Everyone’s heard the saying, “it’s like riding a bike – once you learn how, you never forget it.” The implication is, it’s easy, and once you master the skill, it’s for life. In reality, there ARE a stack of skills that we master in our youth that stay with us forever: walking, talking, eating, bathing, playing a flute, trigonometry, and what all those atomic numbers refer to in the periodic table on the classroom wall…
OK. So, in reality we DON’T hold onto all the skills we learn. I used to play a flute in school concerts (not well (and I dropped my flute on the stage once because I was shaking from nerves so badly)). I also can’t remember the details of the periodic table, but might be able to understand it if I researched it from scratch (very little knowledge will be ‘memory’ related). Similarly, the “SOHCAHTOA” rules of trigonometry were not just sitting around in my brain waiting to be revived when one of my daughters said “hey mommm…”
Oh, and that riding a bike thing – I tried it a couple of years ago after two decades of non-bike-riding and it was embarrassing… and painful… and tore a hole in my jeans when I crashed into a bush… sigh.
When it comes to skills – the reality is – USE IT OR LOSE IT.
On the upside – if you repeat something often enough, it will begin to become a natural part of your skillset…
If you learn some of the basics of mindfulness, such as how to meditate, or simple Tai Chi movements, AND you do them every day (or near enough), then they can become as routine as walking down stairs; you can perform even complex activities without really having to do too much ‘thinking’.
Your mind and body are cementing the new skill into your neurons and muscles and nervous system…
On the downside – if you repeat something often enough, it will begin to become a natural part of your skillset…
If you think, “oh no my eye is going to hurt today, tomorrow and forever”, chances are high that, yep, your eye is going to hurt today, tomorrow, potentially forever. Negative narratives start to appear as normal messaging, and perpetually rubbing your eye might become a subconscious habit.
Your mind and body are cementing the new skill into your neurons and muscles and nervous system…
So, here’s the thing – your brain is AMAZING at learning new skills and habits… for better or worse.
Your job now is to remember that fact, and try to ‘feed it’ with the skills and habits that are going to serve you well, whilst trying to phase out the ones that are not so helpful.
I think of my brain a bit like a sponge; it can soak up a lot of information… but only so much information… at some point I have to lose some information to make room for the new stuff.
So, flute playing and the atomic mass of chemical elements… sorry, but you need to stay in the archive basement of my brain. Trigonometry, you can take a spin in the sun until my kids don’t need you anymore then you can join the moldy flute box (yes, I still have it (eye-roll)). Tai Chi ‘touch-the-clouds’, box-breathing, and “you can heal” affirmations, you can all stay front and center, repeated daily until every cell in my body gets that I AM SAFE.
Now it’s over to you – what skills can you hold onto and level-up to turn them into daily healthy-habits, and which ones can you park for a while in the bushes?!
Take care taking care, Linda x
PS – I came across an 8-minute video about a bike that was re-engineered to turn in the opposite direction to the handlebars… it took a keen bike rider months to effectively un-learn how to ride a traditional bike so he could re-learn how to ride the back-to-front bike… only to then fall off his traditional bike when he tried to go back. Oh, and by comparison, his young son mastered his own weird bike in only a few days:
The Mindful Migraine 
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