One of the reasons I’m drawn to neuroscience is that it bridges the gap between the brain, the body, and our lived experience. It offers a language to explain why we think, feel, and behave the way we do and, more importantly, how we can change. For me, understanding the nervous system has been a turning point in my growth, and professionally, it’s one of the foundations of how I support others. In therapy, I utilise a range of tools, including body-based approaches and mindfulness, as well as cognitive techniques such as those employed in CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). What unites them all is that they work with the brain’s natural ability to adapt and rewire, known as neuroplasticity. When we understand this concept, change stops feeling abstract or impossible and becomes something practical, visible, and empowering.
How Your Brain Rewrites Itself
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganise and adapt by strengthening neural pathways that are frequently used, while weakening those that are rarely activated. This dual process allows us to learn, heal, and adjust to new experiences throughout life. When we discuss neuroplasticity, the focus is often on building new pathways, including new behaviours, beliefs, habits, and thought patterns. But just as important is to discuss the pruning of old ones. If behaviours, beliefs, habits, and thought patterns aren’t reinforced through use, the synaptic connections underlying them are gradually weakened or eliminated, a process known as synaptic pruning. Concerning strengthening the new paths, repetition is critical because each time a neural pathway is activated, the connections involved become stronger and more efficient—a process often summarised by the phrase ‘neurons that fire together, wire together'.
The Forest Path Allegory
Imagine your brain as a vast forest full of different paths, some well-worn, others still undiscovered. Each path represents a thought pattern, behaviour, belief, or habit. The more often you walk(ed) a path, the more familiar and automatic it becomes. Some paths you’ve walked since childhood. They feel like the only way to get from A to B. So, whether helpful or harmful, they become your default: familiar, easy to follow, automatic, but not always better for you, and sometimes even detrimental. Starting a new path can be unsettling. There’s resistance, unfamiliarity, anddiscomfort. The trail is barely visible, covered in brush and uneven underfoot. You might stumble, second-guess, or feel like turning back. But the more you walk it, the more natural it becomes. With repetition and intention, the new path clears, firms up, and begins to feel safe and intuitive. Meanwhile, the old path, the one you no longer use, begins to fade. It becomes overgrown, nature reclaims it, and eventually, it may even disappear.
A Real-Life Example - From Negativity to Perspective
Take, for example, a habitual pattern of interpreting situations in a negative light. Let’s say a friend doesn’t reply to your message. Rather than thinking, “They’re probably busy,” your mind jumps to, “They’re ignoring me,” or “I must have done something wrong.” If this kind of attribution occurs frequently enough, your brain reinforces that negative bias. It becomes your default even when the situation is ambiguous or neutral. That’s not because the thought is true, but because it has been repeated. But, imagine catching that thought and pausing. Instead of running with the usual story, you ask yourself, “What else could be true?” Maybe they’re having a hard day. Maybe they forgot. Perhaps it’s not personal. At first, this shift feels unnatural or unconvincing. That’s normal. However, over time, with consistent effort, your brain begins to build a new path, one that sees the bigger picture, a more realistic, less reactive one, while the old one starts to fade.
Cognitive Restructuring: How to Build That New Path
This process is known as cognitive restructuring - an essential tool in Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It’s the practice of identifying distorted or unhelpful thoughts and replacing them with more balanced, reality-based alternatives. However, it is important to note that while cognitive restructuring helps change our habitual responses, it may not fully address the root cause, which is often shaped by deeper emotional wounds or early life experiences that have influenced those thought patterns. That’s where other therapeutic work can be supportive. That said, cognitive restructuring offers powerful benefits. It helps us:
Interrupt automatic negative thoughts
Reduce emotional reactivity
Develop more flexible, adaptive thinking
Begin rewiring the brain toward healthier mental habits
Here’s a simple framework you can try:
Catch the Thought
Notice when a negative or unhelpful thought arises. Write it down if you can.
Question It
Ask yourself: Is this thought true? Is it the only possible explanation? What evidence supports or challenges it?
Reframe It
Try to generate a more balanced alternative thought. Not forced positivity, just something that makes sense, is fair, grounded, and less self-critical.
Repeat
Like walking a new path in the forest, repetition is key. The more you practice reframing, the more familiar it becomes.
Let’s look at a few examples.
If you suffer from social anxiety, it’s likely that you enter a room and immediately think, “Everyone’s judging me,” or similar. If that’s been your default interpretation for years, your brain has likely strengthened that social threat pathway. Even when there’s no judgment happening, the feeling is real because the pathway is strong. Now imagine catching that thought and asking, “What if no one’s thinking about me at all?” or “What if people are more focused on themselves?” Initially, this reframe may not take hold. But the more often you apply it, the less intense the anxiety becomes.
Or consider the belief: “If I fail, I’m a failure.” This event/identity pattern is often learned early, usually through shaming, perfectionism, or a lack of emotional safety around mistakes. The brain associates any setback with a personal deficiency. Reframing might sound like: “This didn’t go as planned, but that doesn’t define me.” Or, “Mistakes are part of learning, not proof that I’m not good enough.”
Or similarly, a belief “I have to achieve to be worthy.” This might be something you never consciously chose but was absorbed from your early environment through family expectations, cultural norms, or the way love and approval were given. Over time, your brain internalised that message. It became a deeply grooved path: your sense of worth tied to performance, productivity, or perfection. Reframing that belief as “My worth isn’t conditional; I’m enough as I am” can feel untrue, radical and unfamiliar, even threatening at first. But each time you interrupt that old narrative and replace it with something more compassionate and grounded, you’re clearing up a new path for yourself.
The Role of Emotional Learning and Behavioural Change
However, thought alone doesn’t always change a deeply rooted pattern; the brain also learns through felt experiences of safety, connection, and compassion. Our emotional experiences play a major role in shaping and reshaping our neural pathways. That’s why it can be so powerful to pair cognitive restructuring with practices that engage the emotional system, such as self-compassion, co-regulation (with a therapist, partner, or friend), and/or somatic tools that help the body feel what the mind is learning. When we combine insight with emotion, change becomes not only cognitive but embodied. If this emotional piece is missing, there’s a risk that we will continue to reinforce old pathways simply by acting them out. This is why changing our behavioural patterns is essential. Yet this is often the trickiest part, because our behaviours are not just habits; they’re strategies our nervous system uses to stay safe.
For example, let’s say you’ve cognitively reframed the belief “I’m not good enough” into “I have value even when I’m not perfect” but you continue to stay in a toxic relationship, at work or home, where your worth is consistently undermined, or you keep saying yes when your body is clearly saying no. When this happens, your brain receives mixed messages, causing the new belief struggle to take root, while the old one is reinforced through behaviour and emotional experience. This is why meaningful change must happen on multiple levels: not just in how we think, but also in how we feel and act. In this case, setting boundaries, or even letting go of relationships that consistently trigger self-doubt and seeking out safer, more affirming connections, is key. Of course, this is easier said than done. But every small step in that direction, every boundary held, every honest no, every moment of self-respect, signals something new to your brain. Over time, your brain begins to rewire itself in response to your conscious choices. Each aligned action helps reinforce the new pathway, making it stronger, more familiar, and eventually, the new default.
Final Thoughts
Neuroplasticity, and understanding how it works, is powerful because it reminds us that change is possible. Every time you pause, reflect, and choose a new response, you're not just changing your mind; you’re literally reshaping your brain. Knowing that gives a deep sense of hope in change and that, if we set our mind to it (and stick with it long enough), everything is possible. I hope it gives you hope, too, as well as the courage to take even one small step toward the positive change you want to see in your life.
