The Hidden Conflict That Shapes Behaviour
Why You Act Against Your Own Best Interests (and How to Finally Break the Cycle)
Have you ever wondered why you keep doing things you know aren’t good for you?
Why you stay in relationships that hurt you, sabotage opportunities you’ve waited years for, or keep breaking promises to yourself - even when you genuinely want to change?
It’s one of the most painful human experiences: to know better but still not do better. And it’s not a sign of weakness or failure. It’s a sign that a powerful psychological force is at play, one that operates beneath your awareness and often stems from experiences far deeper than the situation in front of you.
That force is called cognitive dissonance. And once you understand how it works, you’ll see that your so-called “bad decisions” are not random or irrational - they’re often the natural outcome of what you’ve been through. More importantly, you’ll see how healing the wounds beneath those behaviours is the key to finally breaking free.
Cognitive Dissonance: The Hidden Conflict That Shapes Behaviour
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that arises when your beliefs, values, or self-image clash with your actions, decisions, or new information.
We are wired to seek internal consistency. When something disrupts that harmony - for example, when we behave in ways that contradict what we believe - our brain experiences tension. That tension can feel unbearable, so we instinctively try to reduce it, often without even realising we’re doing it.
Classic examples include:
Continuing to smoke despite knowing the health risks (“It helps me relax - stress is worse for me.”)
Staying in a damaging relationship (“It’s not that bad… everyone has problems.”)
Overspending on something unnecessary (“It’s an investment piece, really.”)
These justifications aren’t about logic. They’re the mind’s attempt to resolve the discomfort of two opposing realities existing at once.
How Cognitive Dissonance Is Born from Past Experiences
While cognitive dissonance is a universal human experience, its intensity and impact often trace back to deeper wounds - many of which are formed in childhood or during traumatic relationships.
In these formative years, our nervous system learns what is safe, what is necessary for survival, and what we must do to secure love and belonging. Those early lessons become deeply ingrained beliefs - even if they no longer serve us as adults.
Here are some examples of how that plays out:
Conditional love:
If love was conditional growing up, you might believe “I have to earn love” while simultaneously knowing “I deserve respect.”
That clash can keep you tolerating disrespectful behaviour because your nervous system equates striving, pleasing, and over-giving with love. Even when you consciously know you’re being mistreated, the body remembers love as something that must be earned - this is why you stay.Punishment for self-expression:
If you were criticised or punished for asserting yourself, you might hold “I have the right to boundaries” alongside “If I speak up, I’ll lose people.”
That inner battle can keep you silent, even when your silence hurts you. You know speaking up is healthy, but your nervous system still associates it with danger - so it chooses the safety of silence over the risk of rejection.Abandonment following authenticity:
If, as a child, being your true self led to rejection, ridicule, or abandonment, you might hold “I want to be authentic” alongside “It’s safer to be who others want me to be.”
As an adult, this creates a painful dissonance between the desire to live in alignment with your truth and the deep-rooted fear that authenticity will cost you love. As a result, you may shapeshift to fit other people’s expectations - even when it means betraying yourself.
These patterns aren’t evidence of weakness or self-sabotage. They’re evidence of survival. Your behaviours are your brain and body’s attempt to protect you based on old information - strategies that once kept you safe but are now holding you back.
The work of healing isn’t about shaming yourself for those behaviours. It’s about updating the system with new information: you are safe now, your needs matter, and love doesn’t require self-abandonment.
Awareness Is Powerful - But It’s Only the First Step
Understanding cognitive dissonance can feel like a light switching on. Suddenly, the patterns that once felt like personal failings start to make sense. You begin to see that the behaviours you’ve judged yourself for - staying too long, not speaking up, choosing short-term comfort over long-term growth - are not signs of weakness but signs of an inner conflict trying to protect you.
But here’s the truth most self-help advice misses:
Awareness alone doesn’t change behaviour.
Because cognitive dissonance isn’t just a thought problem - it’s a body-based and emotional one.
The beliefs driving your dissonance don’t just live in your conscious mind; they’re embedded deep within your subconscious programming and your nervous system’s survival responses. They were wired in during moments when you were small, vulnerable, and simply doing your best to survive. That’s why you can’t simply think your way out of them - you have to heal what created them.
🔄 Why Coping Strategies Can Keep You Stuck - or Become the Gateway to Change
When faced with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, the human mind instinctively looks for ways to reduce it. Psychologists have identified three main strategies we use to soothe that tension:
Change your behaviour - e.g. leave the relationship, stop the habit.
Change your beliefs - e.g. “It’s not really abuse.”
Add new beliefs to justify the behaviour - e.g. “They treat me badly because they’re stressed.”
For most people, strategies 2 and 3 are the default. They’re easier in the short term because they don’t require action - but they also keep you trapped. Every time you rationalise or minimise, you reinforce the very patterns that caused the dissonance in the first place.
This is why people can spend years stuck in cycles they desperately want to change: the discomfort is being soothed, not solved.
But here’s where everything shifts: those same coping strategies can become the pathway to healing - if you approach them consciously and in the right order.
From Coping to Rewiring: The 3-Stage Path Out of Dissonance
The real transformation happens when you stop using those strategies as unconscious reactions and start using them as intentional steps in your healing process. Think of it as a three-phase rewiring journey:
1. Behaviour Change: Break the Immediate Loop
Behaviour change is often the hardest first step - but also the most powerful. Taking even a small action that aligns with your deeper values signals to your nervous system that a new reality is possible.
If you’re used to abandoning your boundaries, practise saying no in small, low-stakes situations.
If you always silence your needs, experiment with expressing a preference - even something as small as choosing the restaurant.
If you tolerate disrespect, take a small step back from the dynamic, even temporarily.
Each micro-action interrupts the automatic cycle and gives your mind and body a new experience to learn from.
2. Belief Change: Challenge the Old Narratives
Once new behaviours are in motion, the dissonance often intensifies - because your old beliefs will fight to pull you back into what’s familiar. This is where the deeper work begins.
Start questioning the beliefs that no longer serve you:
“Is it true that I have to earn love?”
“Where did I learn that speaking up causes abandonment?”
“What evidence exists that contradicts this belief?”
This stage is about gently loosening the grip of outdated narratives so that new, healthier ones can take root.
3. Rewire and Reinforce: Anchor the New Beliefs
Belief change isn’t just about replacing thoughts - it’s about teaching your body that new ways of being are safe. This is where repeated aligned action, emotional processing, and nervous system regulation come together.
Each time you speak up and remain connected, your body learns that assertiveness doesn’t equal danger.
Each time you uphold a boundary and love remains, your subconscious updates its understanding of what love looks like.
Each time you choose self-respect over self-abandonment, you prove to yourself that you are worthy - no performance required.
Over time, the behaviours that once triggered cognitive dissonance become your new baseline. What once felt foreign becomes familiar. And the cycle that once trapped you becomes the foundation of your growth.
Here are some of the most common reasons people stay stuck in dissonance-driven behaviour:
Survival instincts: Your brain prioritises safety over happiness. If a behaviour once kept you safe (e.g. people-pleasing to avoid anger), your system clings to it, even when it’s no longer serving you.
Attachment to identity: If you’ve always seen yourself as “the strong one” or “the peacemaker,” acting differently can feel like betraying who you are.
Fear of loss: Change threatens existing relationships, routines, and self-perceptions. The fear of losing those can outweigh the pain of staying stuck.
Unhealed trauma: Past wounds distort your perception of what’s “normal” or “deserved.” What feels familiar can feel safer than what’s healthy.
The point is this: your behaviour isn’t evidence that something is “wrong” with you. It’s evidence that something happened to you - and your nervous system is still trying to protect you based on that past.
Cognitive Dissonance Isn’t Your Enemy - It’s a Messenger
Cognitive dissonance isn’t here to shame you. It’s not proof that you’re broken, weak, or failing at life. It’s simply a messenger - one that arrives in the form of discomfort to say, “Something inside you is ready for more.”
Think of it this way: when a seed starts pushing against the shell that once protected it, that pressure isn’t a sign something’s wrong - it’s a sign growth is happening. The same is true for you. That uneasy feeling that something doesn’t quite fit anymore? That’s not punishment. That’s potential, pulling you forward into the next chapter of who you’re meant to become.
The behaviours you judge yourself for - the patterns you “can’t seem to break” - are not evidence of your inadequacy. They are evidence of your adaptation. They were brilliant, resourceful solutions created by a younger version of you to help you survive in circumstances you never should have had to navigate. They kept you safe. They helped you belong. They allowed you to get through.
But now, you’re not just trying to survive - you’re trying to thrive. And the same adaptations that once served you are now standing in the way of the life, love, and peace you deserve. That’s why the discomfort has arrived. It’s your system’s way of saying, “This no longer fits. There’s more waiting for you beyond this.”
When you stop seeing your behaviour as a flaw and start seeing it as a form of self-protection, everything softens. Shame turns into self-compassion. Resistance turns into curiosity. You stop waging war against yourself and start working with yourself.
And that’s where real transformation begins - not from a place of self-rejection, but from a place of deep understanding. Because when you meet those parts of you with compassion instead of criticism, they no longer need to fight for control. They can finally relax, and that’s when lasting change becomes possible.
Turn Insight Into Lasting Change
If you recognise yourself in these patterns, know that your behaviours make perfect sense given what you’ve been through. But you don’t have to keep living from old wounds.
The truth is, you can read every article and watch every video on cognitive dissonance and still find yourself repeating the same cycles. That’s because real change doesn’t happen in your head - it happens in your nervous system, your subconscious, and your daily choices.
That’s where working with a professional can change everything.
👉 Book a consultation call with me to start uncovering and healing the root causes of your patterns. Together, we’ll move beyond insight into transformation.
Or visit my website to explore programmes and resources designed to help you break free from repeating cycles and build a life that reflects who you truly are.
You don’t have to keep acting against your best interests. The power to change is already within you - it’s just waiting for the right support to bring it to life.
You are not your past. You are the author of what comes next.
And understanding cognitive dissonance is just the first page of that story.
