What is a do-over?
A do-over is a chance to correct a behavior, thought, or belief that interferes with the types of relationships we want to have. They are chances to practice something different. They are a method to build new pathways in the brain or strengthen pathways that are already there, but not used very often.
I like to think of do-overs as physical therapy for the brain.
A few years ago in New Mexico, I decided to break out the snowboard I had tried to learn to ride in my 20’s. I had somewhat mastered skiing and wanted a new challenge on the slopes. On this trip, I was now in my 30’s and hadn’t tried to snowboard in several years.
I didn’t have strong pathways in my brain to allow me to ride a snowboard very well. I took it slowly during the morning and gave myself some time to practice and gain skill on the bunny slopes before heading out with friends higher up the mountain.
I was doing well, weaving through traffic, controlling my speed, and avoiding a crash with a well-controlled abrupt stop. My confidence was increasing and I was finally beginning to feel comfortable on a snowboard. That was, until I crashed. In an attempt to avoid hitting someone else who had fallen, I caught an edge and lost control.
I tumbled and spun uncontrollably down the mountain, passing friends who were ahead of me. When my momentum faded and I was able to stop and assess my situation, I realized I had injured my wrist. I wanted to believe it was simply a sprain, and so I did. I declined offers to call ski patrol and have them take me down the mountain. I quickly picked myself up, convinced everyone I was ok, and headed down the mountain.
That was the most excruciatingly painful and slow trip down a slope I’ve ever experienced. Each small bump or groove I crossed caused enormous amounts of pain to shoot through my wrist and hand. Nausea, blurred vision, and lightheadedness quickly convinced me it was much more than a sprain as I dragged myself to the first aid station and called my friends to take me to a doctor.
Do-overs are a part of healing
My broken wrist required some time in a cast to heal. My injured ligaments required some physical therapy to learn to function properly after being held dormant for weeks. The physical therapy was painful. The ligaments in my wrist lost their resiliency. They didn’t want to move because the time in the cast had retrained them not to move anymore. The effects of the trauma they endured left them paralyzed. I had to retrain the ligaments to move in all of the ways they were supposed to so I could use my wrist again.
I had made some poor choices that led to events that damaged my wrist and therefore, my relationship with my wrist.
It could not and did not want to comply with my requests to move in ways that were good for our health. I wanted to have a good and productive relationship with my wrist again, so my wrist and I had to conduct do-overs, repeatedly, painfully, consistently for weeks. I had to maintain the pressure of conducting these do-overs as my wrist resisted in screams of pain. It wanted to stay put or only move in one or two ways. I had to say, “ok, wrist, we need to try that again in a different way.” And we would try it over and over and over again until we got the correct movements mastered.
After weeks of physical therapy, both at the clinic and at home, we didn’t have to keep conducting do-overs to get the movements correct. We had done them enough that my wrist was now trained to work appropriately on its own most of the time. There were a few occasions for about a year or two afterward where I would have some pain with too much strain of some sort. But it would subside, and each such episode would continue to strengthen my wrist.
Building new pathways in the brain takes practice
This same kind of retraining I had to do with my wrist applies to our relationships. If we want to build new or stronger pathways to thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that improve our relationships, we have to practice what leads us there. We have to retrain our brains to follow new neural pathways.
First, we have to stop doing the things that are causing us problems. For example, my ligaments had to stop refusing to do anything except rest and hold my joint together.
But the healing didn’t end there.
My ligaments had to have something else to do. They had to be trained to move appropriately again.
Likewise, when we are trying to heal our wounds and those in our relationships, we can’t just train our brains to stop following the undesirable pathways. New pathways must be created in the brain. If we don’t intentionally do this, we just revert to the old pathways and the old behaviors that cause us problems.
Creating new pathways is painful, frustrating, and time-consuming business, just like retraining my ligaments was painful, frustrating, and time-consuming business.
I was frustrated because of the time it took, how painful it was, and that the healing wasn’t happening as quickly as I wanted. But I had to intentionally practice the therapeutic exercises hundreds of times before my ligaments began to learn the new movements.
Repeat as many times as necessary
This same approach applies to healing relationships. We have to practice a new thought or a new behavior before we begin to develop a new pathway in the brain for what we wish to achieve. And we have to do this over, and over, and over, and over again (hence, do-OVERS) for as many times as it takes to make the pathway big enough and strong enough that we do not have to intentionally practice anymore.
I’m going to say this part again, because in my work with children and caregivers I am often asked in exasperated tones, “How many times does it take?” The answer is IT TAKES AS MANY TIMES AS IT TAKES to create or strengthen that pathway in the brain. Once it’s there, our brains begin to automatically follow that pathway and we begin to see the effect of it in ALL of our relationships.
Just like when my wrist wanted to revert to the comfortable movements on days of too much stress, our brains may try to revert to old pathways when we experience too much stress or too much pressure. But if we continue to practice do-overs in those moments, we make the new pathways even stronger and, as an added bonus, we increase our tolerance for pressure and stress.
If you look at maladaptive behaviors, thought patterns, and beliefs through the do-over lens, you can begin to see them as opportunities for growth and change. The more you look through this lens, the more your perceptions about your difficult relationships begin to shift to something hopeful and healing.
Do overs are a skill that can be learned
Like anything we do for the first time, it’s unlikely we’ll be great at do-overs the first time we try. New pathways in the brain take time, patience and practice to build.
On July 31, our CEO Bettina Shultz-Jobe will be hosting a webinar to talk about the difference between an apology and repair and the five essential components of repair in real life and in a clinical setting. Of course, do-overs are part of making relational repairs. Join us and start building these powerful pathways for yourself!
In the spirit of celebrating and practicing do-overs, this blog is an update of a post we published in 2016. It’s been updated and expanded based on all we’ve learned in the last 8 years! You can read the original here.
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