You Say You Want Change | But You’re Addicted to Your Own Suffering

Tell me something honestly. No, I mean honestly, not the polite, LinkedIn ready version of honesty. Do you really want to change? Or do you just want a more comfortable version of the same pain you've been carrying for years? Because here's the truth.

Most people will never admit out loud. You're not tired of your suffering. You are attached to it. Humans cling to familiar misery more than unfamiliar possibility. We choose the pain we know over the freedom we do not understand.

Humans, by design, fear the unknown. We stay in patterns that hurt us because they are predictable, and predictability feels like safety even if it brings pain. Leaders claim they want transformation, innovation, the famous next level. But what they actually want is to stay exactly where they are while feeling slightly better about it. This is the episode that makes rooms go quiet.

The episode where people shift in their chairs. The episode that confronts the truth behind stagnation. Stay with me until the end because I will also give you the H2H experiment of the week, a practice designed to break the addictive cycle of immediate suffering. We like to believe that suffering is something we hate, but the human psyche is far more complex than that. In psychoanalysis, Freud called this the compulsion to repeat, the unconscious drive to recreate painful patterns because they feel like home.

If you grew up in chaos, you subconsciously recreate that chaos. If you grew up unseen, you pursue leaders who ignore you. If you grew up needing to earn love, you turn work into validation. Suffering becomes a script you know by heart, A script you perform even when the stage has changed. Young took it further.

He said that what we do not confront in the unconscious becomes fate. You are not addicted to pain. You are addicted to the identity built around that pain Because who are you without your struggle story, after all? Who are you without your old narrative? Who are you without the emotional gravity that has defined you for decades.

People say they want to change, but change requires the death of who you were. And most humans fear psychological death more than they fear misery. And leaders, they fear it twice as much. Leaders have a very elegant way of hiding their fear. They call it strategy.

We need more data before deciding. This is not the right time. Let's be cautious. We shouldn't rush. Let's slow down.

These phrases sound very intelligent and wise, professional, responsible, but often they fear wearing a suit, fear of failure, fear of losing control, fear of uncertainty, fear of being exposed, fear of being wrong. The ego hates the unknown. So it builds a fortress made of all kinds of rational excuses. Leaders become loyal to their limitations because their limitations protect their identity. We all have our limiting beliefs inside of us.

You cannot step into the unknown when the known is part of your self story. This is why teams stay stuck. The leader is more committed to emotional safety than to growth. And emotional safety in the unconscious means familiar suffering. Now let's move to the neuroscience aspect of emotional addiction.

This isn't just psychology. Okay? It's biology. Emotional suffering releases stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline, and the body becomes accustomed to that chemical cocktail. The brain gets comfortable with the discomfort.

It expects the pain. It prepares for the pain. It organizes your behavior to maintain the pain. Over time, your nervous system is no longer addicted to the suffering itself. It becomes addicted to the predictability of suffering.

Unpredictable happiness, the brain doesn't trust it. Predictable misery, the brain calls it home. This is why people sabotage new opportunities, why teams repeat the same dysfunctional patterns, why leaders cling to outdated strategies. The nervous system would rather be miserable than surprised, and the ego would rather be right than free. Now, something very interesting.

There is a philosophical trap in this, because actually freedom is quite terrifying for humans. Alan Watts once said, we fear freedom because it leaves us alone to decide. Freedom means responsibility. Responsibility means choice. Choice means uncertainty.

Uncertainty means risk. Risk threatens the ego. So we create safe prisons instead. Routines that no longer serve us. Roles that no longer reflect us, cultures that no longer challenge us, identities that no longer fit us.

Freedom requires stepping into the unknown, into a space where we no longer have the old excuses, the old shields, the old stories, the old walls that we built. And without those stories, who are we after all? This is why leaders cling to their suffering, because the suffering is familiar and the familiar feels like self. Growth feels like ego death. Let me tell you something that nobody explains in leadership books.

Okay? Transformation always begins with grief because change requires letting go of the role you've been playing, the identity you've been protecting, the narratives you've been performing, the patterns that once kept you safe. Leaders often resist change because they haven't grieved who they were, and you cannot step into a new self when the old one hasn't died yet. Young's individuation process demands this psychological death, the shedding of the persona, the integration of the shadow, the emergence of the self. Transformation is not an upgrade.

It's a rebirth, and rebirth is painful because something must end. This is why leaders prefer familial suffering. It's painful, yes, but it doesn't require transformation. So I'm comfortable. And now let me share a bit of my my personal story as well on this matter.

I'm going to be brutally honest with you. Okay? For years, I believed I wanted to change. But deep down, I was loyal to my own suffering. I used intensity as fuel.

I used pressure as identity. I used achievement to hide my wounds. I used speed to outrun my silence. I used performance for validation. Even when opportunities for growth appeared, I hesitated.

Not because I didn't want them, but because a deeper part of me was terrified of losing the familiarity of who I was. Pain had become my compass. Stress had become my normal. Suffering had become my story. And letting go of that story felt like losing myself.

And it still does. I'm still ongoing this process. It was not logic that was holding me back. It was the part of me that didn't know who I'd be without that struggle. When I realized that everything changed because change doesn't begin with desire.

Change begins with honesty. And now let's move to the h two h experiment of the week. I call this one breaking the addiction. This week, I want you to confront your familial suffering. Step one, identify the pattern.

Ask yourself, what painful situation do I keep recreating? It can even be relationships. Step two, find the payoff. Every pattern has a hidden benefit. Familiar suffering gives you something, certainty, identity, predictability, control, emotional protection.

Which one is yours? And step three, choose one small disruption. Change doesn't require a full revolution. It requires a disruption. Do one thing differently this week that breaks that pattern.

Step four, sit with the discomfort of the new. I'm gonna tell you. Growth feels weird. It's uncomfortable. It's unstable, and that's exactly how you know it's working.

And now let's begin our wrap up. Okay? You say you want to change. But the deeper question is, are you willing to let go of who you've been your entire life to become who you could be? Freedom requires discomfort.

Growth requires grief. Transformation requires courage. You are not addicted to pain. You are addicted to the story that pain told you about who you are. But stories, they can be rewritten.

Patterns, they can be broken. Leaders, they can be reborn. Thank you for joining me for this bold and honest episode of the H2H experiment. I'm so happy to have you here today. If you want to continue this journey with me, you can find my reflections on LinkedIn, my essays on the CXO platform, my videos on YouTube, and my books on Amazon.

They are called the HX Revolution series. Until next time, stay aware, stay courageous, and stay willing to step beyond the suffering that once kept you safe. Thank you once again. See you next time. Bye.