We have ‘experience-dependent’ brains.
Our brains are shaped by what happens to us. The past has an influence in the present.
AND.. the beauty of Experience-Dependent Brains is that…
.. what happens next can shape them too.
The same nervous system that was shaped by experience can continue to be shaped by experience.
What we've been exposed to and experienced can shape..
- what we expect
- what we notice
- how we interpret what we notice,
- what feels safe or threatening, and
- the responses that become easiest for our nervous system to access.
Our past matters. Experiences become embedded in the patterns and circuitry of our mind-brain-body systems.
And.. those patterns don’t have to determine our present or our future.
The human brain is extraordinary;
Its patterns can keep us feeling trapped or stuck.
And its capacity to change can also help liberate us.
New experiences give our brain new data.
A relationship where something different happens gives our brain new data.
Even a moment when you notice an old pattern starting to have a hold on you.. and then hold just enough awareness to experiment with a new reaction, thought, action.. can give your brain something new to work with.
Over time, experiences that we practice and repeat can shape which pathways become easier for us to access.
And that is where I see our mind-brain-body as a tool for our own liberation.
The human brain develops across our life span and remains open to being shaped by what we do with it…
This means that..
We can learn to use:
- micro-movements,
- intentional moments of using our attention in new ways,
- experimenting with our relationships and sensory experiences
.. to give our brain new information.
And we can also recognize that some of what feels ‘permanent’ and ‘just who we are’..
might actually just be an electro-chemical-firing pattern.
A pattern with a history.
A pattern that may have made sense within the experiences that shaped it.
And a pattern that our extraordinarily adaptive human brain may be capable of updating.
To me, that is the brain as a liberation technology.
In my work, I find one of the most powerful aspects of teaching about the power of the human mind-brain-body is to acknowledge both the shadow and the light of what ‘experience-dependence’ means:
The adaptiveness of our brain carries:
a burden from being shaped by a past we didn’t choose..
AND..
… the power of what we can now choose to neuro-architecturally change how our brain fires and responds.
When we understand more about how our brains have been shaped, and how they continue to change…
we open up more possibilities for what happens next.
Wishing you moments of noticing the magnificence of what the human mind is capable of ..
You can also listen to this article as a mini-podcast
And this is much of what my work (and the courses I've created) are here to explore.
Teach the Nervous System™ gives you the science and language to understand and explain regulation, so you can help people make sense of what their nervous systems are doing and build greater capacity to work with them. Explore it here
The Adaptive Brain: The Science of Setbacks, Mindset & Change explores how our brains learn from experience, why familiar patterns can be so persistent, and how understanding the biology of adaptation can change the way we approach setbacks and change. Explore it here
And inside the Super-Regulators™ Neuroscience Academy, we bring these ideas together on a much larger canvas — exploring the mind-brain-body system, relationships and the larger environments that shape human regulation, adaptation and transformation. Explore it here
(You can join the Digital Academy and move through the recordings and resources at your own pace, or join us Live for the full group experience - registration is open for 2 more weeks, and then will close until late 2027 or possibly 2028.)
