Why Your Brain Keeps Choosing Toxic Patterns

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]If we don't have the resources to tolerate stress in our body, we're going to go right back into those old habits sooner rather than later. Even if familiar is dysfunctional, results in burnout, or whatever kind of familiar has become for us, it to our nervous system is the safest path because it's predictable. It cuts right through the uncertainty that we struggle to tolerate because when there's uncertainty, when we don't know what's going to happen next, our body will naturally feel stress and our nervous system will activate. So, to avoid that, we become a prediction machine, right?

[00:00:33]We kind of know how to be, to feel, to predict what happens next, even if it's not the reality, and this is all driven by our nervous system. So, we can both probably agree, right? I don't need to be perfect. I can just be good just how I am. I can say that logically, but the second I try to accept imperfection, a mistake, I try to show someone my messiness, my nervous system isn't going to know what happens next, right? So, now my body feels stressed even by a somewhat healthy, so to speak, decision.

[00:01:01]And these are the moments why, and I often get asked, we often fall back into old habits. We're now talking about going against what our body has become used to. And any step outside of that familiar pattern will create stress in the body. If we don't have the resources to tolerate stress in our body, we're going to go right back into those old habits sooner rather than later.