Toxic Relationships: Stuck?! It’s NOT Willpower—It’s Your Brain (Science Explains)

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Feeling stuck in toxic relationship cycles? It’s NOT a lack of willpower—it’s your brain. In this eye-opening episode of "Toxic Relationship Detox," with Dr Amen Kaur we break down the science behind why toxic relationships hijack your brain and make it feel impossible to break free.

🔍 Here’s what you’ll learn:
✔ How chronic stress and emotional suppression weaken your decision-making ability
✔ The surprising role of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) (your brain’s internal conflict monitor)
✔ Why you keep overanalyzing your ex instead of focusing on yourself
✔ Actionable, science-backed steps to rewire your brain and reclaim your power

🎧 Whether you’re still in a toxic relationship or struggling to heal after leaving, this episode will give you practical tools to stop the cycle and take back control of your life.

🔹 Ready for deeper healing? Join my "Heal to Thrive" program and start releasing past trauma today! 👉 https://linktr.ee/dramenkaur

🚀 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review—it helps more people break free!

💛 Sending you so much love till next time! ✨

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Toxic Relationship Detox
• 6:40 The Science Behind Feeling Stuck
• 22:15 The Role of Willpower and the ACC
• 1:00:58 Understanding Your Internal Conflict Monitor
• 2:00:37 Overcoming Emotional Suppression
• 21:24:57 Invitation to Heal to Thrive Program

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the Toxic Relationship Detox, and this podcast is going to blow your mind. We're going to find something in science that makes so much sense to help us break free from toxic patterns, reclaim your power and step into a life of clarity and confidence. If you've felt stuck and, I will be honest, if you've been in a toxic relationship, you will feel stuck to some degree, and whether it's procrastinating, overthinking, feeling depressed or feeling trapped in the actual toxic relationship itself, I want you to understand you're definitely not broken. One of the things that happens when we've been in these type of relationships is we feel I don't have the willpower that I used to. But the problem isn't willpower or the lack of willpower. It's actually understanding what willpower is and understanding how it operates in your brain. Here's the good news when you understand what's in this episode, you'll understand why you feel like you don't have the willpower or the energy or the motivation like you used to, and you'll understand why this happens and you can undo that damage, and then you can choose to finally take back control of your life again, to actually live your life the way you want to, and that's what we're exactly diving into today. So grab your tea or your coffee, get cozy or go for your walk in nature and let's get into it. There is a science of why you feel stuck, and sometimes people don't realize this and the importance of this, and for me this has just been like oh, this makes so much sense. So let's talk about this part of the brain that helps us hugely. It's called the anterior cingulate cortex, acc, or how I like to call it, your internal conflict monitor. Imagine there's a part of you that has like a clipboard and these geeky glasses on and they're just observing everything without judgment. Think of it as this little observer in your brain that's constantly analyzing your choices. It's the part of you that helps you say, or is aware of you saying things like I shouldn't eat this chocolate. No, amin, please don't eat that chocolate. Today you're not going to eat any chocolate. And then I get to about four o'clock pm. Oh, but it's been a long day. I just have to. I have to. I just you know what. I'll start tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow with the no chocolate. It's just one day and I've had a really tough day.

Speaker 1: 3:03

That's your internal conflict monitor, observing those different conflicts at work within you. Now here's where things can go wrong. If you've been in a toxic relationship or you felt with chronic stress, trauma or emotional suppression, that conflict monitor basically runs out of battery. It becomes weak. Part of that brain weakens and a study in the translational psychiatry found that people that have high stress levels have reduced acc or internal conflict monitor function. I don't know, do you remember I don't know how old you are, but do you remember an advert where they used to have Duracell, used to have these batteries and they would have their competitors batteries and their batteries and they put them into these bunnies and they showed that Duracell batteries last longer because the other bunnies lost their battery quite soon. They run out. Well, that is basically like your internal conflict monitor.

Speaker 1: 4:12

If you have a lot of emotions, a lot of trauma that you're numbing, or you have a lot of chronic stress or stress that you're dealing with, your inner conflict monitor basically runs out to the point it's done for the day and that's what can happen where we feel stuck in toxic relationships or cycles. Have you ever had that where you wake up in the morning and you're thinking, okay, this is it, I've had enough, I'm going to move forward with going out and connecting with people or getting over this whole scenario. Or I want to start my business, or I want to do this or something that you really wanted to do and then someone does something to trigger the trauma that you've got and you feel all this emotion and literally you've run out of battery and now you're finding that you're procrastinating or you're busy doing stuff, but you're not doing what you told yourself that you were going to do. That's basically where your ACC or your inner conflict monitor, has run out of battery. Remember the Duracell batteries? Okay, to help our ACC or our inner conflict monitor last longer.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Like Duracell and I'm not being paid by Duracell, by the way what we have to do is release the trauma, the emotional suppression, the chronic stress, and as you do that, you start making better decisions for yourself. You see, when we've been in toxic relationship, our brain has been rewired. You're just surviving. You're constantly scanning for danger, so that takes up a lot of the battery, if you like. You're trying to predict the other person's next move and you're ignoring your own needs, so your ACC or inner conflict monitor isn't even on. You're focusing on the other person, so you don't even know how you're feeling or you're not aware of your own inner conflict and until you're able to go inward and actually start focusing on yourself rather than the other person's behavior, we can't actually make better decisions for ourselves. It's just science. Okay, this is science.

Speaker 1: 6:36

I'm not trying to say to you stop thinking about the other person, but I'm giving you the science behind why that would be better for you to actually stop focusing on the other person and actually instead focusing on your own healing, instead of overanalyzing their behavior and watching videos on narcissism and things like that. I'm wondering can they change? Should I go back? Will they ever change? Maybe they feel like this. That is what keeps you trapped, even long after they're gone, thinking about them and what they're doing. But the good news is that as you start to go inward and you start to focus on how do I feel, what's going on within me, and just really becoming aware of that conflict within you and even becoming aware of all the horrible feelings that you might be feeling, what that will do is it will help you work with your brain to rewire it rather than going against it.

Speaker 1: 7:39

And here's how Step one shift your focus inward by asking things like what do I need right now, instead of thinking why are they like this and talking about them and trying to get validation outside of you, going inward and feeling how am I feeling in this moment? And what you will find is you will feel the uncomfortable feelings that you feel, that you don't feel good. You might feel lonely, you might feel hurt, you might feel pain, you might feel numb, you might feel uncomfortable, you might feel uncomfortable and then you go okay, what's the one action that I could take for myself today that would help me feel better? Or it will help you realize how you're feeling, so you can take the action of actually starting to heal, starting to do things that would help you feel better, rather than reaching the phone and trying to speak to them again. You feel better. Rather than reaching the phone and try and speak to them again. You start feeling okay, what is it I'm feeling? What is it that I truly need? I just feel uncomfortable and I don't want to feel this uncomfortableness. So I want to call them. Huh, right, and there's a part of me saying just call them because I don't want to feel uncomfortable like this. Another part is like well, maybe they've changed, maybe they miss me, maybe they're like their old self, and there's another part saying no, that's never going to happen, and just be aware of that.

Speaker 1: 9:12

If you start becoming more and more aware every day, even if it is for five minutes, you're rebuilding your function of looking inward rather than outward. To help you go back online. To help that inner conflict monitor go back online. The acc function, go back online. The problem is and this is really important, please, if you take anything away from this podcast episode today, please listen to.

Speaker 1: 9:42

If you start shaming yourself and guilting yourself for the feelings that you're aware of that are going on within you, or the conflict, what's going to happen is you're going to increase the negative emotions that you need to suppress the guilt, the shame, the embarrassment. What will people think? And if you start having people around you that tell you you're bad for having this internal conflict, then what you will do is try and suppress the ACC or the inner conflict monitor being on in the first place. That is a real problem, because you will never get out of making unhealthy choices until you've got that inner conflict monitor or ACC back on, because that's when you can make the right decisions for yourself. The second thing is, if you do feel this guilt, this shame, this embarrassment where you have to hide the truth of the situation that you're in from people loved ones, who obviously your loved ones love you. They are telling you to leave this person for a reason. They're not doing it because they're being mean. But what they don't understand is that there is going to be a conflict within you.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Without a doubt there is, and in order for you to win that conflict, as in to make that healthy choice, you need to become aware of all sides. It's like a debate, if you like. Imagine there's a massive debate going on inside of you, instead of looking inward and thinking, oh my gosh, I must be crazy, there's something wrong with me. No, this happens inside of everybody about anything. Before they make a decision, they're looking at all the different sides of what it is that they need to do. They've got a bad habit, like I have a bad habit with chocolate. But in order for me to break that habit, I need to become aware of the conflict, of all the conversations I'm having and how I trick myself into actually eating that chocolate. That's the key here what's going on, and I need my ACC, or my inner conflict monitor on to actually win this battle. This is science. This is research. This isn't made up. This is how it works.

Speaker 1: 12:04

So if you have an additional emotion to deal with, like shame and guilt, which is really, really tough to deal with because other people are watching, and when we've been in toxic relationships, we feel this immense embarrassment of what have we been through and we don't want anyone else to see it. And especially when you're going through that trauma bomb phase where you want to stay, you want to go, everybody else is telling you you need to leave right now and you feel like they look at you as if you're crazy. But you're not crazy. It's just that your ACC, your internal conflict monitor, is off because there's just too many emotions to deal with and there's suppressed emotions and you've got trauma now from being in the toxic relationship. So your battery has gone. Remember the battery? So now you don't have the ability to make that decision. Okay, because you need the ACC to be able to make that decision. You need the internal conflict monitor on to be able to make that decision.

Speaker 1: 13:10

And the way it occurs and this happens with addiction therapy and it's been shown that this is how it works is that you notice the conflict internally. Through therapy, you bring it to the forefront and you become aware and you talk about it, you look at it and you look at the impact it's had on other people and you allow that conflict to become conscious. So you get your ACC or your internal conflict monitor online and then what happens is that you wake up literally one day and you're like I've had enough of this, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that thing anymore, whatever it is that you're addicted to, because you're able to see what's going on, so that you can then make a decision about what you want. And sometimes what people think is it's they just did it by themselves. They just made that decision by themselves. No, you went through so much work, toing and froing, toing and froing before you were finally able to make that decision and stick to it. And that's what we want to do with therapy, is we want you to feel free, without judgment, to get your ACC or your inner conflict monitor online without judgment. And if you can do it without judgment, you will make the right decision for yourself without worrying about what anybody else thinks.

Speaker 1: 14:41

But the problem is and this is so important for us to face is that when you get the Inner Conflict Monitor online or the ACC. One of the things that you're going to realize is that you've got a lot of suppressed emotions. You might feel like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm going crazy because there's all these emotions that you haven't processed. There's loads of them and they're all stored in your amygdala and they are the ones that keep you stuck in survival mode. So you get triggered, your nervous system goes, you feel depression, you feel anxiety, you feel out of control, and what we want to do is stop using up your ACC battery or your internal conflict monitor through suppressing the emotions. Okay, this is really important. If you don't release the emotions, your ACC or your decisions for you that are good for you are not going to be made. You're not going to be able to make those decisions that are healthy for you because you're using up your ACC to use up all the energy to suppress all these emotions and deal with daily stress. So we have to be really honest here.

Speaker 1: 15:58

Do you want to make healthy choices or not? Part of it is just making a decision. Do I want to make healthy choices or not? Part of it is just making a decision. Do I want to live unconsciously where I'm always in survival mode for the rest of my life Just because I have this trauma that I don't want to face, or do I want to release it and feel free to really be myself Now? A lot of the times you might have grown up in a difficult scenario where you've been programmed from a young age to live with certain limitations for you, where you feel like you're not worthy of having the things that you really want or whatever it is that you've been programmed for, and some of these things are deep and you don't realize it. But you have to think. I really make that decision today. How many years have I got left? If I look at the average length of time that people live, how many years do I have left and do I want to use the rest of the life that I have available living with these limitations, or do I want to have less and less limitations by letting those go over time? Make that decision. You can decide. This is science. You decide whether you want to carry the trauma and live some of those years that you've got moving forward, living with trauma where you're getting triggered, or do you want to release that stuff and rebuild your self-control where you can start making healthier decisions. That's your choice.

Speaker 1: 17:29

But step two really is about getting your nervous system in a good space and releasing any trauma that you have stored from your brain. So you have a good chance of getting your ACC online and creating better decisions. It's really up to you. And then step three is really starting to strengthen your inner conflict monitor through micro decisions, where you're starting to make better decisions tiny decisions, intentional decisions. Instead of pushing yourself to make these big life overnight changes, you're actually committing to small steps of moving forward towards the life that you want. For instance, if you want to start doing 30-minute workouts, instead you start committing to five minutes of stretching every day. Instead of I never want to think about the narcissist again. You start noticing when you are through the inner conflict monitor and you say, okay, I'm going to have 10 minutes where I don't think of them.

Speaker 1: 18:38

And right at the beginning, honestly, as you start freeing your mind, it's like going on holiday. It's better than going on holiday because the amount of peace that you can feel where you're not thinking about that person and you can live your life like you're on holiday every day, where you're free from the trauma of what they've created those small wins, start to rewire your brain for confidence, self-trust, and you learn that you are powerful within yourself, that you are worthy to have the life that you want and this is the important part, and this is what I really want to reiterate that you don't have to force yourself to do anything. That's not how it works, because if you force yourself to leave, for instance, or if you force yourself to stop overthinking, if you force yourself to change overnight, what happens? If I say to myself I'm never going to have chocolate again, what if I force myself before I'm ready to do that? What? I'm just going to fail, right, I'm going to keep going back to it, and that addiction gets stronger.

Speaker 1: 19:41

What we have to do is first become aware, fully aware, of the conflict inside of you. So, if you want to leave the narcissist or the toxic person, just become aware of what's going on inside of you and the moment will come where you think okay, I'm feeling this anxiety, you deal with the anxiety, I feel this anxiety, you deal with the anxiety, I feel this depression, I deal with the depression, I do something about it. And then you get to the emotions and you start releasing some of the emotions and then you will come to a time where you go I've had enough, I'm not doing this anymore, never again. Or you decide I'm going to live with it, but I'm going to separate myself in some way. I'm going to create this or do this or start that business or whatever it is that you're meant to do.

Speaker 1: 20:25

A study in 2020 on neuropsychopharmacology found that people who became aware of their inner conflict had a higher ACC activity, which led to better decision making and breaking toxic patterns. So the next time that you feel like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do, part of me wants to stay. Part of me wants to go. Part of me knows I should leave. Don't feel guilty about this. Just notice this conflict and say Just notice this conflict. And say I'm noticing this conflict and that's okay. I'm actually moving towards making the right decision for myself because I'm seeing the conflict. I'm not pretending it's not there. Notice it. Don't make yourself feel guilty about what you're really feeling within in terms of the conflict, because when your brain is ready, you'll make the decision and you will stick with it.

Speaker 1: 21:24

If this episode has resonated with you and you're ready to go deeper, I invite you to join my signature healing program. It's called Heal to Thrive. This is where I guide you step by step through releasing your past trauma, stepping into your power and truly thriving in every area of your life, because you get your brain on board to work for you. Once you're on board, you can start making healthy decisions and create the life that you want. Do look in the description part and you will see a link there link tree and you can enroll for a one-to-one breakthrough call with me and we can look at okay, what is it that you need now? If you find that actually you've got your nervous systems out of kilter, then have a look at my calm program. If you need something else, have a look at the different programs that are available as well. If you want to have that one-to-one with me and you're desperate and you really want to change your life and you know you're worth it, you want to fulfill your potential, then a breakthrough call with me would be great. Grab your spot and let's get you on the path of thriving.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Now, if you're noticing that you know you need healing but you don't know why you just won't do anything about it, start noticing the inner conflict within you. Start noticing what's going on? Oh, I want to get healing, but no, I don't, because I'm not sure if I'm worth it. If I need healing, that means there's something wrong with me, whatever it is. Just start noticing the conflict. Then there's another part of you that says, well, don't I deserve to have a good life, don't I deserve it. And then you can then get to a point where you make the right choice for yourself, because there is no better time to heal and get on with your life than right now. You are worth it. It's just that you've been programmed to believe that you are not worthy of healing or having the life that you want.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Before we wrap up, please do send me a message. I love to hear from you. I thank you so much for every single person that's ever sent me a message. I absolutely love it. I'm so grateful for your support. One thing I would ask what's one small action that you're committed to do for yourself? Maybe it is to allow yourself to observe that inner conflict. And if this episode has helped you, please do rate the podcast, because it does help. It helps reach more people like yourself, and I really want to help as many people as I can. Share this episode with anyone that you need, who needs it, or leave a review. I love it. It means so much to me. Thank you to everyone who's ever supported me or supported this show. It really, truly means no-transcript.