything else. To question their thoughts and actions, and those of the people around them. To stay aware and alert to their life’s journey. Most of all, I have taught them: do not keep carrying down the negative influence of the generations – including mine.
So I want to leave you with this: make sure you are living the life you choose and walking the pathways that give you the most joy by checking in on each thing that you do, from what tea you drink to what your goals are. Live the life that you love – and stop by that autumn bush because the colours are beautiful.