Counselor Resources

🌿 Imagine your mind is like a tall, grassy meadow. This grass is taller than you, and you need to get through this big meadow, but you don’t know how to.

So, to get to the other side, you just start walking… and you get to somewhere else, at least. 🤷

Next time you return to this spot, you notice the tall grass is slightly bent where you walked before. It’s easier to step there again, so you do. 👣

Each time you take that same path, the grass presses down more. Eventually, it becomes a well-worn trail—engrained, defined. It’s the only route you see. It’s automatic. 🛣️

But here’s the thing—you made that pathway, and you can make an infinite number of others.

✨ The first step to change is realizing the old path isn’t taking you where you actually want to go.

It’s about noticing, as soon as you can, that you’re back on it. And then making the choice—stepping off the familiar loop and forging a new way toward your actual desired outcome.

How the Brain Reinforces Thought Patterns

🧠 Your thoughts are electricity.

They don’t just exist—they move, jumping across gaps between neurons. Each time a thought repeats, your brain builds a stronger, more direct bridge across that gap, making it easier for the thought to travel that way next time.

The more we use a thought pattern, the stronger the bridge becomes—eventually making it the default path. Even if another way is possible, our brain automatically sends the electricity across the reinforced bridge, because it’s the quickest and most familiar route.

But just like in the meadow, we can build new paths.

We don’t have to destroy the old one—we just have to stop walking it as often.

We have to pause, catch when we’re about to step onto the old bridge, and instead start reinforcing a different one.

Example in Action:

🚫 Old path: Someone is rude to me → I’m triggered → I’m rude back → leads to me feeling angry and out of control

✔️ New path: Someone is rude to me → I’m still triggered and want to be rude → I notice my first instinct → I take a breath before I respond → leads to me feeling in control of my own choices.

That small pause is what stops the electricity from jumping straight across the old bridge. It interrupts the automatic reaction before the whole domino chain completes. Just a gap in the domino chain means the whole thing won’t fall, just like a pause in my reaction means I don’t have to complete the old, engrained thought-action chain.

The more I choose to pause, the more my brain strengthens the new bridge (of awareness and self compassion). Over time, even if my first impulse is still the old one, I get faster at redirecting to the path I actually want to take.

🌿 The pause is where the change begins...

... What old paths are you learning to step off of?