There's a paradox of the human brain that it's really important understand when you're trying to change a way you think, a way you feel, or a way you act.

And that paradox is that your brain can actually associate safety and stability and certainty subconsciously.

Even with thoughts, feelings, and actions that don't feel stable,

certain, or secure to you on a conscious level.

For instance, if you grew up with a volatile family member, your brain will associate

that volatility and that emotional reactivity and your own fear or anxiety,

your brain will wire all of that into your survival system.

Because as a child, you are dependent on your family.

And so you learn what it takes to survive in your family.

And then your brain associates that

with survival, and your brain is used to it. Similarly, if you have a longstanding habit of

self-critical thinking, and it has been with you your whole life, your brain will associate that

thought pattern with certainty, familiarity, predictability.

Even though sometimes the thought patterns or the relationships or the behaviors that we

take actually create emotional or physical chaos in our lives, they don't seem like they're

predictable or stable.

But if our brain is used to it, if our brain has been doing things that way for a long time,

then our brain assumes that that is what's safe because it's predictable and it is kind of familiar.

This is so important to understand because often we get stuck in thought patterns we can't change,

in feeling cycles we can't get out of, in behaviors

that we really wish we could stop or behaviors that we wish we could start.

And we can't figure out why because it's so clear to us that our life would be better and

...