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“The discomfort you feel isn’t a warning to retreat; it’s an invitation to expand.”
We’re wired to seek pleasure, comfort, and safety—it’s in our DNA.
Safe caves, known trails, predictable routines, not wandering too far from the group and maintaining the status quo—this is how our ancestors kept alive.
Although we live in the safest time in human history, our brains still follow these ancient survival mechanisms, driving us to seek predictability.
The ingrained routines and comfortable bonds with the familiar, however harmful, create a powerful inertia, making change feel incredibly difficult, even when we know it’s essential for our physical and mental health.
Every time we try to change or integrate a new habit, we’re wrestling with a powerful, primal survival instinct—one designed to keep us safe in the past but now holding us back from forming constructive habits.
The Big Idea
Our brains naturally stick to old habits – even bad ones – because they feel safe and familiar. But we can learn to welcome positive changes instead of fighting them.
The Nature of Anxiety: Understanding Fear vs. Anxiety
I want to make an important distinction at the beginning of our journey towards building lasting habits.
We often misuse the word “fear” to describe anxiety or avoidance behaviors. Understanding this distinction is crucial because most of our destructive habits are dysfunctional attempts to soothe anxiety, not responses to genuine threats.
Fear is that primal, gut-wrenching split second reaction, a sensation that floods our body with adrenaline.
Time slows down as we watch a bus hurtle toward us. In these moments, the body knows the truth before the mind has time to process it: If I don’t move, I will die.
That’s fear.
Anxiety originates from our mental narratives and projections, fueled by our resistance to life’s natural changes and our desire for control.
Unlike fear’s immediate survival response, anxiety creates a chronic state that interferes with focus, sleep, decision-making and building and maintaining healthy habits.
When I explain the difference between fear and anxiety to someone, I like to explain that fear is like an immediate flash flood, and anxiety is a slow, rising tide. A more subtle, persistent emotional state.
In the past I transformed what could have remained fleeting emotional discomfort into persistent anxiety.
I did this by creating endless “what if” scenarios: “What if I’m not enough? What if I fail? What if things go wrong—or don’t turn out the way I want?”
These thoughts stemmed from my attachment to sensual pleasures and experiences.
The Comfort Trap
There is nothing inherently problematic about seeking and enjoying life’s comforts and conveniences – whether it’s a cozy bed, favorite foods, or modern amenities that make daily tasks easier. These comforts can enhance our quality of life and provide moments of genuine pleasure and relaxation.
However, we enter dangerous territory when we become emotionally dependent on these external comforts, believing they are essential for our wellbeing and happiness.
Attachment transforms what should be temporary moments of discomfort into deep psychological suffering, as we resist any deviation from our comfort zone.
The more we cling to these comforts as necessities rather than preferences, the more we amplify our own distress when they’re unavailable.
The anxiety we experience in these moments reveals a deeper pattern – our persistent desire for reality to conform to our preferences rather than accepting things as they are.
Resistance not only intensifies our suffering but also prevents us from engaging with life’s deeper dimensions, keeping us trapped in superficial pursuits rather than exploring meaningful growth and purpose.
We perpetuate this cycle through our thought patterns, allowing our minds to dwell on potential negative outcomes and perceived threats, even in situations where no real danger exists.
Hypervigilance around protecting our comforts creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of anxiety and avoidance, further strengthening our attachment to the very things that limit our growth.
The Social Origins of Anxiety
For most of us, anxiety manifests as deeply internalized voices from our past, as the echoing words of parents who wanted the best for us but may have pushed too hard, teachers whose well-meaning criticism left lasting triggers,and friends whose casual comparisons shaped our limited self-image.
Add to the complexity a society that constantly broadcasts messages about success, worth, and achievement.
These voices blend into a persistent background chorus, an endless stream of thoughts demanding that we need to be more accomplished, more productive, more successful, and perfect to be worthy of acceptance and love.
This self-defeating mental narrative creates a distorted lens through which we view ourselves, others, and the full spectrum of possibilities before us.
Like a fun-house mirror that warps reality, it magnifies our perceived shortcomings while minimizing our achievements and potential.
The cruel irony is that this very mindset becomes the biggest obstacle standing between us and our aspirations, systematically undermining our progress toward meaningful goals.
At the heart of our shared human experience with anxiety lies a fundamental challenge: our difficulty in effectively processing and responding to these internalized voices.
Rather than seeing them as what they are – learned patterns of thought that can be examined and challenged – we often accept them as absolute truths, allowing their persistent whispers to shape our actions and limit our potential.
Breaking the Cycle: From Comfort to Growth
There is a familiar loop most of us know too well – one that keeps us tethered to our comfort zones even when we recognize the need for transformation:
Introducing change naturally generates stress and uncertainty—which is a completely normal physiological and emotional response when we venture beyond our familiar habits into the uncharted territory of new ones.
The cycle begins when we reject discomfort instead of accepting it as part of growth and let the stress it generates push us back to the unhealthy habits we’re trying to break.
For me, comfort eating became my reflexive response to the stress, anxiety, and the profound emptiness I felt whenever I attempted to implement positive changes in my life.
While each bite of processed comfort food seemed to temporarily quiet my racing thoughts and provide a fleeting sense of relief, it was ultimately a deceptive comfort that left me feeling more trapped and discouraged than before.
The Path to Liberation
As the saying goes, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
Clinging to what I knew—even though it hurt me—felt safe and predictable, turning introducing or abandoning any habit into a battle.
Unable to handle the discomfort that comes with changing habits, I repeatedly fell back into my old patterns in familiar surroundings.
A self-defeating cycle that kept repeated itself for years until I finally recognized what was happening.
The very things I resisted most—discomfort, uncertainty, and potential failure—were ä opportunities for growth that I was letting slip away. This realization only deepened my distress.
I eventually freed myself from anxiety’s grip by observing my thoughts without judgment—inviting them in like guests for a cup of tea.
In doing so, I realized all thoughts—both my own and those of others—are passing phenomena, like clouds drifting across the sky, holding no power to define me or dictate my reality.
After I stopped labeling those around me and events as “good” or “bad,” my anxiety melted away into nothingness.
What remained was the discomfort without the suffering—a state I can both live with and work with.
Finding Freedom in Letting Go
When I stopped trying to control every detail and everyone in my life—when I accepted life’s natural impermanence—I experienced an unshakeable calm.
Whenever my brain starts creating stories that drive anxiety, I use them as a signal to ground myself and question their validity.
The opposite of peace is not war—it’s being trapped in the endless chatter of our own deceptive thoughts, drowning in a sea of self-created illusions.
Any progress—physical, mental, or emotional—I’ve ever made, stems from my ability to differentiate between what I want (staying safe, fitting in, avoiding embarrassment) and what I need, (growth, authenticity, meaningful connections).
I learned my habits weren’t about following routines mindlessly.
They are an expansion of who I am becoming.
Think of it this way: our comfort zones, those familiar caves and trails, represent the most limited version of ourselves.
When we introduce constructive habits—mindful eating, regular exercise, or healthier relationships—we challenge our limitations and explore new horizons.
We are saying, ‘There is more to me than this.’ This expansion triggers anxiety because it demands we meet the new self outside our comfort zone.
The empowering truth is, the discomfort we feel is not a sign of danger; it’s a sign that something matters deeply to us. It’s an invitation for personal growth.
The last time I left a destructive, abusive relationship, when the last vestiges of my old destructive relationship habits finally faded, I felt mixed emotions of liberation and anxiety—an emotional duality I have experienced hundreds of times when breaking free from harmful habits.
While freedom comes from breaking destructive habits, terror emerges because I temporarily feel vulnerable without my familiar soothing behaviors, even when I know they are harmful to myself and those I love.
And here’s what I want you to know about fear, anxiety, or whatever you choose to call it: it’s a temporary transitional period.
Yes, it’s common to experience confusion and hopelessness during endings, transitions, and new beginnings—but these moments are there to create space for healthier patterns to emerge.
Closing Thoughts
Every constructive habit is a step toward embodying a better version of yourself—a journey of self-exploration where you examine different paths and learn to embrace humility and build resilience along the way.
Your capabilities will keep expanding when you learn to be comfortable with discomfort.
It’s not all or nothing—it’s everything you want, one habit at a time.
What I had labeled as failure to form new habits—which over 80% of us experience at some point in our lives—was my inability to handle the anxiety that arose when starting something new.
Yet, by embracing self-compassion and increased awareness of my thinking, a new, encouraging voice emerged.
This practice of creating space and mindful observation has become my daily reminder that all anxiety I have ever felt—and will ever feel—is a mental construct.
Mental and emotional safety comes not from clinging to the familiar, but from recognizing it for what it is: the only space where we can improve our life.
Adopting new habits doesn’t fail because of knowledge gaps, but from insufficient confidence in managing personal behavior, motivation, and social environments.
When I doubted my ability to implement change, I retreated to familiar patterns—even those that kept me stuck.
My brain, wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure, convinced me that maintaining a successful appearance was safer than risking failure in pursuit of something better.
Your Journey Begins with These Questions:
What possibilities would open up if you embraced the discomfort of change rather than fighting it?
What version of yourself waits on the other side of that resistance?
Your relationship with change defines the boundaries of your potential.
Instead of seeing change as something to fear, i invite you to view it as the only doorway to everything you aspire to become.
The choice, as always, remains yours:
Will you remain confined by the familiar, or dare to venture into the uncertainty of growth and transform your habits for good?
Thank you for reading!
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