Why Understanding Yourself is More Powerful Than Trying to Fix Yourself
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 17 hours ago
Written by Michal Cohen, Psychotherapist
Michal Cohen, LCSW, is a Columbia University-trained psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher, and psychedelic guide with over 20 years of experience. Her work explores trauma, nervous system healing, self-compassion, conscious cannabis use, and personal transformation.
You know the behavior is not helping you. You have promised yourself you will stop. So why do you keep doing it? The answer may have less to do with willpower than you think. Understanding what a behavior is doing for you can open the door to something self criticism rarely creates, genuine choice.
Why knowing is not enough
“I know better. Why do I keep doing this?”
In more than twenty years as a psychotherapist, I have heard some version of this question countless times. Why do I keep shopping when I do not need anything? Why do I procrastinate when I know it makes me more anxious? Why do I keep reaching for something that gives me temporary relief? Why do I shame myself when I already know shame is not helpful?
We often believe that if we understand a behavior intellectually, we should be able to stop it. When we cannot, we conclude that something must be wrong with us.
Many of the people I work with are remarkably self-aware. They can identify their patterns. They know which behaviors are creating problems. They have read the books, listened to the podcasts, gone to therapy, and promised themselves countless times that tomorrow will be different. Yet the behavior returns.
This is where judgment often enters. I should know better. Why am I doing this again? What is wrong with me? But meaningful change is difficult when we are at war with ourselves.
Self-criticism can feel productive because it creates the illusion that we are holding ourselves accountable. Compassion, however, is not the same as giving ourselves permission to continue behaviors that are hurting us.
In fact, research suggests something quite different. Studies on self-compassion have found that responding to our shortcomings with compassion can actually increase motivation for self-improvement. When we use less emotional energy attacking ourselves, we may have more capacity to look honestly at what is happening.
What does it do for you?
My thinking about behavior and addiction has been deeply influenced by Dr. Gabor Maté. One thing that affected me personally was his willingness to speak openly about his own compulsive shopping for classical music.
His self-disclosure helped shift my question. Instead of asking, What is wrong with me? I began asking, What does this behavior do for me?
That question has become central to the way I approach both my clinical work and my own life. When I ask clients what a behavior does for them, the answers are remarkably human.
It gives me relief. It helps me escape. It gives me something to look forward to. It numbs me. It makes me feel in control. It quiets my mind. It gives me a dopamine hit. It helps me not feel so lonely.
Suddenly, we are having a very different conversation. We are no longer simply talking about how to eliminate a behavior. We are becoming curious about the need the behavior is attempting to meet.
This does not mean that every coping behavior should be labeled an addiction, nor does understanding a behavior mean ignoring its consequences. It means recognizing that behaviors that appear irrational from the outside often make much more sense when we understand what they provide on the inside.
How coping gets learned
Some of our coping strategies begin much earlier than we realize. Imagine a child growing up in a home with frequent conflict between their parents. The child cannot leave the environment. They may not yet have the emotional capacity or support to process what they are feeling.
So they find ways to get away without actually going anywhere. Maybe they disappear into television, food, fantasy, games, or anything else that temporarily shifts their attention away from what is happening around them.
Distraction works. Years later, the circumstances may be completely different. The child is now an adult who has choices, resources, and perhaps a safe home of their own. But when emotional pain arrives, that familiar impulse to distract may still appear.
The behavior creating difficulty today may have roots in something that once helped us cope. Rather than immediately asking, How do I make myself stop? we can begin with, What is happening inside me right now, and what am I hoping this will give me?
When grief met Temu
Recently, I had an opportunity to practice this in my own life. My beloved Chihuahua, Solomon, died after almost seventeen years with me. It happened suddenly and was very traumatic.
Anyone who has deeply loved an animal knows that losing them is not a small loss. Solomon had been woven into the fabric of my everyday life for nearly two decades. His absence was everywhere. Somewhere inside that grief, I noticed myself impulse-shopping more.
On Temu, of all places. There was always another inexpensive shirt, another little item, another momentary spark of maybe I need this. Because of what I had learned through my own therapeutic work, mindfulness practice, and studies with Dr. Maté, I tried not to turn my shopping into another reason to criticize myself.
Instead, I became curious. What was the shopping doing for me? The answer was not particularly complicated. It was distracting me from grief.
For a few moments, I could search, choose, anticipate, and experience a little burst of pleasure instead of feeling the enormous ache of missing little Sol.
So, when I caught myself eyeing another shirt, I began asking myself something like, Do you truly need this shirt, or would you like to take a moment and check in with yourself first?
Sometimes I still bought the shirt. That matters. Mindfulness did not magically turn me into a person who never impulse shopped again. Compassion was not a trick I used to force myself into better behavior.
Instead, awareness created a little more space. I could notice the impulse to shop and also notice the grief underneath it. Gradually, as I allowed myself to be more conscious of what I was actually feeling, the impulse shopping diminished. I did not shame myself out of the behavior. I understood what the behavior was trying to do for me.
Compassion creates choice
This is one reason I practice from a harm reduction perspective. We do not have to demand immediate perfection before change counts.
Whether the behavior involves shopping, food, cannabis, alcohol, scrolling, procrastination, people pleasing, or another way of coping, understanding its purpose gives us information that shame cannot.
The next time you find yourself doing something you promised yourself you would not do, pause before immediately trying to correct yourself.
Notice what you are feeling. Then ask, "What is this behavior doing for me right now?" Is it offering relief? Escape? Comfort? Stimulation? Control? Connection? A moment when you do not have to feel lonely, anxious, overwhelmed, or sad?
Once you understand the need underneath a behavior, you have more information about what you actually need. That does not mean you will always make a different choice. Sometimes you may still buy the shirt. But awareness gives you a little space between the feeling and the response. Inside that space, choice becomes possible.
Begin with curiosity
Perhaps the next time you hear yourself thinking, I know better. Why am I still doing this? Try asking a different question: What is this behavior doing for me?
Listen carefully to the answer. A part of you may not be trying to sabotage your life at all. It may simply be using an old strategy to help you through something difficult.
You can dislike a behavior without disliking the person doing it. Especially when that person is you. If you recognize yourself in these patterns and want to explore them with more curiosity and less judgment, learn more about my approach to therapy and working together through my website.
Michal Cohen, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher, psychedelic guide, and creator of Notes to My Nervous System. Her work explores psychotherapy, mindfulness, harm reduction, conscious cannabis use, and nervous system healing.
Read more from Michal Cohen
Michal Cohen, Psychotherapist
Michal Cohen, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher, and psychedelic guide with more than 20 years of experience. A graduate of Columbia University School of Social Work, she helps people understand the patterns they judge themselves for through compassion, curiosity, and nervous system awareness. Her work explores trauma, anxiety, ADHD, self-compassion, conscious cannabis use, and psychedelic healing. She is also the creator of Notes to My Nervous System, an affirmation and practice card deck inspired by the belief that everyday life can become ceremony. Through her writing, Michal invites readers to slow down, listen within, and discover new ways of understanding themselves.
