What is the secret of eternal mental youth?

During a session, one of my clients says: “Lately, I often wonder if my mind is getting old, I constantly repeat the same things and what I do is always familiar. There are not many things beyond known in my life. I know my self very good; respectively, I know exactly how my character is”.

My question is here: Do you know yourself, or is it just the idea you have of yourself, and this idea is just defining you? Words create what we are, take over and suffocate an unknown side of us that would like to emerge.

So, first of all, you don’t have to know yourself, in the sense of: Ah me, I’m like this, I know myself very well. We need to discover ourselves because there is more to discover new sides of ourselves that want to emerge beyond the known.

Novelty is the secret of eternal youth.

What do I mean by novelty? It may be just some tiny steps. To undertake new things, even if we change our route in the morning, not to drink the usual tea or coffee.

Our brain loves novelty coming under the shape of unforeseen new situations that break in like surprises and take us beyond the known. These are precisely the pathway to youth because without knowing it, when we do something unexpected, we enter an area of the brain where our neurons open up circuits that set the whole brain symphony in movement. One innovation is enough to change our whole life. So don’t repeat yourself but discover beyond the known.

How about you? Do you repeat yourself, and are you open to innovation/novelty?

Photo by Pascale Weber / Styling Victoria Steiner for Nina Ricci