“It’s just a habit. You just need to break it.”
I’ve been reflecting on that sentence recently.
Because although habits absolutely can be changed, after years of working therapeutically with habitual behaviours, addictions and subconscious patterns, I think this can be a very narrow way of understanding them.
Changing behaviour isn’t always simply a matter of deciding to stop and having enough willpower to follow through.
Before trying to remove a behaviour, I think there’s a much more useful question:
WHAT IS THIS BEHAVIOUR DOING FOR THIS PERSON?
Because two people can be doing exactly the same thing for completely different reasons.
Someone may reach for food because they’re physically hungry.
Someone else may be seeking comfort.
Someone may be filling an emotional void.
Someone may be escaping boredom.
Someone may be regulating overwhelm.
Someone may be looking for stimulation or sensory satisfaction.
Someone may simply have repeated the behaviour for so long that the original reason has disappeared, but the pattern remains.
And often, several of these things are happening at once.
Take smoking.
We can focus entirely on removing the cigarette.
But what if going outside for ten minutes is the only time that person gives themselves permission to stop?
The cigarette isn’t only providing nicotine.
It may also be providing quiet.
Space.
A break from responsibility.
A reason to step away.
Deep breathing.
Social connection.
A transition between tasks.
Those are what we sometimes call secondary gains.
Remove the cigarette without understanding what else that ritual was providing and something is still missing.
Food can work similarly.
So can alcohol, scrolling, shopping, gaming, overworking and countless other repetitive behaviours.
And then we add neurodivergence into the picture and there can be another layer entirely.
For some ADHD and autistic people, certain behaviours may also provide stimulation, dopamine, predictability, sensory input, soothing or regulation.
Crunching.
Chewing.
Strong flavours.
Repetitive movements.
The physical ritual of smoking.
The sensation associated with a particular food or drink.
Simply saying “stop doing it” doesn’t answer the question:
WHAT WILL MEET THAT NEED INSTEAD?
This is why I find the subconscious side of behaviour change so fascinating.
Sometimes there IS an old emotional wound underneath a pattern.
Sometimes there’s a protective part that originally developed the behaviour because, at some point, it helped.
Sometimes there’s a secondary gain that needs to be recognised and provided in another way.
Sometimes there’s a sensory or regulatory need.
Sometimes the environment keeps cueing the behaviour.
And sometimes we’ve already healed much of what originally created the pattern, but the body and nervous system are still running an old piece of programming through repetition.
Almost like residue from an earlier version of ourselves.
That’s why I don’t particularly like framing behaviour change as a battle of willpower.
It can create so much unnecessary shame.
“I know this isn’t good for me, so why can’t I just stop?”
Perhaps instead of immediately fighting the behaviour, we could become curious about it.
When did this begin?
What tends to happen immediately before it?
What emotion, sensation or situation triggers it?
What does it give me in that moment?
What would I lose if I stopped?
What need might still be asking to be met?
Is there a younger emotional part involved?
Is there a protective function?
Is there a sensory need?
Is the original problem still present, or has the behaviour simply become automatic?
And if I remove it, what needs to take its place?
Because taking something away without understanding what it has been doing for us can sometimes leave the original need untouched.
And that’s one reason people can find themselves moving from one behaviour to another.
The goal isn’t simply:
STOP THE HABIT.
It’s understanding the whole person well enough that the behaviour no longer needs to perform the same job.
Sometimes change does require discipline.
Sometimes it requires repetition.
But sometimes it requires healing.
Sometimes regulation.
Sometimes environmental change.
Sometimes meeting a sensory need differently.
Sometimes compassion for the part of us that found the behaviour useful in the first place.
And very often, it’s a combination.
Behaviour makes much more sense when we stop asking:
“What’s wrong with me that I keep doing this?”
and start asking:
“What has this been doing FOR me?”
That question can open a very different door.
And this is exactly why hypnotherapy can be so powerful when it comes to changing habitual patterns.
We can consciously KNOW that we want to stop doing something.
We can tell ourselves:
“I’m not going to do that anymore.”
“I know this isn’t helping me.”
“I’m going to have more willpower this time.”
But habitual behaviour isn’t driven by conscious thought alone.
Much of what we repeatedly do becomes automatic — linked with learned associations, emotional responses, triggers, rewards and deeply established patterns.
Hypnotherapy gives us an opportunity to work with those deeper processes rather than continually trying to argue with them from the conscious mind.
We can explore what the behaviour has been providing, work with emotional or protective patterns where they exist, create different associations and rehearse healthier responses.
So rather than simply trying to FORCE yourself to stop a behaviour, we can work towards changing what is driving and maintaining it.
Because lasting change isn’t always about fighting yourself harder.
Sometimes it’s about understanding yourself more deeply and helping the subconscious learn that there can be another way. ❤️
Spirit Hypnotherapy
Where Healing Meets Awakening
