What My Pinky Toe Taught Me About Rewiring Your Nervous System

I've been stretching my pinky toe.

It's been a little too friendly with its neighbor for as long as I can remember, just leaning in, curling slightly, making itself at home. It's always just been that way.

Then my friend Colleen, who is an MFR practitioner, told me I could actually move it independently. I was skeptical. She said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about:

Even though it's been this way for as long as you can remember, it can still change.

So I started stretching. Spreading my toes out while I work, while I watch TV, while I visit with friends. Nothing that takes extra time. No dramatic intervention. Just a small, simple thing, done repeatedly throughout the day.

It's been about a month. My toes are responding. The pinky toe is slowly, stubbornly, finding its own space.

One little stretch at a time.

(If your toes are already mobile and dexterous like fingers, I invite you to appreciate the metaphor. If they're not, try spreading them out right now and see what you find.)

Here's why this matters beyond my foot.

Your nervous system works the same way.

Patterns that have been in place for years feel permanent. The way you brace before a difficult conversation. The tightening in your chest when someone needs something from you. The automatic yes when your whole body wants to say no. The familiar loop of anxiety, avoidance, or shutdown that runs before you've even had a chance to think.

These feel like who you are. But they're not. They're just practiced. Wired in through repetition, reinforced by time, and eventually mistaken for identity.

The difference between a pattern and a permanent trait is smaller than most people realize. Both are neurological. Both were created through repetition. And both, given the right input, applied consistently, can change.

This is one of the most important things I've learned in nearly 20 years of this work:

The nervous system does not respond to dramatic overhauls. It doesn't respond to one intense breakthrough session, or the perfect technique, or finally understanding why you do what you do.

It responds to repetition.

Small, consistent input, over time. That's how new neural pathways form. That's how old loops loosen. That's how the brain literally rewires itself. Not through force or willpower, but through the quiet accumulation of repeated new experience.

One breath when you notice the brace.
One moment of curiosity instead of reaction.
One pause before the automatic response.
One tiny stretch of something that has been held in the same position for years.

Done consistently. Over time. Without drama.

It's simple. It's not always easy. But it works because that's literally how the brain is designed to change.

I think about this with my clients constantly. So much of the work I do is helping people find the small, repeatable practice that fits inside their actual life, not the version of their life they wish they had, but the one they're actually living.

Because a sophisticated technique done once is worth far less than a simple practice done daily.

And just like my pinky toe, even if a pattern has been with you for as long as you can remember, it can still change.

That's not optimism. That's neuroscience. And it's also, apparently, podiatry.