Deëscalation tip #49

We are all palimpsests. 

A palimpsest is a piece of writing on paper or other material (stone, wood) where the original writing is effaced, but traces remain. We can overwrite our own brains, even though the original settings still exist, but are less often or eventually never used. 

What if I have a long history of responding to conflict negatively, with anger, with a quick retort, and even with threats? How can someone like me ever learn to deëscalate?

Brain science is showing through many studies that we can do this, as noted by the National Library of Medicine:

"Neuroplasticity in the brain plays out on a variety of levels. The most fundamental version has been recognized for half a century, and concerns synapses, the connections by which one neuron communicates with another. Excitation in one neuron (an 'action potential') is not guaranteed to similarly excite the next neuron in line, and repeated stimulation of a particular synapse leads it to be 'strengthened,' which is to say that excitation in one neuron is now more likely to be propagated to the next in line. This potentiation of such pre-existing synapses has long been viewed as one of the fundamental ways by which learning occurs."

And so our challenge is to learn and practice more adaptive responses to conflict and practice them until we change our "natural" responses, being aware that reversion to old negative habits can occur when we have not sufficiently practiced the new and improved methods. 

When we fail, our job is not to quit, but to get back to more consciously and persistently overwriting our old less-functional settings.