You’re Not Alone. Many people feel stuck in exhausting cycles, unsure which tools will truly help them break free from negative thought patterns.
In today’s fast-paced world, there’s an overwhelming array of options of transformation techniques— CBT processes, emotional intelligence tools, and manifestation visualization methods—all promising transformation. But here’s the truth: the only tool that works is the one you commit to using consistently.
Neuroscience has given us incredible insights into how the brain and body function, but don't you think it’s time to step off the endless learning treadmill? Your life is not sustainable if it is built on learning a series of hacks.
The real question is: If you applied what you already know, how much better off would you be?
When you understand what creates a loop and how it drives you, you can assess how ingrained it is and initiate to evolve from it. Choosing the right tool and process depends on the effort required to address it. When change doesn’t happen quickly, it can be a signal that the loop needs deeper analysis and attention to be released and changed.
What Are Loops?
“Loops are repetitive patterns of thoughts, feelings, or actions that can either help or hinder personal growth. Healthy loops lead to balance and progress, while dysfunctional loops create imbalance, overwhelm, and stagnation.”
Loops are a natural part of your brain’s biology. They exist to process experiences. When you do not get enough time to process, unfinished experiences, emotions, and behaviors, creating habits and patterns that either help you or hold you back.
Important Note: Loops aren’t bound by time. Just because something has ended physically doesn’t mean it’s resolved emotionally, mentally or energetically. Unresolved loops remain “live,” influencing your present and shaping your future.
Healthy vs. Dysfunctional Loops
A healthy loop follows the Thought-Feeling-Action (TFA) Triangle, where thoughts, feelings, and actions are typically represented as visually balanced. For example, think of a time this week when you had a constructive thought, which led to positive emotions and inspired productive action. What did this lead to? How did it make you feel? Then what happened next?
A dysfunctional loop, however, is not a balanced triangle and creates an imbalance. One element—thoughts, feelings, or actions—takes over (imagine or draw this for yourself now, compared to a balanced triangle), disrupting the flow, scattering energy, and stalling progress. Think of a time this week when this happened. What was the most dominant contributor—excessive thoughts, overwhelming feelings, or misaligned actions (or inaction)?
Your brain and body are wired to process emotions, but in today’s busy world, they often don’t get the idle time they need to do this even adequately. Unprocessed emotions don’t disappear; they are stored, sometimes triggering overthinking, overreactions, numbness or anxiety during moments of stillness or stress.
Closure isn’t about forgetting. True closure comes from accepting and transforming your story and your emotions and aligning your actions with growth.
Reflect:
Think about a loop you want to change (maybe the one you thought of earlier). Which element of the TFA Triangle feels out of balance?
Is it mostly thought with no action?
Is it mostly emotion with no clarity?
Or is it mostly misaligned actions without clarity, feeling and intended outcome?
How to Break Four Common Loops
To start transforming a loop, identify which element—thoughts, feelings, or actions—is most out of balance. This gives you a clear starting point for observation and reflection.
Here’s a guide to recognizing and breaking four common types of loops that might be keeping you stuck:
1. Cognitive Loops: Break Free from Overthinking
What it is: Repetitive thoughts combined with unresolved emotions. This cycle traps you in unproductive “what-ifs,”—expending energy but going nowhere. Your focus is internal only, making you more aware of your thoughts than anything else.
Common Examples:
Worrying about things beyond your control.
Replaying past mistakes.
Obsessing over an unresolved argument.
How to break it: Anything healthy that will get you out of your head and grounds you in your body and the present moment:
Move Your Body: Vigorous activity to shift your focus. Think light jumping.
Use Your Senses: Look at three objects around you and describe three characteristics of each. Example: “This mug is white, smooth, and round.”
Write It Out: Write repetitive thoughts down. Label the emotions that arise and rate the emotional intensity out of 10.
Bonus Tip: Revisit what you have written with fresh eyes, assess the emotional intensity rating out of 10. Is it really valid? If not, then there is something deeper for you to look into.
2. Neural Feedback Loops: Rewire Your Brain’s Pathways
What it is: Strengthened pathways in your brain. Repeated behaviors strengthen neural pathways. Over time, well-practiced habits become like major highways—wide, smooth, and easy to follow—while less-used behaviors remain like narrow unfamiliar backstreets. Your brain reinforces access to these highways with dopamine, making the patterns feel rewarding and automatic.
Common Examples:
Scrolling on your phone when bored.
Stress-eating after work.
Procrastinating by binge-watching “just one more” episode.
How to break it: Create a “stop and start” list to consciously redirect your actions:
Stop Doing: Identify behaviors that don’t serve you. Write them all down.
Track Trigger: Write down the thought, the emotion, the event prior.
Track Time: Measure how much time is spent on each behavior, then analyze it on a daily, weekly, and yearly scale. 15 minutes a day equates to over 90 hours a year! Think of how much mentally or physically healthier your could be.
Start Doing: Replace each stop behavior with intentional habits (e.g., journal instead of scrolling, rate your hunger levels instead of mindless eating).
Bonus Tip: Celebrate noticing and also celebrate small wins in a Big Way to reinforce positive behaviors until you get momentum.
3. Emotional Loops: Regain Control of Your Reactions
What it is: Emotions that fail to return to a healthy baseline or settle at an unhealthy one, often linked to unresolved experiences or traumas. These patterns can make emotions feel overwhelming—like being in choppy water—and lead to reactive behaviors without conscious thought
Common Examples:
Feeling anxious when you get interrupted with notifications or by humans.
Angry for no reason.
Unable to speak or feeling mute in high pressure situations.
How to break it:
Label the Emotion Out Loud: Pause and name what you’re feeling. Research shows this reduces intensity because you have consciously registered and heard. This allows you to start thinking what next action the emotion wants you to take.
Track and Analyze the Pattern: Reflect on the people, places, or events associated with these emotions.
Release Through Movement: Physical activity can help process emotions. Light jumping, brisk walking, dancing, the choice is yours.
Bonus Tip: Pair movement with deep breathing and an intention to release the pattern from your nervous system.
4. Task Loops: Overcome Mental Tension and Overwhelm (Zeigarnik Effect)
What it is: Mental tension that drives action taking. While this can keep us productive and doing important tasks, when unfinished tasks create mental tension it can create overwhelm and impact sleep cycles.
Common Examples:
Feeling overwhelmed by a long to-do list.
Obsessing over an unfinished project.
Struggling to relax due to unresolved tasks.
How to Break It:
Celebrate Completion: Acknowledge what you’ve finished to reinforce your sense of progress. And if it is a big project, acknowledge the percentage completed.
Set Start Times: Assign specific times to revisit unfinished tasks and create a clear plan.
Regular Check-Ins: Reassess the importance of each task, the time remaining, and how much time and energy it will take to complete.
Bonus Tip: Keep repeating to yourself, “I’ve done what I can with the time I had today. I am allowed to rest now,” to release mental tension and promote relaxation.
The Triangle in Action : Moving from Dysfunctional to Healthy
Where there is balance there is a healthy flow between thoughts, feelings, and actions. This creates positive momentum in a feedback loop, allow you to stick to your process to achieve your goals.
Dysfunctional Dynamics: The Obtuse Triangle
What to do when your thoughts, feelings, or actions create an obtuse triangle which scatters energy.
Examples of Dysfunction:
Over-dominant Thoughts: You’re stuck in your head, treating your thoughts as absolute truth. Over-analyzing and obsessing lead to rumination, which fuels anxiety and prevents action.
Over-dominant Feelings: Emotions take over, pulling you into a spiral of overwhelm. This triggers reactive or impulsive actions, leaving you feeling not grounded and with no right momentum.
Over-dominant Actions: Habits become automatic and disconnected from intention or goals. Often, these actions are driven by a need for quick relief, like doom-scrolling or over-committing to avoid deeper issues.
Reflect and Break the Loop
Think back to something that happened last week—where do you fit within the TFA Triangle? Was it thought-heavy, emotion-driven, or dominated by automatic actions? How will you make adjustments to break the loop and move forward?
14-Day Loop-Breaking Challenge
Challenge yourself and start letting go today! Build awareness and change, commit to tracking your loops for 14 days, spending just 5 minutes a day.
Day 1-3: Identify your most recurring loops. Write down the thought, feeling, and action patterns associated with it.
Day 4-7: Track when and why these loops occur. Reflect on any triggers.
Day 8-10: Experiment with small actions to interrupt the loop (e.g., take a walk, breathe deeply, change rooms, set time limits when overthinking).
Day 11-14: Reflect on progress. How can you change the thoughts to your advantage? Have you noticed changes in emotional intensity?
Letting go, feel good and move forward.
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