It was mostly my grandma that I would leave the house with, but this time, for some reason, grandad took my hand and started walking with me down the street, towards the center of the village. I was 3 or 4 perhaps, and I recall that as soon as we left the house, I started throwing a tantrum. He was calm and kind as always, asking me gently to stop. The more he asked, the more determined I became to be impossible to handle. We walked for a while, then returned home.

I don’t recall much of the conversation that followed, but his response to my behavior not only stayed with me ever since, I happily adopted it. Since at that age we cannot speak of any real measure of consciousness in decision making, as I learned to understand much later, the adoption of his strategy became my first patterned behavior that I can remember.

He did not spank me, did not scold me, nor reprimand me in any way. Nor did my grandma, for they were both the gentlest people ever, and I was a toddler. What he did instead was give me the silent treatment for a couple of days. It was not aggressive or dismissive. He did not stop talking to me. But he lowered the level of warmth he usually showed me.

And I was in agony.

For all I can tell, it was my first fully conscious moment, as I realized I was being shown the consequences of my behavior. Fast forward to being an older child, a teen, then an adult, I have consistently applied the silent treatment to friends or family members who wronged me. And I can always tell if they know why I go quiet, and draw my conclusions on when and how to turn the warmth back on, based on how they handle it 🙂

Here’s the thing though. Hardwiring starts much earlier, we just don’t remember. This incident with my grandad was, in all truthfulness, a soft wiring, because I knew exactly what was happening, and as such I could choose at any moment now, as an adult, to change the pattern, if I wanted to. Most habits and patterns, though, lack that level of awareness, so not only do we not know how to overwrite them, but often we are oblivious to the existence of the pattern itself.

My work through these blog posts and group or individual conversations unfolds through helping you recognize your own patterns, figure out which ones you want to keep and which ones hinder you, and arm you with some tools, and often very simple hacks, so you may gain increased control over your thinking, and through that, over your life.