GETTING OUR MINDS WRAPPED AROUND IT

My wife and I were visiting my son and daughter-in-law and 2 month old grandson after my son had just started sole daytime responsibility for his son. I offered to stay with my grandson (who was sleeping) while my son went on a run. He agreed and then stood not talking and after a couple minutes he said it was a good idea. I mentioned that he might have needed a little time to "wrap his mind around the idea and he said he had been thinking about the weather. It dawned on me (maybe another way that patterns get changed) that my son may have chosen to take time to work out for himself that this was a new pattern of behavior and it is ok. By the way, his going on the run was delayed by a stuck contact lens and then getting the music selection set for his run. Also, maybe these intervening activities were needed to allow the pattern to change?

Changing patterns of thinking and behavior are very important as we can get stuck in patterns that are not helpful and not needed, even if they might have seemed necessary years ago. We need to be able to [choose to] tell ourselves that we want to change a pattern of behavior or thinking and then take steps to change it. Research has shown that if you want to accomplish something it is helpful to visualize completing it and then start working on what you want to accomplish. Thinking about it or talking about it does not help as our brains seem to think that talking or thinking about it is the goal and not accomplishing it. I know that this does not really answer the question of how one goes about changing patterns of thinking or behavior and yet our being aware of what instructions we are giving our brains can help us to then change the instructions and start to change patterns that we really need to change.