I was heading to see a client in the CBD and found a parking spot along the busy Terrace in Wellington. The problem was it was a reverse park, not my skillset and something that always fills me with dread, especially on a busy road with traffic waiting! It’s like the pressure goes up ten fold. The only thing worse than this was a man opening the passenger door mid concentration to reverse park, picked up my bag on the seat and attempted to get in.
I froze, I panicked and I think I said something along the lines of “what the f**k are you doing in my car”. Having a knife held to my throat, being robbed, or worse, all kinds of things went through my head in moments. As I blurted out my shocked response the man turned to look at me and said “shit sorry, wrong car, I thought you were my lift”. He’d been waiting by the open parking space for his partner to give him a lift home. He quickly jumped out and I completed my park, still shaking.
Why do I share this? To show the way our brains form our beliefs and how this impacts our reactions and assumptions.
Neurons that fire together, wire together, our previous experiences also help form these neural pathways which we use for reference when similar events play out. With 86 billion neurons in our brain there’s an infinite possibility of the combinations when you think of all the firing and wiring that goes on. From helping us lift a cup of tea to our mouth to feeling empathy for a friend going through a breakup.
But how does this play into the habits we have, the thought patterns we’ve cultivated and the impact this has on our self-doubt or inner critic?
I’m aware I can’t reverse park very well, it was the reason I failed my first driving test and something I’ve told myself ever since, that I can’t do. It’s why I always get worried – it’s a well worn track in my brain that I reinforce every time I see a park and think – oh great I need to reverse park and it’s a busy road, in front of all these people, I’m probably going to stuff it up.
I’ve also watched way too many movies of women being attack by men – to be fair most of its real and from the news too! My neural pathways have formed to reflect strange men approaching my car as a threat, a likely robbery or some kind of violence or harm. Even though this has never been the case for me it has been for thousands of other women so it’s a well worn track in my brain despite never having happened. I also form the pathways in my brain based on what I consume (don’t let me get started on social media and crap TV). It’s also the reason why women walk with our car keys in our hands, don’t wear headphones so we can hear who’s approaching and won’t go down a dark alley at night.
The neurons that fire together for me equate to risk and fear, that’s why my go to response in this situation was to think the worst. It’s also impacted by my fight, flight response further reducing the capacity to analyse this and think of other logical explanations. In that split second the answer is always going to be ‘imminent danger’ over ‘maybe an innocent mistake’.
So what neurons do you fire together and where are the well worn tracks in your brain? What are they telling you?
I can’t do this. They’re going to find me out. She’s better at this than I am. I don’t know if this is good enough?
We can rewire the brain, form new neural pathways and encourage a better story, more confidence, less fear. Firing neurons together that help us recognise our abilities, celebrate our success and think more positively. Maybe the inner critic has been wiring too much of your brain with its negative overtones?
Learn how to silence your inner critic and think more positively to build confidence and resilience with my programmes.