Move beyond the familiar
Whenever we find ourselves drowning in our circumstances, we often yearn for change. Yet, often our efforts seem ineffective. We seemingly keep recreating outcomes that we don’t want, don’t like and cause us pain. Why is that?
Firing Familiar Neural Pathways
Research suggests that we tend to have many more thoughts a day than you would possibly imagine. How many? To be precise, on average 48.6 per minute, which adds up to around 70,000 per day. Unfortunately, somewhere around sixty to seventy percent are negative. (Yikes!)
And of those 70,000 thoughts we have today, 97 percent are estimated to be the same thoughts we had yesterday…and the day before yesterday ... and so on.
In other words, we overwhelmingly tend to repeat our thought patterns. And in these thought patterns, most are critical, judgmental and negative, thus producing a rather pessimistic and negative view of life. This is not true for everyone, but this is the norm. And in this “norm” for the human brain, these habitual thoughts are the result of neural connections firing is familiar ways, day after day.
So, imagine, we wake up every day, and are barraged by tens of thousands of thoughts. Our feelings derive from those thoughts. Most are the same thoughts from yesterday, which drives the same actions as yesterday and ends up creating all the same feelings.
Thus, it’s no wonder that change seems impossible!
For many, we end our days doing the same things we did yesterday. We read or watch similar material, close our eyes with similar thoughts and then perhaps dream similar dreams. The next day, most of us roll out of bed looking at the same things we looked at yesterday, and engaging in the same habits. We tend to follow a routine, because it is easier to not be thinking about each little step of the day.
Yet, each small piece of the environment is typically very, very familiar to us. The familiar environment immediately fires off familiar thoughts, many of which go by completely unnoticed.
Once the familiar environment (i.e., spouse, kids, news, coffee pot, view in the mirror, etc.) cues up a few thoughts, we then tend to react to those thoughts with the same words or actions we took yesterday. This of course, creates a similar response from the world we live in, which is feedback to our brain: It’s time for the next reactive thought or action.
This process goes on over and over, automatically and reflexively. We engage with a familiar environment, thinking the familiar thoughts/actions thus creating the same familiar response from the environment. When you can appreciate this, it’s easy to understand why we hit “repeat” each day, and find it hard to get out of familiar patterns.
Why Do We Hook on the Familiar?
No doubt, many of you have thought about being kinder, more loving, more active or more planful. You want to, but find it difficult or uncomfortable. At times, we get caught thinking of how others treat us, and how we want them to change first before we will change. Again, it feels uncomfortable or unfair to be the first to lead the way.
There are many ways we get trapped, but one of the most common is the trap of familiarity. While it may bring us pain and misery, oddly we will heavily lean toward doing what’s familiar…even though the familiar has proven to be painful or limiting. This is truly human nature. It leads to quite a bit of consistency in our overall life pattern, but it cannot lead us to freedom and growth.
Break Free of the Familiar
For today, I invite you to look carefully at patterns that do not seem to change in your life, and notice the way in which any change ‘feels’ uncomfortable or weird or unfair. These are traps of familiarity, arguing against doing something or anything different. Contrary to popular belief, a positive change will likely not feel comfortable or right. Ignore that sense of wanting what feels comfortable right away, and move toward the higher principals of growth, love, acceptance and movement toward what you truly desire. It will likely feel odd. Embrace this novelty. It’s the first step. And then next week, I will introduce more details in how to break out of familiar, but limiting, patterns.
Dr. Randy Cale, a Clifton Parkbased parenting expert, author, speaker and licensed psychologist, offers practical guidance for a host of parenting concerns. His website, www.TerrificParenting.com, offers free parenting guidance and an email newsletter. Readers can learn more by reviewing past articles found on the websites of The Saratogian, The Record and The Community News. Submit questions to DrRandyCale@gmail. com.