Why Your Brain Craves Familiar Pain Over Unfamiliar Peace
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 14
- 4 min read
Dr. Charryse Johnson is an author, speaker, and mental health consultant whose work focuses on the intersection of integrative wellness, neuroscience, and mental health.
We like to believe that the brain is wired to seek what’s best for us, that it pushes us toward health, happiness, and healing. But the truth is more complicated.
From a neuroscience perspective, the brain’s top priority isn’t joy; it’s survival. And survival doesn’t necessarily mean thriving. In fact, the brain will often choose a harmful, toxic, or self-sabotaging pattern over a healthier one, simply because it’s familiar.
In my work as a therapist and mental fitness coach, I see this daily. People wonder, “Why do I keep going back to situations that hurt me?” Or, “Why is it so hard to break free from this cycle?” The answer lies in the brain’s deep love of familiarity, and the way that love can betray us.
The neuroscience of familiarity
From the moment you’re born, your brain begins creating neural pathways based on your environment, experiences, and relationships. These pathways are like well-worn trails through the woods; they become faster and easier for your brain to travel.
Familiar patterns, even destructive ones, feel “safe” to the nervous system because they’re predictable. Predictability equals a lower perceived threat. That’s why people can find themselves drawn back to harmful relationships, toxic workplaces, or self-sabotaging habits.
The brain thinks, “I’ve survived this before. I know the rules here. I can do it again.”It doesn’t stop to ask whether you should do it again.
Why we stay in harmful patterns
There’s a term in psychology called cognitive ease, the mental comfort we feel when something is easy to process. Familiarity offers cognitive ease, even when the cost is emotional or physical pain.
You might:
Return to a partner who’s hurt you.
Say “yes” to obligations that drain you.
Slip back into unhealthy eating or spending habits.
These aren’t always signs of weakness or lack of willpower. Often, they’re signs that your nervous system equates the known with the safe.
The hidden cost of familiar pain
Here’s the truth I tell my clients:
Every time you choose the familiar that harms you, you delay the future that could heal you.
When you continually return to the same destructive patterns, you train your brain to expect and accept harm. You normalize the absence of peace. Over time, this can:
Lower your self-worth.
Increase anxiety and depression.
Make it harder to trust healthy opportunities when they appear.
How to break the cycle
Breaking free isn’t just about “choosing better.” It’s about retraining your brain to recognize that new can also be safe. This requires intention, patience, and practical tools.
Here are three steps I often give clients:
1. Pause and name the pull
The moment you feel drawn back toward an old pattern, stop. Ask yourself:
Is this safe… or just familiar?
What’s pulling me toward this: comfort, habit, fear, or true benefit?
Naming the pull reduces its power. It forces your brain out of autopilot and into conscious choice.
2. Run a “future check”
Visualize your life six months from now if you keep saying yes to this pattern.
Will it bring you closer to the peace you want?
Or will it reinforce the pain you’ve been trying to escape?
Future-based thinking can interrupt the brain’s preference for short-term comfort over long-term well-being.
3. Build micro-changes
You don’t have to overhaul your life in one leap. Instead, create small, consistent changes that introduce healthy alternatives.
If you tend to isolate when stressed, schedule one coffee with a trusted friend each week.
If you gravitate toward negative self-talk, replace one harmful phrase with a compassionate one.
Over time, these micro-shifts create new neural pathways, making healthier patterns easier and more automatic.
The discomfort of growth
One of the hardest truths about growth is that it often feels worse before it feels better. Stepping away from familiar pain can create a kind of withdrawal, not because you were thriving in that situation, but because your nervous system had adapted to it.
When you choose something new, your brain perceives it as a threat. This is where many people get stuck, misinterpreting the discomfort of change as a “sign” that they’re making the wrong decision.
In reality, this discomfort is your brain rewiring itself, and that’s the work worth staying with.
Shifting from survival to thriving
If survival has been your default mode, you may have lived years without truly experiencing emotional safety. But here’s what I want you to know:
You are allowed to create a life that feels good, not just one that you can endure.
Thriving requires you to:
Question what your brain calls “safe.”
Replace comfort-based decisions with value-based ones.
Surround yourself with relationships and environments that affirm your worth.
A question to carry forward
As you reflect on your own life, consider this:
What future are you putting on hold by clinging to what’s familiar?
Your answer may be the starting point for the change you’ve been resisting.
Final thought
The brain may crave the familiar, but you are not your brain’s impulses. You can teach it new patterns. You can expand the definition of safety. And you can choose a future where peace isn’t a stranger, but a daily companion. The road there will not always feel comfortable, but comfort has never been the measure of growth.
Dr. Charryse Johnson, Expert Mental Health Consultant
Dr. Charryse Johnson is an author, speaker, and mental health consultant whose work focuses on the intersection of integrative wellness, neuroscience, and mental health. She is the founder of Jade Integrative Counseling and Wellness, an integrative therapy practice where personal values, the search for meaning, and the power of choice are the central focus. Dr.Johnson works with clients and organizations across the nation and has an extensive background and training in education, crisis and trauma, neuroscience, and identity development.
