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We have a built-in mechanism in our brains that ensures that we learn and develop routines that save time and make our lives more efficient. In this way, we don’t have to respond to every situation presenting itself as though it were novel and unrelated to anything that we encountered previously. Our brains, forever looking to simplify and streamline actions, recognize that a current situation is similar to previous ones we encountered. So, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel and attempt to figure it all out again. We have stored in our memories how we responded to these circumstances previously. In a nanosecond, we judge these to be similar to those prior situations, so we disregard data at the fringes that may be dissimilar and pull out of the hat a pat response.

Unfortunately, this evolutionary benefit has a profound downside. Once we learn a dysfunctional response and repeat it over and over again, we have a strong tendency to continue to rely on it even though circumstances may be substantively different. Now we’re not responding to the immediate environment. Instead, we’re reacting based on our idea of what the environment means. We’re living virtually in the past.

In 1949 the Canadian neuropsychologist Donald Hebb, known for his work in associative learning, explained this phenomenon with this pithy phrase: “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Essentially what it means is that every experience triggers the firing of thousands, and perhaps millions of neurons. If we repeat that experience several times, the brain quickly learns the pattern and automatically fires the same neurons. Our brains are always seeking ways to become more efficient. Imagine that someone tosses you a basketball in a pickup game on the playground. You don’t have to stop and then think about what to do with it if there’s an open shot unless you never played basketball before. Suppose you started playing from a young age and shot basket after basket for hours on end. In that case, your brain goes into action automatically when someone tosses you a ball, firing the neuronal pattern that brings your hands up to receive the pass, as you jump vertically and release the ball perfectly from 15 feet out with the ball going through the hoop, all net. Thank goodness for neural wiring. With time, it gets faster, more efficient, and more capable of delivering up the same results reliably, time and time again.

But what happens if you have decided that defenders have figured out your moves, and you want to have the option to shoot with your left hand as successfully as with your right hand? It will take a great deal of practice to build up a new neural complex of wiring to allow you to choose in an instant whether to shoot righty or lefty. With time, though, you’ll learn, and it too will become automatic.

Let’s take this into the psychological realm. If, as a child, you were physically abused regularly, the fight-or-flight response will likely become hard-wired and associated with all physical contact. Even in potentially nurturing and safe circumstances, any hint of physical contact will automatically elicit the fight-or-flight neural patterns in your brain.

In a milder example, perhaps you grew up in a hyper-critical household, where your parents regularly derided your intelligence. After leaving home for college, imagine when a teacher praises you for an excellent job. The story you’re likely running in your head despite this positive input is that your assignment was probably lacking. You may even conclude that the teacher is just taking pity on you. You’ll find a way to discount the praise, all to prove that you’re not adequate to the task at hand. God forbid that a professor gives you some constructive feedback, or perhaps you fail an exam. The negative stories you tell yourself can spin out of control, leading to rumination, perseveration, and concomitant distress. You see, the body doesn’t know the difference between a real event and an imagined one. The more we imagine how inadequate we are, the worse we feel. The worse we feel, the more we believe we’re worthless and incapable of succeeding at anything. Depression, anxiety, panic, and obsessive behaviors can set in. You’re now in a hole so deep that you have no internal resources to short circuit this hellish loop. The neurons associated with this disastrous conclusion about yourself continue to fire over and over again and it seems there’s no way out. You need professional help from someone not entangled in this story.

Hebb’s findings demonstrated that as neurons fire, they release neurotransmitters that are then absorbed by adjacent cells that communicate essential information. This synaptic transmission can strengthen over time as similar messages travel down the same neural pathways, soon becoming automatic. Disrupting an automatic response like this proves to be challenging. That’s why if we want to unlearn an old habit and replace it with another one, it can take weeks of daily practice before the new skill becomes engrained and new neural connections are wired together. This axiom is also true for the stories we have learned and repeated ad nauseum about ourselves and the world that are no longer serving us. It will require practice and determination to replace these old, worn-out stories with new ones that affirm and uplift us.