Why Can't I make myself Feel better?? What happens when we start to listen instead of trying to "fix" ourselves

When I meet clients for an initial assessment and witness just how hard they have been working to feel better, it often brings me to a place of compassion. In my practice as an online and in-person therapist, I see so many people exhausted from trying to force themselves to change, control, or ignore parts of themselves that they have learnt to see as something that needs fixing or changing.

We can often buy into the belief that we simply need to “try” harder, and that there is something we need to do differently in order to feel better. The world of self help and personal development is powerful and can do a lot of good, but sometimes when we can’t “think ourselves well” or “do it on our own”, we can be left feeling shame, embarrassment, and an even stronger sense of failure, reinforcing the belief that there must be something wrong with us.

The immense effort we put into navigating expectations, adapting our environments, and finding ways to feel more comfortable in ourselves can become exhausting and disheartening when we don’t see lasting change.

So why is it that we cannot always simply try harder, be stricter with ourselves, or control how we feel? Why can't I think my way to better mental health?

If you have ever tried to start a new habit, you will probably recognise the pattern. In the beginning, it can feel relatively easy to go to the gym, stop eating chocolate, reduce your screen time, or commit to whatever goal you have set yourself. There is often excitement, motivation and a sense of possibility. Yet as time passes, many people find themselves slipping back into old patterns, losing the initial zest they felt and wondering why their willpower seems to have disappeared.

Part of this is because our brains and bodies become familiar with certain ways of functioning. We develop strong neural pathways and emotional associations that do not simply disappear because we have decided we want something different. While our brains remain capable of change throughout our lives, change often takes time. Understanding something intellectually is rarely enough to create lasting transformation on its own.

When it comes to mental health, however, we are often dealing with something much deeper than habits.

Many of our emotional responses, beliefs and coping strategies were developed long before we had the capacity to reason about them. They became woven into our early experiences of safety, belonging, shame, connection and survival. Our brains become highly efficient at making quick calculations and connections.

A happens, therefore B follows, meaning C must be the outcome.

These responses can become so automatic that we no longer question them or are sometimes aware of them.

Perhaps criticism leads to shame.

Maybe conflict leads to fear.

It could be that disappointment leads to self blame.

Even when our adult experiences and rational logical mind tell us these outcomes are not inevitable, our nervous systems may still react as though they are.

This is often where people become frustrated with themselves. They know their reaction is disproportionate. They know they are safe. They know their fear is irrational. They know the critical voice in their head is unfair. Yet despite knowing all of this, they continue to feel exactly as they do.

The difficulty is that insight and healing are not always the same thing.

Within the Internal Family Systems model, we understand ourselves as having different parts alongside a core Self. These parts develop throughout our lives, often in response to experiences that felt overwhelming, painful or threatening. These parts become protective or are holding our vulnerablities. They carry beliefs, emotions and narratives that were formed at particular moments in our development. Some of these beliefs remain conscious, while others sit largely outside of our awareness.

A simple example might be a fear of spiders. As adults, we may know that most spiders are unlikely to harm us. Logic tells us we are safe. Yet if we learned early in life that spiders were frightening, our emotional response may continue despite what we consciously know.

The same principle applies to much more complex emotional experiences.

We create intricate networks of reactions and protective responses, often without fully understanding the beliefs that sit underneath them.

Sometimes we no longer even remember where those beliefs came from. When we slow down and begin to connect with these parts of ourselves, something different becomes possible. Rather than arguing with them, suppressing them or trying to force them to change, we become curious about them. We start to understand what they believe, what they are afraid might happen and what role they have been trying to play in our lives.

What is often remarkable is that even the parts we dislike most are usually trying to help in some way.

Our systems are designed for survival. While the strategies our parts use may sometimes seem extreme, confusing or even self defeating, they are usually operating from a desire to protect us. They learned something important at a particular point in time and have continued acting on that information ever since as if stuck in time.

Sometimes what we actually need is to stop forcing change, stop trying to control or mute parts of ourselves, and instead slow down enough to connect with the parts carrying shame, distress, fear or the need for control. Often these parts have already experienced dismissal or a lack of understanding. In our attempts to feel better, we can unknowingly repeat these same experiences by pushing them away, silencing them or trying to make them different.

Yet what many parts of us have been wanting and waiting for is not more control, but curiosity, compassion and the opportunity to finally be heard.

As these parts begin to feel heard and understood, we can often access the more vulnerable places beneath them. These are frequently the parts carrying shame, fear, grief, loneliness or a sense of not being enough. They are often the parts that never received the understanding, attunement or support they needed at the time to understand the experiences they were facing.

By working with these parts compassionately, we can begin to offer something different. We can create opportunities for healing experiences that were previously unavailable. We can help parts update old beliefs and discover that the world is not always as dangerous, rejecting or overwhelming as it once seemed.

This can feel frustrating to our logical minds. We often want a clear explanation, a rational solution or a way to think ourselves out of our difficulties. Yet logic is not always able to reach the places where these wounds were first created.

It is a little like trying to reason with a distressed two year old. What they usually need is not a detailed explanation of why they should not feel the way they do. They need compassion, gentleness, attunement and support. They need someone to help them move through the experience rather than simply explain it away.

Many of our wounded parts are not so different.

Parts that remain stuck in fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses are often carrying unfinished stories. They are still waiting for safety, resolution, understanding or repair. They continue reacting because, from their perspective, the danger has never fully passed.

When we are able to meet these parts with curiosity rather than criticism, and compassion rather than force, change often becomes possible in a way that logic alone could never achieve.

There is nothing wrong with you if understanding your difficulties has not automatically made them disappear. The parts of you that carry fear, shame or anxiety were not created through logic alone, and they rarely heal through logic alone either.

Sometimes what creates lasting change is not learning how to think differently. Sometimes it is learning how to listen differently.

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