Changing is not as simple as repeating an affirmation, here’s why…

Why Do Patterns Repeat?

We all have those moments when we notice the loop… the same kind of relationship, job, the same argument, the same burnout cycle, or the same emotional reaction that feels so familiar it’s almost predictable.

We tell ourselves: Next time will be different, I’ll change, chant or set an affirmation.

And yet, somehow, we end up right back where we started.

Why do patterns repeat, even when we consciously want to change and have the self awareness to know what to do.

The Pull of the Familiar

Our nervous system’s primary job isn’t to make us happy…it’s to keep us safe.

And “safe” doesn’t necessarily mean good, healthy, changed or peaceful. It simply means familiar.

To your brain and body, what’s familiar equals what’s predictable, and therefore survivable.

So even if you’ve outgrown a coping mechanism, a relationship dynamic, or a state of chronic stress, your system may still be drawn to it because it knows how to operate there.

This is your baseline, your internal “comfort zone.” It’s where your body has learned to orient itself, even if that zone is one of chaos, over-efforting, self-soothing, perfectionism, over working, stubbornness, people pleasing, dissociating or emotional shutdown.

The Brain and the Baseline

Your brain is constantly trying to bring you back to what it perceives as normal. It does this through a process called homeostasis, the body’s instinctive drive to maintain equilibrium.

When you start doing something new, setting boundaries, slowing down, resting, receiving love without over-giving, letting go of guilt, shame, giving up alcohol or unhealthy foods or lifestyle, leaving a toxic environment, the nervous system detects change. And change, even when positive, registers as potential threat.

You might notice resistance arise:

• Self-sabotage.

• Procrastination.

• Anxiety or numbness.

• Old stories whispering: “You don’t deserve this,” or “This won’t last.”

These aren’t signs of failure. They’re signs that your nervous system is recalibrating.

When “Calm” Feels Unsafe

We often romanticise balance or inner peace…picturing slow mornings, healthy relationships, inner stillness.

But when your body has spent years in survival mode, calm can actually feel uncomfortable, even intolerable.

Stillness can feel like waiting for the next storm.

Ease can feel like vulnerability.

Love can feel like loss waiting to happen.

Your body might tighten, your mind might start scanning for problems, and before you know it, you’ve recreated the chaos that feels like home.

Recalibrating the System

Lasting change isn’t about forcing yourself into new behaviours, it’s about teaching your nervous system that the new way is safe.

That happens through experience, not logic.

You can’t talk your body out of a threat response; you have to show it.

Small, consistent experiences of safety start to rewire the system:

• Moments of regulated breath after conflict.

• Feeling your feet on the floor when your mind spins.

• Letting yourself receive support and staying with the sensations.

• Pausing before reacting, and noticing what arises in your body.

Slowly overtime your brain will start to create new neuropathways, a new baseline ‘equilibrium’ and it will become easier to feel at home with the changes you are trying to implement. Think of it as trying to write with your left hand if your are right handed. It might feel awkward, impossible, hard work to start. But over time, with practice, it will get easier.

Each time you stay present through something your system once avoided, you’re expanding your capacity.

You’re building a new baseline.

The Path Forward

Healing isn’t about erasing your old patterns, it’s about understanding them as adaptations that once kept you safe.

When you meet those parts with compassion, rather than judgment, they begin to soften.

Your nervous system learns that safety can exist in stillness.

That love doesn’t have to hurt.

That calm isn’t the absence of aliveness, it’s the foundation for it.

And slowly, the pull of the familiar gives way to something new, a self that can hold peace without fear, and connection without collapse.

The next time you notice an old pattern reappearing, pause and ask:

“What feels unfamiliar about this new way I’m trying to live and can I bring safety to that place?”

Change isn’t about trying harder. It’s about teaching your body that different can be safe too.

Why Being Trauma-Aware Matters

This is why being trauma-aware and nervous-system aware is so essential for anyone holding space, facilitating, or guiding transformation.

When someone has lived with a baseline of stress, chaos, or constant hypervigilance, stillness can feel foreign, even threatening.

To suggest that person suddenly drop everything and attend a ten-day silent meditation retreat might sound like a beautiful idea in theory but for their nervous system, it could be too much, too soon.

In trauma work, “too much, too fast, too soon” is one of the simplest ways to define overwhelm.

And overwhelm, by nature, pushes the body right back into survival.

True healing and integration happen in the middle ground that sacred space where change is titrated and metabolised slowly enough for the system to adapt.

The Alchemy of Recalibration

Transformation isn’t meant to be a sudden leap from chaos to calm.

It’s an alchemical process, a slow blending, where safety and expansion weave together until the body can recognise and trust the new state.

This is the sacred alchemy of recalibrating your nervous system:

• It’s where contraction begins to soften.

• Where stillness starts to feel safe.

• Where peace no longer feels like loss, but like home.

As a facilitator it is my role to not rush someone into transformation. It’s to hold the space where their system can remember that safety, softness, and stability are possible, one breath, one gentle recalibration at a time.

If you’d like to work 1:1 with me please reach out.