A (very) brief love letter to your complicated, beautiful brain.

The Brain Is Complex.

Your brain is complicated. Ridiculously complicated, actually.

It is responsible for keeping you alive, remembering where you put your keys, deciding whether someone’s tone sounded weird, reminding you at 2:00 a.m. about something mildly embarrassing you said in 1997, and somehow allowing you to read this sentence while ignoring the feeling of your clothes touching your skin.

That’s a lot of responsibility for one organ.

And while your brain is capable of some pretty amazing things, it is not always particularly concerned with making you happy. Its first job is to keep you safe.

That distinction matters.

Your brain is always learning.

The brain changes in response to experience. This ability is known as neuroplasticity. Throughout our lives, connections in the brain strengthen, weaken and reorganize based on what we repeatedly experience, think and do.

This is one reason our experiences matter so much.

When something happens over and over again, your brain gets better at recognizing it. It begins creating shortcuts. Those shortcuts are incredibly useful when you’re learning to drive, type without looking at the keyboard or automatically reach for the brake when a car stops in front of you.

They become a little more complicated when the thing your brain has learned is: People leave. I need to stay in control. I can’t make mistakes. Conflict isn’t safe. I need to keep everyone happy. Something bad is probably going to happen.

Your brain doesn’t necessarily stop and ask whether an old lesson is still useful. It recognizes a pattern and responds based on what it already knows.

That is part of why we sometimes find ourselves reacting to the present with information we learned in the past.

Your brain likes patterns — even the ones you don’t.

People often come into therapy frustrated because they understand what they’re doing but can’t seem to stop doing it.

“I know I’m overthinking.”

“I know I don’t need to worry about this.”

“I know I keep choosing the same kind of relationship.”

“I know I should be able to let this go.”

Knowing is important. But knowing and changing are not the same thing.

Many of our reactions become automatic because the brain is designed to become efficient. If it had to carefully reconsider every decision, every feeling and every possible threat from scratch, we wouldn’t get very much done.

So it predicts.

It compares what is happening now with what has happened before. It fills in missing information. It notices things that seem important and filters out an enormous amount of information that doesn’t.

Sometimes it gets it right.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

And sometimes a response that made perfect sense at one point in your life hangs around long after you actually need it.

This is part of why overthinking feels so convincing.

An anxious brain is very good at asking, What if?

What if this happens?

What if I made the wrong decision?

What if they’re upset with me?

What if I forgot something?

What if something goes wrong?

Your brain can generate possibilities much faster than you can resolve them. And when uncertainty feels threatening, thinking more can create the temporary feeling that you’re doing something useful.

Sometimes you are. Thinking helps us plan and solve problems.

But there is a point where problem-solving becomes rumination. You are no longer gathering new information or moving toward a decision. You’re circling.

The frustrating part is that the circling can still feel productive.

Your brain says, “Maybe one more lap and we’ll figure this out.”

And off you go.

Stress changes what gets your attention.

When your brain perceives a threat, your nervous system prepares you to respond.

That threat does not have to be a bear chasing you through the woods. Human beings can have very real stress responses to rejection, uncertainty, conflict, loss, financial problems, work pressure, caregiving, health concerns, major life changes or simply having too many things demanding our attention at once.

When we’re stressed, our attention tends to narrow toward whatever feels most urgent or threatening. It can become harder to concentrate, remember things, make decisions or keep relatively small problems in perspective.

This is why telling yourself to “just calm down” is generally not a spectacular intervention.

Your brain does not always respond to logic simply because you have presented a compelling argument.

Sometimes the body needs to settle before the brain is particularly interested in hearing your rebuttal.

Your brain can learn something different.

This is the part I really want people to understand.

The same brain that learned a pattern can learn a new one.

That doesn’t mean we erase our history. It doesn’t mean painful experiences suddenly stop mattering. And it definitely doesn’t mean you can think positively for three days and rewire your entire nervous system.

Change is usually much less dramatic than that.

It happens through repeated experiences.

You notice the thought without automatically believing it.

You tolerate uncertainty for a little longer.

You set a boundary and discover that the world doesn’t end.

You allow someone to help you.

You make a mistake and survive it.

You recognize that the feeling you’re having is familiar, but the situation you’re in is different.

You respond differently once. And then, eventually, you do it again.

Little by little, your brain gets new information.

That is part of what we are doing in therapy.

We are paying attention to the patterns that have become automatic, getting curious about where they came from, figuring out which ones are still serving you and practicing something different where they aren’t.

Not because your brain has failed you.

Quite the opposite.

A lot of the things we eventually want to change began as your brain’s attempt to protect you, help you adapt or get you through something difficult.

It was working with the information it had at the time.

Sometimes therapy is simply the process of giving it some new information.

So perhaps give your brain a little credit.

It has been collecting information, making predictions, protecting you, adapting to your experiences, storing an unreasonable number of song lyrics and generally running the place without a day off for your entire life.

It won’t always get everything right.

Neither will you.

Fortunately, both of you can keep learning.