Let me guess.
You’ve read the self-help books. Watched the podcasts. Pinned the healing quotes. You say you’re ready to change, to stop overthinking, reacting, spiraling, over-texting, falling for emotionally bankrupt men, scrolling past your bedtime, snoozing your dreams.
But when life hits, you crash back into the same emotional hole like a sitcom character stuck in a rerun.
You want to change. But your body doesn’t.
And the scary part? Your body doesn’t care what your conscious mind wants.
It’s been memorizing your emotional past for years, and it’s so good at it now that it wakes up every morning knowing exactly how you’re going to feel today. Anxious. Guilty. Lonely. Angry. Overwhelmed. Hopeless. Numb.
Sound familiar? Then let’s go deeper.
You think you’re thinking. But it’s your body that’s remembering.
This is the painful truth nobody tells you: most of what we call “me” is just a predictable set of memorized emotional reactions. Habits. Programs. Chemical loops. You’re not waking up with anxiety out of nowhere, you’re just pressing play on the same emotional playlist your body downloaded from past experiences.
You experience something intense, a fight with your mom that shakes your core, or finding out your partner cheated. Your brain doesn’t just remember the event; it locks it in during a heightened emotional state. In that moment, your brain records every detail like it’s life-or-death and releases a rush of chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline. These flood your body and stamp the memory deep into your cells. And because that moment was so emotionally charged, you think about that event and your body starts reliving it over and over, even when nothing’s happening.
Over time, the body gets used to this chemical state.
And boom: you’re addicted.
Not because you’re weak. But because your body has literally become the mind.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, my mentor, explains this in terrifyingly accurate detail: by age 35, around 95% of who we are is a set of memorized behaviors, emotional reactions, and beliefs.
Think about it: you don’t think hard about brushing your teeth, driving to work, scrolling Instagram, or even reacting with irritation to your partner’s silence. You’ve done these things so many times, your subconscious mind, the part of you that runs without needing your attention, has taken over.
Your conscious mind can focus on just one thing at a time, but your subconscious? It runs your life unless you wake up to it. That means only 5% of your waking life is truly conscious. The rest? Autopilot. And not just for actions, for emotions too.
Your emotions are a chemical drug your body is hooked on
Let’s say you’ve spent 10 years reacting with anger or self-doubt every time something goes wrong. Every time you feel unsafe, unheard, unchosen. Each time you rehearse those emotions, your body produces the same neuropeptides, tiny molecules that carry emotional messages from your brain to the rest of your body. And your cells build more receptors for them.
Think of these receptors like chemical locks waiting for specific emotional keys. The more you flood your system with guilt or frustration, the more of these locks your cells create to receive that specific chemical. Over time, your body recalibrates itself to expect that emotional state, like a drug addict needing a higher dose to feel the same high. So to feel “like yourself,” your body pushes you to relive that same anger or sadness just to stay chemically balanced.
This is what neuroscientist Candace Pert found: emotions are literally stored in the body via neuropeptides. The more you feel something, the more your cells crave it.
Which means your anger isn’t just a mood. It’s a chemical high.
And when you try to change? Your body panics. Not emotionally but chemically. You’re trying to rewire what it’s been feeding on for years.
So even when you’re saying affirmations, doing yoga, or visualizing your new life… the body is screaming:
“Where’s my stress? Where’s my familiar chaos? Give me the old chemicals!”
Thought + Emotion = Your State of Being (and It’s Probably Outdated)
I learned it from Dr. Joe, If thoughts are the language of the brain, and feelings are the language of the body, then your state of being is how you think and feel combined.
Now ask yourself: who are you being most of the day?
Are you being the version of you who is confident, creative, calm, open-hearted?
Or are you being the version of you who reacts, retreats, and runs?
A real talk: You can’t think greater than how you feel if your body is still addicted to who you were.
That’s why change doesn’t stick. You’re using your 5% conscious mind to fight the 95% subconscious emotional program that lives in your cells.
That’s a war you’ll lose unless you bring in the big guns: awareness, repetition, and emotional healing.
Stress is not just killing your vibe, it’s killing your change
Chronic stress isn’t just making you feel terrible. It’s biologically blocking transformation.
When you’re in fight-or-flight mode (which, let’s be real, most people live in), your body is releasing cortisol and adrenaline nonstop. These hormones shut down the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for creativity, focus, decision-making, and learning. That’s why when you’re stressed, you say things you don’t mean, lash out at people you love, make rash decisions you regret the next day. Like texting your ex. Or quitting a job out of panic. Or freezing up when you needed to speak up. You didn’t lose your logic, it just went offline.
So when you’re stressed and trying to become a new you? It’s like trying to plant seeds in concrete.
Change needs safety. Stillness. Inner space.
So how do we break this emotional loop?
You can’t meditate once and expect your cells to give up their addiction.
You have to change. Not just mentally, but emotionally and biologically. Your body has been worshipping the same old emotional gods for years, and now you’re showing up with new prayers. It won’t surrender easily. But this is how we reclaim our power:
- Notice when the program runs. Don’t just notice the thought. Feel the shift in your body. That tight chest? That stomach drop? That heat in your face? It’s your old self clocking in for another shift. Your job is to pause and say, “Ah, there you are again.”
- Sit with the discomfort. I know, this part sucks. But if you always reach for your phone, your ex, sugar, or sarcasm when it hits? Your body never learns that peace is possible. You have to become the calm parent to your panicked inner chemistry.
- Teach it a new way. The body doesn’t learn through logic. It learns through experience. So when you breathe deeply, sit still, or feel something beautiful like love on purpose? You’re rewiring your nervous system to say, “Hey, this is safe too.”
- Repeat. Again. And again. Repetition is the secret. You didn’t become emotionally addicted overnight. You won’t reprogram it in a week. Every time you do it, you’re carving a new path in your brain. You’re proving to your body, “We don’t live there anymore.”
This is hard. But it’s possible. And if you’re reading this, I know you’re already doing the hardest part: becoming aware.
Final thoughts: Your body isn’t your enemy but it’s not your leader either
Your body has been doing its best to protect you. It memorized how to survive heartbreak, abandonment, fear, and failure.
But it wasn’t built to lead your future. That’s your job now.
So let’s stop letting our past emotions run our present. Let’s stop waiting for some external breakthrough to heal the chaos we’ve internalized.
Let’s do the radical work of becoming emotionally sovereign.
And hey, if you’re done trying to figure this out alone, I offer 1-on-1 sessions where we walk this path together. Appointment link is on my homepage.
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You’re not broken. You’re just overdue for an upgrade.
Let’s do it together.
