5 Common Habits That Might Be Ruining Your Health

The way we’re used to living is toxic.

The programs running through our minds that make us constantly do things that leave us feeling angry, bitter, frustrated, and disappointed — and keep us stuck in patterns and environments that drain us — are giving people illnesses.

New studies on how chronic stress is affecting our health are popping up every month, and how autoimmune diseases originate from prolonged emotional dysregulation is now common knowledge.

The people who can see that are beginning to make different choices.

Our bodies are very resilient and always ready for a positive change. When you begin to see through the illusion of conditioning and stop making yourself a slave to it, your whole life can change almost immediately.

What follows is a list of five very common habits that override your inner knowing, keeping your body in a constant state of tension and misalignment, and disconnected from what’s right for you.

When you stop doing these things, your system can finally return to balance, and you’ll automatically begin to choose what is right, aligned, and healthy.

Every single one of us has a built-in compass for making aligned decisions. In Human Design, this is called your Authority.

Whether or not you know your Human Design doesn’t matter — we all have access to an inner compass that allows us to make aligned decisions. And yet, we often don’t trust it.

Imagine someone asks you to attend a birthday function on a given day. That day, you had plans to just chill on the couch and do nothing, but saying no makes you feel bad.

After all, they invited you. They came to your child’s birthday last year, so you kind of owe them. Besides, you don’t even have a “valid” excuse.

That right there is your mind trying to talk you out of what is actually correct for you: spending an entire day without an agenda to recharge and rest.

The correct move is to trust that instinct that tells you to say no and prioritize yourself, and trust that, if that’s a real friendship, your friend will understand.

Because when you say yes when you want to say no, consistently, you’ll end up building a life around things you don’t actually want to do.

There will always be someone inviting you, asking you, needing you.

Your ability to say no when you mean it can save you a lot of resentment and allow you to direct your energy where it actually belongs.

Many of us have grown up in homes where feeling constantly worried, anxious, angry, or inadequate was the norm.

And many of us have internalized that as a normal human condition.

It’s not.

Most negative emotions are feedback. They’re signals that something needs to change, especially when they show up repeatedly.

Chronic dissatisfaction with your job. Constant disagreements with your partner that lead to resentment. Ongoing tension with co-workers that leaves you feeling drained or furious at the end of the day…

These are all signals that you are in the wrong environment.

It doesn’t matter how small the step is, everyone can begin to shift their environment right now.

This might look like creating a parallel environment where you feel good while you prepare to leave the toxic one, like meeting new people and exploring different social contexts. Or making small but powerful changes like taking more space in your relationship, rediscovering your interests, spending time in nature, speaking up for yourself, and setting boundaries.

Imagine a goldfish forced to live in dirty water. It would die.

The same happens to you when you’re in the wrong environment: it poisons you.

Curating a supportive environment — one where you feel at ease, appreciated, or at least safe — is a requirement if you want to preserve your health.

You are not selfish for wanting to feel good.

I once heard a story from a woman named Christine during one of her IFS workshops.

She had been married to an abusive husband for decades.

The night before their wedding, she felt an irresistible urge to run. So she went out and started running, which wasn’t something she would normally do. She ran and ran until she was exhausted, then went back home to spend her last night in tranquility before marrying the man who would make her life a living hell for years.

That urge wasn’t random. It was her instinct giving her a very clear signal: run. Run now and run fast.

But she didn’t listen because, of course, her mind gave her a million reasons to stay, and she believed them.

Your instinct never lies to you.

Even when what you feel doesn’t make sense to your logical mind, follow it anyway. You don’t need to know how everything will unfold, and there is no such thing as certainty in this life.

All you need to know is that your intuition never misses the mark. Trust that, and you’ll be just fine.

One of the strongest forces pulling us away from who we really are is the need to prove ourselves and prove that we are worthy.

This leads to all kinds of non-Self behaviors: like committing to things you don’t actually want to do, pushing through resistance, forcing yourself to follow through just to keep your word, just to name a few.

And it always leads to the same result: low self-esteem.

Have you noticed there’s no end to how much you have to do to prove yourself? You can never do enough to prove you’re enough.

That’s because your worth is inherent. It’s not something that can be earned or measured.

Trying to prove it, through actions, relationships, or careers that don’t feel right, is a losing game. And it will cost you your health.

Before Human Design, I had no idea that I could absorb and amplify other people’s emotions.

But looking back, I can see I’ve been doing it my whole life.

If someone were angry, it would immediately affect me, like a dark cloud taking over my mind. And often, I would make their emotions about me, feeling responsible for fixing them, for making them feel better, or for even causing them with my sole existence.

You can imagine where that leads: people-pleasing, self-sacrifice, overextension.

The truth is, some of us, especially those with an undefined Solar Plexus, are designed to feel what others feel. To be sensitive, empathetic, and guide others toward emotional awareness.

This is a gift, but it can become a curse if we don’t develop the emotional intelligence needed to discern between what’s ours and what’s not.

We need to learn how to recognize someone’s emotional state without absorbing it. Without making it ours and without making it about us, even when their reaction is a direct result of something we said or did.

If your partner is upset because you set a boundary, for example, that’s their emotional process, not yours. You don’t have to feel guilty, and you don’t have to be upset at them for being upset at you.

We could go on with examples, but you get the point.

Now, if you’ve found yourself in some of these habits, I want you to try to see things in this way:

There is a light in your heart, a candle that burns bright since the day you were born.

Then, slowly, rules about how to be and how to behave are programmed into your mind. And you begin making choices based on those rules, even when you would naturally choose differently.

Even when it feels bad, you tell yourself that’s just how life is.

After all, you’ve been told that to be alive is to suffer, and you have to do what you have to do even if you don’t want to, right?

And so, little by little, your light dims as you conform to the norms and betray what you feel is true in order to be accepted and do what people expect from you.

Until, at some point, you can barely feel it anymore.

That light is your passion, your joy, your curiosity, your aliveness, your magnetism, your connection to the right people and the right opportunities.

It’s what keeps you radiant and healthy.

The more you compromise your truth, the more that light fades. But it never goes out. In fact, one different choice is enough to feel its warmth again.

Let that warmth be your compass.

Changing your life is easy when you know where to start, and there is no better time than right now.