Clearing The Path

I ducked under the branches but still they knocked the hat off my head while the thorny vines pulled at my legs.  The path was so overgrown that even from just a few feet away I couldn’t see the Gulley Bridge.

I could hold onto my hat and push my way through, I did it just a few days ago, but today I wanted a clear path.  So I went back to the farm and got the loppers.

I cut a path through the overhanging branches so I could walk through them without stooping and had enough space to reach out my arms on either side of me.

As I  clipped I thought about how our brains create synapses or  connections between the neurons.   Over one hundred trillion of them by the time we are 2 or three years old,  according to  neuroscientist David Eagleman in his book The Brain, The Story of You.

Then, as the brain continues to develop, until we are in our early 20s, the pathways get “pruned” the brain gets “sculpted”.  The connections that are used get stronger and … “Just like a path in a forest, you lose the connections that you don’t use.”

But even after our brains stop developing, the connections or pathways can still be changed.

That’s what I’m doing now with my fear.

Two weeks ago a trauma from my childhood was triggered during a visit to an ear doctor.  Since then I’ve been having rolling anxiety and panic like I have not experienced in years.

The good part is that I’ve been able to isolate what causes them.

It’s mostly  a specific fear from childhood that has nothing to do with my life now.  A fear that was strengthen as my brain was developing causing it to become a well worn pathway.

My therapist conveyed the importance of repeatedly telling myself the truth about my fear, that it is no longer relevant in my life, when I begin to feel the anxiety or panic coming on.

This is how I will  create a new pathway in my brain.  And as I use that pathway again and again, reinforcing my new truth about this fear, the old connection will fade from not being used.

I was anxious when I set out for a walk in the woods this afternoon, but when I decided to prune the branches hanging in my path, it was as if I were, at the same time, reinforcing this new connection in my brain.

Clearing the way so I can walk it easily and without obstruction.   Sending a signal to my brain that I am creating a new pathway.  And allowing my old path of fear, with time, to get overgrown from not being used.