mindblown psychology
This is an audio edition of a written piece from me, Lee Hopkins. Each episode is a standalone reflection, adapted for listening rather than reading. There’s no required order, and no expectation that you listen to anything else before or after this. Settle in, and take what’s useful.
info_outline
Why healing isn’t linear, especially for neurodivergent people
12/31/2025
Why healing isn’t linear, especially for neurodivergent people
Why healing isn’t linear, especially for neurodivergent people. Healing is often imagined as a straight line. Symptoms reduce. Function improves. Life moves forward. But nervous systems don’t work that way. They learn in loops. Progress often looks like improvement followed by regression. Especially when new layers of awareness emerge. For neurodivergent people, this can be confusing and demoralising. You understand yourself better. You accommodate more. And yet, new difficulties appear. This isn’t failure. It’s recalibration. As masking drops or awareness increases, the system reveals what was previously suppressed. Healing often makes things visible before it makes them comfortable. This is why patience matters more than optimism. And why comparison is unhelpful. Your nervous system has a unique history. It learned what it needed to learn to survive. Unlearning those patterns takes repetition, not insight. If your progress feels uneven, it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means your system is learning something new. And learning, almost always, is messy.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573660
info_outline
Why predictability is calming, not boring
12/31/2025
Why predictability is calming, not boring
Why predictability is calming, not boring. Predictability often gets a bad reputation. It’s associated with monotony. Stagnation. Lack of spontaneity. But for the nervous system, predictability is information. It answers the question, “What happens next?” When that question is answered reliably, the system relaxes. This is especially important for neurodivergent nervous systems, which often process uncertainty more intensely. Unpredictable schedules. Sudden changes. Ambiguous expectations. These don’t just annoy. They activate. Predictability doesn’t mean rigidity. It means enough structure that the system doesn’t have to stay alert. Routines reduce cognitive load. Familiar environments reduce sensory strain. Clear expectations reduce internal negotiation. People often resist predictability because they fear becoming trapped. But predictability doesn’t remove freedom. It creates capacity. When less energy is spent managing uncertainty, more energy becomes available for choice, creativity, and connection. If you find yourself calmer in routines, it’s not because you’re dull. It’s because your nervous system finally knows what it’s dealing with.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573645
info_outline
Why masking works until it doesn’t
12/31/2025
Why masking works until it doesn’t
Why masking works until it doesn’t. Masking is often misunderstood as deception. In reality, it’s translation. It’s the effort of reshaping internal experience into something the outside world can tolerate. For neurodivergent people, masking often begins early. Tone is adjusted. Reactions are filtered. Needs are minimised. This allows access to work, relationships, and safety. And for a long time, it works. The problem is that masking is metabolically expensive. It requires constant monitoring. Constant adjustment. Constant self-interruption. Over time, this creates exhaustion that doesn’t respond to rest. Because the effort never stops. Many people don’t realise they’re masking. They just feel tired, irritable, or detached. They wonder why things that “should be fine” feel so hard. The cost of masking isn’t failure. It’s success without relief. Unmasking doesn’t mean abandoning all adaptation. It means becoming selective. Choosing where effort is necessary and where it’s optional. That might involve reducing social exposure. Allowing more direct communication. Letting your environment fit you instead of the other way around. Masking kept you safe. You don’t need to punish yourself for that. But you are allowed to ask whether it’s still costing more than it gives.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573635
info_outline
Why rest doesn’t work when your nervous system doesn’t trust it
12/31/2025
Why rest doesn’t work when your nervous system doesn’t trust it
Why rest doesn’t work when your nervous system doesn’t trust it. Many people say they’re resting, but they’re not restoring. They stop working. They lie down. They disengage. And yet, they don’t feel better. This is especially common for people with long histories of vigilance. Rest only restores when the nervous system believes it’s safe to rest. If the system is still scanning for threat, rest becomes another task. The body lies still. The mind keeps watch. This is why some people feel more anxious when they finally stop. Without activity as a buffer, the system surfaces everything it’s been holding back. For neurodivergent people, this can be even more pronounced. Rest is often unstructured. Unpredictable. Sensory-noisy. Which makes it feel unsafe rather than soothing. What helps is redefining rest as low-demand regulation, not absence of activity. That might mean repetitive, absorbing tasks. Predictable routines. Quiet sensory input. Rest doesn’t have to be passive. It has to be non-threatening. If rest hasn’t been working for you, it doesn’t mean you’re bad at resting. It means your nervous system hasn’t yet learned that stopping won’t cost you something. Teaching that takes time, consistency, and the removal of pressure to “do rest properly”.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573600
info_outline
Why regulation matters more than resilience
12/31/2025
Why regulation matters more than resilience
Why regulation matters more than resilience. Resilience is one of the most overused words in modern psychology. It’s usually framed as the ability to push through. To adapt. To keep going. And for a while, that works. But resilience without regulation quietly drains people. It asks the nervous system to tolerate more and more without ever resetting. Regulation is different. Regulation is not about toughness. It’s about recovery. It’s the system’s ability to move out of activation and return to baseline. Without regulation, resilience becomes endurance. And endurance has a cost. Many people, especially neurodivergent people, have been praised for resilience their entire lives. They learned to mask early. They learned to perform competence. They learned to override discomfort. That skill kept them functional. But it often came at the expense of regulation. The body stayed alert. The system stayed braced. Downtime never fully restored. Over time, resilience becomes indistinguishable from survival mode. This is why some people “cope” for decades and then collapse suddenly. Not because they lacked strength. But because strength was never paired with recovery. If you’re neurodivergent, regulation often needs to be deliberate. Not dramatic. Just intentional. That might mean allowing sensory decompression without guilt. Reducing context switching. Letting routines stabilise you rather than bore you. Regulation isn’t self-care theatre. It’s what allows resilience to stop being expensive. You don’t need to become less resilient. You need more opportunities for your system to stand down.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573580
info_outline
Why being “high functioning” often delays getting help
12/31/2025
Why being “high functioning” often delays getting help
Why being “high functioning” often delays getting help High functioning is a dangerous compliment. It suggests competence without acknowledging cost. People who are described this way often delay seeking help because they don’t look unwell enough. They’re still working. Still parenting. Still producing. So they assume they should be coping. What gets missed is how much effort that coping requires. High functioning distress is often invisible. It shows up as exhaustion rather than collapse. Irritability rather than despair. Detachment rather than chaos. Because there’s no obvious breakdown, support is postponed. Sometimes for years. By the time help arrives, the system is already depleted. Recognising this pattern isn’t about labelling yourself. It’s about legitimising strain that hasn’t yet turned into crisis. You don’t have to wait until things fall apart to take your own experience seriously. Functioning is not the same as being okay.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573525
info_outline
The quiet grief of becoming functional again
12/31/2025
The quiet grief of becoming functional again
The quiet grief of becoming functional again Recovery is often portrayed as triumphant. Strength returning. Confidence rising. Life resuming. But there is another side that doesn’t get talked about much. Grief. When people start functioning again after collapse, illness, or burnout, they often notice what was lost. Time. Identity. Illusions about who they were or what they could sustain. Functioning again can bring clarity. And clarity can hurt. It shows you the cost of what you were doing before. It shows you the fragility you didn’t want to see. This grief isn’t a setback. It’s a sign that awareness has widened. You’re not just functioning again. You’re integrating what happened. That process takes time. And it doesn’t need to be rushed or reframed as gratitude. Some losses deserve to be acknowledged quietly.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573485
info_outline
Why safety feels boring to some nervous systems
12/31/2025
Why safety feels boring to some nervous systems
Why safety feels boring to some nervous systems This is a strange and uncomfortable truth. For some people, safety doesn’t feel good. It feels flat. Empty. Even unsettling. They relax for a moment and then feel restless, irritable, or low. This is often misinterpreted as self-sabotage. But what’s actually happening is habituation. If a nervous system has learned to operate in high stimulation, high alert, or emotional intensity, calm can feel unfamiliar. Without the constant buzz of activation, the system doesn’t know what to do. So it seeks stimulation. Conflict. Urgency. Noise. This isn’t a desire for chaos. It’s a system trying to feel alive in the only way it knows how. Learning to tolerate safety is a skill. It involves letting the body experience quiet without panicking. That process can feel dull at first. But boredom is often the doorway to rest. And rest is where repair happens. If safety feels uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your system hasn’t practised it yet.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573470
info_outline
Why thinking about your feelings doesn’t always help
12/31/2025
Why thinking about your feelings doesn’t always help
Why thinking about your feelings doesn’t always help Modern psychology has taught people to reflect. To name emotions. To analyse patterns. To understand where reactions come from. This has been useful. But it has also created a quiet misunderstanding. That if you think about your feelings carefully enough, they will resolve. For many people, the opposite happens. They become more tangled. They think about their anxiety. Then think about why they’re anxious about being anxious. Then worry about why insight isn’t working. What’s happening here is not a lack of intelligence. It’s a mismatch between tool and task. Thinking is a cortical process. Emotion regulation is not. When feelings are driven by the nervous system, thinking about them can actually keep them alive. Attention acts like fuel. The body reads focus as importance. So when you keep scanning your internal state, the system stays alert. This is why some people feel better when they’re distracted, grounded, or absorbed in something physical. It’s not avoidance. It’s regulation. Understanding feelings is valuable. But it’s not always the intervention. Sometimes the most helpful shift is from analysing experience to changing the conditions around it. You don’t always need better insight. Sometimes you need less internal surveillance.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573460
info_outline
Why feeling “too much” is often a nervous system problem, not a personality flaw
12/31/2025
Why feeling “too much” is often a nervous system problem, not a personality flaw
Why feeling “too much” is often a nervous system problem, not a personality flaw Many people describe themselves as feeling too much. Too sensitive. Too reactive. Too easily overwhelmed. They say it apologetically, as though they’re confessing to a defect. But intensity of feeling is not the same thing as excess. Very often, what people are describing isn’t emotional instability at all. It’s a nervous system that hasn’t learned how to downshift. When the system stays in a state of heightened readiness, every input arrives amplified. Sounds are louder. Emotions hit harder. Disappointment feels catastrophic rather than disappointing. This doesn’t mean the person is dramatic. It means the volume dial is stuck too high. Many people with this experience were praised early on for being perceptive, intuitive, or mature. They learned to read the room. They learned to anticipate needs. They learned to respond quickly. Those skills were useful. But over time, they kept the nervous system permanently activated. Feeling “too much” is often the cost of staying alert for too long. What’s important to understand is that intensity is not a character trait. It’s a state. And states can change. Not through suppression. Not through shame. But through experiences of safety that slowly teach the body it doesn’t need to stay braced. You don’t feel too much because you are too much. You feel too much because something in you learned that it had to.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573440
info_outline
The rough edges of self-understanding
12/31/2025
The rough edges of self-understanding
The rough edges of self-understanding Self-understanding is often portrayed as comforting. But in reality, it can be unsettling. Clarity removes excuses. It exposes limits. Sometimes people feel worse before they feel better. Not because understanding is harmful. But because it changes the ground you’re standing on. The goal isn’t comfort. It’s coherence. And coherence often arrives with edges intact. If clarity has brought discomfort, it doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. It means you’re seeing more clearly. It’s okay to feel unsettled while you find your footing. Understanding doesn’t smooth everything. It helps you live with what’s real.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573385
info_outline
Why insight can’t untangle trauma loops
12/31/2025
Why insight can’t untangle trauma loops
Why insight can’t untangle trauma loops Trauma loops don’t operate on logic. They operate on prediction. The nervous system anticipates threat and prepares the body accordingly. Insight can help you see the loop. But seeing it doesn’t stop it. Because the loop is reinforced by sensation, not belief. This is why people can understand their trauma intimately and still be pulled back into the same reactions. Breaking the loop requires new experiences. Not better explanations. If trauma loops persist despite understanding, you might shift attention from explanation to experience. That could mean noticing what helps your body feel slightly more settled. Or working with support that focuses on regulation rather than analysis. Change happens when the system learns something new.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573370
info_outline
What it feels like when safety collapses
12/31/2025
What it feels like when safety collapses
What it feels like when safety collapses Safety doesn’t always disappear gradually. Sometimes it collapses. One moment things are manageable. The next, overwhelming. Heart racing. Thinking fragmented. Time distorted. People often search for a single trigger. Sometimes there isn’t one. The system simply runs out of capacity. This kind of collapse is terrifying precisely because it feels uncaused. But it isn’t random. It’s cumulative. Pressure, vigilance, and unresolved stress quietly stack until the structure gives way. Collapse isn’t weakness. It’s physics. If you’ve experienced this, it may help to remember that recovery isn’t about willpower. You might focus on restoring predictability, support, and simplicity. Small routines. Familiar places. Gentle presence. Safety rebuilds through consistency, not insight.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573355
info_outline
Late discovery, lifelong patterns
12/31/2025
Late discovery, lifelong patterns
Late discovery, lifelong patterns Learning something important about yourself later in life is rarely simple. There’s relief. Recognition. Language. But there’s also grief. Grief for years spent misunderstanding yourself. Grief for effort that might not have been necessary. Late discovery doesn’t rewrite the past. But it does recontextualise it. Patterns that once felt like defects begin to make sense. This process isn’t instant. Understanding arrives quickly. Integration does not. If late discovery has stirred mixed feelings, you’re not doing it wrong. You might give yourself permission to feel relief and grief at the same time. Living with new understanding is a process. You don’t need to rush it.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573330
info_outline
The invisible architecture of different thinking
12/31/2025
The invisible architecture of different thinking
The invisible architecture of different thinking Cognitive difference isn’t always visible. It lives in processing speed, pattern recognition, sensory load, and internal pacing. Two people can reach the same conclusion by very different routes. One path looks linear. The other looks associative or nonlinear. From the outside, this can be misunderstood as inconsistency or distraction. From the inside, it often feels like juggling too many inputs at once. Understanding this invisible architecture can be profoundly validating. It shifts the question. From “What’s wrong with me?” To “How does my mind work?” Difference stops being moral. It becomes mechanical. If this resonates, you might experiment with adjusting expectations rather than effort. That could mean allowing different pacing, different processing styles, or different forms of rest. The goal isn’t to fix how you think. It’s to support how your mind already works.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573325
info_outline
Misdiagnosis as a survival strategy
12/31/2025
Misdiagnosis as a survival strategy
Misdiagnosis as a survival strategy Not all misdiagnoses happen by accident. Some happen because being understood was never safe. In certain environments, showing your true patterns could lead to punishment, exclusion, or misunderstanding. So people adapt. They present what’s acceptable. They suppress what isn’t. Later, when help is sought, those adaptations are mistaken for pathology. Anxiety instead of vigilance. Depression instead of collapse. This doesn’t mean clinicians are malicious. It means systems prefer tidy explanations. Misdiagnosis can sometimes be the cost of survival. Revisiting this later can be unsettling. But it can also be relieving. It allows people to reinterpret their history with more compassion. If this resonates, it may help to revisit your story with curiosity rather than correction. You might ask what your symptoms were protecting you from. Understanding adaptation can soften shame and open new ways of relating to yourself.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573260
info_outline
Exhaustion that doesn’t look like burnout
12/31/2025
Exhaustion that doesn’t look like burnout
Burnout has a familiar shape. Too much work. Too much demand. For too long. But some exhaustion looks different. People rest. They slow down. They change circumstances. And still feel depleted. This exhaustion comes from internal effort. Monitoring yourself. Masking reactions. Holding back responses. The nervous system never fully powers down. So rest doesn’t restore. Sleep doesn’t refresh. This can be deeply confusing. People start blaming themselves for not recovering properly. But this exhaustion isn’t solved by rest alone. It’s solved by reducing the need for constant self-management. If this feels familiar, it may help to look beyond workload and toward internal demand. You might notice how often you’re watching yourself, translating yourself, or holding yourself in check. Reducing exhaustion often means reducing self-surveillance. Energy returns when the system no longer has to stay on guard.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573250
info_outline
The hidden cost of living on alert
12/31/2025
The hidden cost of living on alert
The hidden cost of living on alert Living on alert changes how time feels. Moments shrink. Urgency expands. Rest feels inefficient. People in this state often struggle to enjoy things. Not because enjoyment is gone. But because the nervous system doesn’t stand down long enough to receive it. Attention narrows. The body prioritises scanning over receiving. Relationships can suffer quietly. You’re present. But not quite with. Over time, this creates a subtle grief. A sense of missing your own life. The cost isn’t just fatigue. It’s disconnection from ease, spontaneity, and subtle pleasure. This isn’t personal failure. It’s what happens when safety has been inconsistent for too long. If living on alert feels familiar, you might experiment with moments of receiving rather than scanning. That could mean noticing warmth, weight, or contact with the ground. Or allowing yourself to enjoy something without analysing it. These moments don’t need to be long. They just need to signal that nothing is required right now.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573225
info_outline
Coping can feel like functioning, until it doesn’t
12/31/2025
Coping can feel like functioning, until it doesn’t
Coping can feel like functioning, until it doesn’t Coping is an underrated survival skill. It gets people through days, responsibilities, and crises. It keeps life moving. But coping is not the same as being well. Coping relies on effort. Monitoring. Holding things together. Managing yourself constantly. For a long time, this can look like success. People meet expectations. They remain productive. They don’t ask for much. The problem is that coping consumes resources. And those resources are finite. Eventually, the system reaches a limit. Not with drama. But with exhaustion. Numbness. Loss of flexibility. This is when people say, “I don’t know what happened, I was doing fine.” They weren’t fine. They were coping. Learning the difference isn’t about giving up. It’s about noticing when effort has replaced safety. If this resonates, it can help to notice how much effort your days require. You might become curious about where you’re managing, monitoring, or pushing through without pause. Not to stop immediately. Just to become aware. Wellbeing often arrives through reducing how much needs to be managed at once.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573195
info_outline
When hypervigilance looks like competence
12/31/2025
When hypervigilance looks like competence
When hypervigilance looks like competence Some people don’t look anxious. They look organised. Prepared. On top of things. They anticipate problems before they arise. They read rooms quickly. They spot danger early. From the outside, this gets rewarded. It looks like reliability. Leadership. Capability. But internally, the experience is very different. Hypervigilance is not confidence. It’s constant readiness. A nervous system that learned early that mistakes were costly and unpredictability was dangerous. Over time, this state becomes invisible. Because if you’ve always been on, you don’t notice the tension. You notice the results. The cost appears later. Sleep becomes shallow. Joy becomes muted. Rest feels uncomfortable. Eventually, the skill that once kept everything together starts to pull it apart. Recognising this isn’t criticism. It’s often the first compassionate step toward something gentler. If you recognise yourself in this pattern, it may help to ask a different question than “How do I relax?” A more useful question is often, “What am I still protecting against?” You might notice when your body stays alert even in low-stakes moments. Or when rest feels strangely uncomfortable. These aren’t failures. They’re clues about a system that learned to survive by staying ready.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573190
info_outline
Calm isn’t the same as safety
12/31/2025
Calm isn’t the same as safety
Many people look calm while feeling anything but. They function. They perform competence. They hold it together. And then collapse in private. Calm is a presentation. Safety is a state. You can force calm through control or suppression. Safety cannot be forced. It emerges when the nervous system no longer expects harm. This is why slowing down can increase anxiety. The quiet removes distraction. The body finally registers what it’s been carrying. Learning the difference between calm and safety is often a turning point. It helps people stop chasing the wrong goal. The aim isn’t to appear settled. The aim is to feel resourced enough that nothing has to be held together by effort alone. If this distinction feels familiar, you might experiment with noticing what actually helps your body soften, rather than what helps you look composed. That could mean paying attention to moments when effort drops, even briefly. Or noticing where you feel slightly more supported, slightly less braced. Safety often grows quietly, through small experiences that don’t demand performance. You don’t need to force calm. You need less to hold together.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573175
info_outline
Why reassurance fails under stress
12/31/2025
Why reassurance fails under stress
Reassurance is one of our best intentions. It’s okay. You’re safe. There’s nothing to worry about. And yet, under stress, reassurance often fails. People feel unseen. Or pressured. Or strangely more alone. This happens because reassurance speaks to the thinking brain, while stress lives elsewhere. A stressed nervous system isn’t asking for information. It’s asking for evidence. Evidence that the threat has passed. Evidence that someone is present. Evidence that nothing more is required right now. Words alone don’t provide that. Sometimes reassurance even feels like a demand. A request to calm down before the body is ready. What helps instead is regulation. Slower pace. Steady presence. Silence that isn’t abandoning. Safety has to be felt before it can be believed.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573050
info_outline
The body remembers before the mind even notices anything is wrong
12/31/2025
The body remembers before the mind even notices anything is wrong
The body remembers before the mind does People often ask why they react before they can think. Why the heart races before there’s a story. Why emotion arrives before explanation. The answer is simple, and inconvenient. The body is faster than thought. Your nervous system scans constantly for safety and danger. It doesn’t wait for permission from your conscious mind. This is not a flaw. It’s how survival works. The body remembers patterns, not stories. Tone. Posture. Speed. Sudden change. So when something in the present resembles something unresolved from the past, the response can arrive instantly. Not as a memory. Not as an image. But as sensation. Tightness. Urgency. Collapse. This is why people say, “I don’t know why, I just felt wrong.” They’re not being evasive. They’re describing a process that happens below words. Trying to reason your way out rarely works. Because the response didn’t come from reasoning in the first place. The task isn’t to argue with the body. It’s to listen carefully enough that it no longer has to shout.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39573020
info_outline
You’re not imagining it, it really is this weird
12/31/2025
You’re not imagining it, it really is this weird
A lot of people arrive in therapy with the same private fear. That something about the world has become unreal. Not dramatic. Not psychotic. Just subtly off. Social rules feel inconsistent. Expectations keep shifting. Systems contradict themselves and then blame individuals for not keeping up. And people quietly wonder whether the problem is them. This kind of unease doesn’t always come from pathology. Sometimes it comes from accurate perception. We live in a culture that asks people to be endlessly adaptable while offering very little stability in return. We reward overfunctioning. We pathologise exhaustion. We normalise pressure and call it ambition. Feeling unsettled in those conditions is not evidence of weakness. It’s evidence of attunement. The nervous system evolved to notice when environments stop making sense. When effort no longer leads to security. When rules change without warning. When meaning erodes. If you feel disoriented or detached, it may not be because you’re failing to cope. It may be because you’re responding honestly to an incoherent environment. The danger is not the feeling itself. The danger is assuming it must be a personal defect. Sometimes the most grounding realisation is this. You’re not imagining it. It really is this weird.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39572940
info_outline
Why insight doesn't create change
12/31/2025
Why insight doesn't create change
Why insight doesn’t create change, and why that isn’t your fault Most people who come to psychology are already insightful. They know why they react the way they do. They can trace patterns back to childhood. They can explain their triggers in detail. And yet, nothing changes. They still freeze. They still overthink. They still react in ways they promised themselves they wouldn’t. This is usually the point where people turn on themselves. They decide they’re resistant. Or lazy. Or secretly unwilling to change. But that conclusion rests on a misunderstanding of how change actually happens. Insight lives in the thinking parts of the brain. Change happens much further downstream. Your nervous system does not respond to explanations. It responds to signals of safety or danger. You can understand perfectly why you panic in certain situations and still panic. Because understanding does not equal safety. In fact, insight without regulation often makes things worse. It gives the mind something to chew on while the body remains alarmed. This is why people can talk brilliantly about their trauma while still being completely hijacked by it in daily life. The system that learned the pattern is not the system listening to your reasoning now. And that doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human. Real change tends to arrive sideways. Through repetition. Through safety experienced, not explained. Through relationships that don’t demand performance. Insight can help orient you. It can stop you blaming yourself. It can give language to what was once chaos. But it was never meant to do the heavy lifting alone. If understanding hasn’t changed you yet, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’ve been asking insight to do a job it was never designed to do.
/episode/index/show/8b3f9933-c122-4c93-8dae-8f5b6db24c71/id/39572875