Neuroplasticity: The Brain’s Ability To Change

Neuroplasticity!

The mechanism behind the brain’s capacity for transformation!

I love the topic of neuroplasticity because it reminds us that we’re not stuck in just one version of ourselves forever.

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change, adapt, and reorganize itself by forming new neural connections in response to experience, learning, repetition, and environment. Basically, the brain is shaped by what it repeatedly interacts with and is exposed to.

The brain is always learning :)

How Change Happens

When thoughts, behaviors, or reactions are repeated, the neural pathways associated with them become stronger. The brain becomes more efficient at accessing them because it’s designed to conserve energy. This is part of synaptic plasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to make experience-dependent, long-lasting changes in the strength of the connections between neurons. It connects to long-term potentiation, where repeated communication between neurons strengthens those connections over time. Once a pathway has been used enough times, it becomes easier for the brain to return to it.

Neuroplasticity also involves weakening connections that are no longer being reinforced and slowly withdrawing energy from old patterns. The less you practice a pattern, the weaker it becomes, and the easier it is for your brain to stop returning to it automatically. Change can feel uncomfortable at first because old patterns feel familiar, even when the patterns that hurt you. The brain often associates familiarity with safety, so the first stages of change can feel strange simply because the mind’s learning a different route. The discomfort is all part of the process, and it’s just the tension that comes with teaching the brain something new.

What This Means in Real Life

You’re allowed to outgrow old mental habits!

Have you guys ever heard the saying, “You’re not a tree, you can move”?

I hate that saying.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the comparison. But when I think about neuroplasticity, I actually think being compared to a tree makes a lot of sense. A tree is grounded, and being grounded doesn’t mean you’re stuck. It’s still growing through every season; it can lose its leaves and branches throughout the seasons, and it can grow new ones. Even when the tree's branches are completely bare, it doesn’t mean it's stopped growing; it’s going through changes and in process, and it’s being supported by what surrounds it and the conditions that help it continue to grow.

The mind reminds me of a tree because it’s forever “growing”. Like the tree, the mind also needs the right conditions to support that growth. It needs care, safety, rest, repetition, and new experiences. As you grow, certain patterns begin to loosen because the way you once understood yourself no longer fully reflects the person you’re becoming. Neuroplasticity isn’t only about correcting harmful mental patterns; it also allows you to change as you’re constantly learning and developing new ways of being throughout life.

So, if anything, think of your mind as a tree. Grounded and forever growing. You’re allowed to shed old patterns, grow new healthy habits, and continue becoming more of yourself over time. You’re allowed to go through seasons and transform.

“Why do people get stuck?” you may ask…

People can feel stuck because many of the harmful patterns we experience don’t feel like something we learned; they feel like our natural way of being. For example, someone who grew up constantly having to explain themselves can become an adult who overexplains everything, or someone who grew up in an unpredictable environment can become an adult who’s constantly hyperaware or overly observant.

These things can start to feel natural, but at the same time destabilizing and distressing; Mental patterns were formed through repetition, environment, and/or survival. They were formed in response to something, and they developed because at one point the brain believed they were useful. This can include thoughts shaped by parents or caregivers, coping patterns picked up in stressful or chaotic environments, and beliefs formed through traumatic experiences. It can be confusing when a pattern starts to feel misaligned, and you begin to witness its actual consequences, because at one point it made sense to you and actually helped (or maybe just provided a sense of relief). But then life changes: you grow, and you become more aware that your mind has been working against you rather than with you.

This is a reminder that your brain was doing its best with what it knew, so lets not judge it for how it learned to protect you. The patterns that feel like they’ve been working against you most likely started as the brain’s attempt to protect you or help you survive with the information it had at the time.

Shifting Your Relationship With Your Mind

Unfortunately, a lot of people approach change with shame. Sometimes they know better and still don’t do better, and I think that can be tied to shame, self-esteem, and familiarity. Some people approach change as though it exists outside of them, like it’s not something they’re actually capable of doing. They can become so comfortable, and their nervous system is so settled into a certain dynamic that changing it means having to face parts of their mind they’ve been avoiding. That process can be very challenging, especially when navigating through traumas.

This is enough to begin developing a negative relationship with change itself. And when they try to change and don’t reach the point they expected within a certain timeframe, they could start to feel inadequate. The experience can reaffirm a sense of incapability and make them less likely to keep engaging with change because they’ve started viewing the process as something challenging instead of something their mind is naturally capable of.

Change begins when you start disengaging from old patterns and forming new habits, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it overnight. It also doesn’t mean that once you start changing, you’re never going to fall back into an old pattern again. Change isn’t linear, and I think the most important thing is that you keep returning to the process. If you try and it doesn’t work the first time, start again. Each time you return, you learn something new about yourself and what the pattern requires from you.

When you remove the pressure to reach a certain point within a certain timeframe, look a specific way, or make changes for other people, the process starts to feel more natural. You begin understanding yourself instead of only judging what you haven’t changed yet. Shadow work can also help you understand what happened to shape the pattern in the first place, and the more clearly you understand that, the more comfortable you can become with changing it.

Once you can understand a pattern, you’re no longer completely inside of it or being controlled by it in the same way. You’re able to meet it and choose how you want to respond. Every time you choose a different response instead of repeating the old one, you give your brain new information. That’s how you begin rewriting the story. Stop treating your mind like something you have to fight, and start relating to it as a part of you that can be taught how to feel safe in the person you’re becoming.

Thank you for reading! Check out my post “A Meeting With The Shadow” if you’re interested in beginning the process of transformation.

— SIBYL¹¹ ꒷꒦♛❤︎

References

Puderbaugh, M., & Emmady, P. D. (2023). Neuroplasticity. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557811/