Your Brain Is Built for Change: On Neuroplasticity, Healing, and Choosing Yourself Anyway
Back in undergrad, I thought I’d end up a neurosurgeon. I was knee-deep in neuroscience and psychology courses, learning anatomy, memorizing the limbic system like it was gospel. I used to imagine myself in scrubs, steady hands, life in my palms.
But here I am years later no scalpel, just stories. Still obsessed with the same organ. Still studying the most resilient muscle we’ve got: the brain.
It’s funny how that obsession has come full circle. Because now, in therapy sessions and in my own life, I get to witness what the textbooks couldn’t capture, how the brain rewires itself through love, loss, rest, joy, and everything in between. The science calls it neuroplasticity. I call it proof that you won’t always feel this way.
The Brain’s Favorite Hobby: Adapting
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change, to create new neural pathways, strengthen or prune old ones, and reorganize itself after stress, trauma, or learning. In plain language? It means nothing about you is fixed. Not your habits, not your fears, not the version of you that thought the pain would never stop.
Your brain is an architect constantly remodeling based on what you feed it. Every moment you choose presence over panic, compassion over criticism, or curiosity over control, you’re laying down new wiring.
And that’s the quiet miracle most of us forget: our brains are healing, even when we aren’t paying attention.
Winter Blues and the Brain’s Weather System
Lately, it feels like everyone I know is tired. The sun sets too early. The news cycle is relentless. We’re overstimulated and under-rested. The world feels heavy and so do our nervous systems.
Seasonal Affective Disorder, or just plain winter blues, isn’t just emotional. It’s neurological. Less sunlight means lower serotonin, disrupted circadian rhythms, and a body that can’t quite tell the difference between slowing down and shutting down.
But if neuroplasticity has taught me anything, it’s that the brain can learn to find light in other ways. You can build a rhythm of self-compassion even in the dark. Light a candle, stretch your body, take a walk during lunch each act becomes a message to your brain: I’m still here. We’re still moving.
We can’t skip winter, but we can remind our bodies that spring is inevitable.
Issa, Olivia, and the Art of Staying Soft
Whenever I think about growth in real time, I think about Insecure’s Issa Dee. How her world fell apart and reassembled in ways she didn’t expect friendships strained, love got complicated, career shifted but she kept choosing herself through it all. There’s that quiet scene where she’s just in her mirror again, hyping herself up, not because she’s got it all figured out, but because she’s trying.
That’s what healing looks like: staying grounded in your routines and rituals even when chaos is loud. Issa’s mirror monologues were her nervous system regulation in disguise. They were self-talk, embodiment, grounding the rituals that told her brain, We’re safe. We can keep going.
And lately, I’ve been looping Olivia Dean’s new album because she captures that same emotional evolution. She sings about healing not as a destination but as a practice. The songs feel like the sonic version of neuroplasticity love lost, boundaries formed, softness learned. There’s something powerful about listening to music that mirrors your brain’s own process of rewiring. You start to realize that you’ve changed too.
Repetition Over Resolution
Our culture loves the idea of a breakthrough that one therapy session, one journal entry, one yoga class that changes everything. But the brain doesn’t heal in a single revelation. It heals through repetition.
Think of it like a dirt path: the more often you walk it, the clearer it becomes. That’s how new neural pathways work. Every time you practice a different response like taking a breath instead of shutting down, reaching out instead of isolating, saying “I don’t have to fix this right now” you’re deepening that path.
That’s why routines matter. Not because they make you productive, but because they make you safe. Your brain craves predictability; it helps regulate your nervous system and widens your window of tolerance, that sweet spot where you can handle life without becoming numb or overwhelmed.
So when you find yourself melting down over small things this winter, pause and ask: Am I outside my window right now? Maybe you don’t need to push through it. Maybe you just need to come back to center — breathe, ground, name what’s happening.
That’s not weakness. That’s neuroscience.
The RAIN of Self-Compassion
When I talk to clients about emotional regulation, one of my favorite tools is RAIN, coined by Tara Brach. It’s a mindfulness skill, but honestly, it’s neuroplasticity in action. It retrains your brain to meet discomfort with kindness instead of shame.
Recognize what’s happening — name the feeling without judgment. (“This is sadness. This is anxiety.”)
Allow it to be there — no fixing, no rushing.
Investigate what it needs — curiosity instead of criticism. (“What might this feeling be trying to tell me?”)
Nurture yourself through it — a hand over your heart, a kind word, a deep breath.
Every time you do this, you teach your brain that feelings aren’t threats; they’re information. You expand your capacity to feel without losing yourself in it. Over time, that becomes your new baseline a softer, steadier way of being.
Change Is the Brain’s Love Language
We’re all walking around carrying old stories that we’ll always be anxious, always attract chaos, always feel behind. But if the brain is designed for anything, it’s adaptation.
Your neural wiring from five years ago is not the same as today. Your mind has weathered grief, built new joy, survived heartbreaks, learned boundaries, created safety where none existed. That’s not coincidence that’s rewiring.
So when you catch yourself saying, “I’ll always be this way,” pause. That’s an outdated file. Your brain has already updated the software you just haven’t noticed yet.
You Won’t Always Feel This Way
Maybe you’re in your Issa era trying to build peace in the middle of mess. Maybe you’re in your Olivia Dean season learning that healing doesn’t always sound pretty, but it’s real. Maybe you’re just trying to survive another gray Chicago winter (same).
Wherever you are, remember this: your brain is working for you. Even in exhaustion, even in fear, even when it feels like nothing’s changing your neurons are quietly doing their thing, creating new pathways toward ease.
You won’t always feel this way. The sadness will shift. The anxiety will soften. The light will come back inside and out. That’s not just hope. That’s science.
If you’ve been feeling stuck or heavy lately, try this:
Tonight, sit with yourself for two minutes. Put your hand on your chest. Take one slow breath and say, I’m changing, even if I can’t see it yet.
That’s it. That’s the work.
Your most resilient muscle is already doing the rest.
