When we’re anxious, most of us instinctively reach for something that promises relief. For some people, that means scrolling through social media to numb the discomfort. For others, it means grabbing a self-help book with the hope of finding a tool, an insight, or a “magic pill” that will calm the system down. What’s important to understand is that the issue is not social media or self-help books in themselves. The issue is the state your nervous system is in when you turn to them . When your...

When the System Meets a Goal You have a project, a task, or an idea that matters. Something you want to bring into the world. And yet, instead of momentum, you feel hesitation, avoidance, or paralysis. This is not random. Whenever we move toward something meaningful, the nervous system automatically scans for safety. If that action is associated, consciously or not, with a sense of risk, a perceived threat, the system reacts as if danger were present. That “risk” may not be about the task...

There’s a strange paradox in the human nervous system: we are wired to seek what is familiar, not necessarily what is safe. Alice Miller in The Drama of the Gifted Child, describes this through Freud’s concept of repetition compulsion: the unconscious drive to recreate the emotional conditions of our childhood, even when they were painful or unsafe. For the child, familiar equaled survival. As adults, that association can quietly guide our relationships, our choices, and even the way we...