5 Toxic Patterns I Stopped to Build Emotional Resilience

Emotional resilience is a word that gets used a lot. It appears in conversations about mental health, leadership, self improvement, mindfulness, and personal development. We’re often told that resilience is about being stronger, coping better, or learning how to push through stress without it showing.

But that framing misses something important.

In my experience, resilience isn’t built by adding more tools, habits, or techniques. It’s built by stopping the internal patterns that quietly make life feel heavier than it needs to be.

For a long time, I believed I was resilient because I could keep going. I ran a hospitality business under constant pressure, handled problems as they arose, and stayed calm on the surface. I read the books, listened to the podcasts, explored mindfulness, breathwork, and different forms of self care. And while those things helped, they never quite addressed what was happening underneath.

What eventually became clear was that certain internal patterns were amplifying stress, not reducing it. They weren’t obvious or dramatic. They felt normal. Sensible, even. But over time, they eroded my emotional resilience and took a toll on my mental health.

Here are the five toxic patterns I had to stop in order to feel steadier, clearer, and more able to deal with pressure in a sustainable way.

1. Negative Self Talk

The first pattern was the way I spoke to myself.

Not out loud. Not in a way anyone else could hear. But the constant internal commentary that followed mistakes, challenges, or uncertainty. The quiet criticism. The assumptions. The way one small issue could turn into a judgement about my competence or worth.

What struck me most was that I would never speak to someone I cared about the way I spoke to myself. I could be calm, measured, and compassionate with staff or loved ones, but internally I was harsh and unforgiving.

Negative self talk doesn’t always feel toxic. Often it feels like accountability or realism. But over time, it collapses perspective and keeps the nervous system in a state of threat. Stress lingers longer than it needs to. Mistakes feel personal rather than situational.

Building emotional resilience meant learning to interrupt that pattern. Not with forced positivity, but with accuracy and fairness. Speaking to myself as I would to someone I respected. That shift alone reduced a surprising amount of internal pressure.

2. Skipping Over the Little Wins

The second pattern was one I didn’t notice for a long time.

Something good would happen, and almost immediately my mind would move on to what still needed fixing. A successful service. Positive feedback. Progress in an area that had been difficult. Each time, it was followed by “yes, but…”

At the time, I told myself this was ambition. Wanting to improve. Not settling. But what I didn’t realise was that my nervous system was only ever receiving negative information.

When you consistently skip over wins, your brain stays in problem solving mode. Stress never resolves. Even success feels flat or temporary.

Acknowledging small wins isn’t about ego or complacency. It’s about updating reality. Letting your system register that something went well. That not everything is a threat.

Once I started consciously noticing progress, even briefly, my internal state began to soften. Pressure didn’t disappear, but it stopped compounding unnecessarily.

3. Blaming Others

This one was uncomfortable to confront.

When things go wrong, it’s easy to locate fault externally. Circumstances. Other people. Systems. And while there are often valid reasons for frustration, blame has a hidden cost.

Blame keeps you emotionally stuck. It feeds resentment. And most importantly, it gives your power away.

When you believe someone else is responsible for how you feel, you place your emotional state in their hands. That might feel justified, but it removes agency.

Taking responsibility is one of the most freeing shifts you can make. Not self blame. Responsibility.

It changes how you see situations. It opens options. It restores a sense of control.

When I stopped blaming, my relationships improved. Stress reduced. Emotional resilience increased. Responsibility didn’t make things heavier. It made them clearer.

4. Reacting in Emotion

Under pressure, emotional reactions feel urgent.

A message comes in. A situation escalates. Something feels unfair, frustrating, or threatening. And the instinct is to respond immediately. To say something. To act.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I reacted quickly and later wished I hadn’t. Messages sent too fast. Conversations handled poorly. Decisions made before emotions had settled.

Emotional reactions aren’t wrong. They’re human. But acting on them immediately often creates more problems than it solves.

Learning to pause was a key part of building emotional resilience. Creating space between stimulus and response. Letting the nervous system settle before deciding what to do next.

That pause isn’t weakness. It’s emotional intelligence. And once I practiced it consistently, both outcomes and relationships improved.

5. Projecting Worst Case Scenarios

This pattern affected my sleep more than anything else.

Lying awake at night, imagining everything that could go wrong. Running scenarios that hadn’t happened. Trying to pre-empt problems that might never exist.

Worst case thinking feels protective. Like preparation. But the body doesn’t know the difference between imagined threats and real ones. Stress hormones rise. Sleep disappears. The mind never switches off.

Through mindfulness and deliberate self awareness, I learned to notice when this pattern was happening and interrupt it. Not by ignoring problems, but by refusing to live inside imagined futures.

Once this shifted, my sleep improved. My stress levels dropped. Emotional resilience strengthened.

A Different Way to Think About Resilience

The biggest realisation for me was this: none of these patterns meant I was broken.

They were coping strategies. Learned behaviours. Attempts to stay safe, successful, and in control under pressure.

But they were making things harder than they needed to be.

Emotional resilience didn’t come from adding more self help tools. It came from removing what was quietly draining me.

Pressure didn’t disappear. Life didn’t become easy. But it became manageable.

If you recognise yourself in any of these patterns, there’s nothing wrong with you. Awareness is the first step. And change doesn’t require a complete overhaul, just a willingness to respond differently, one moment at a time.

If you’d like to explore this topic further, the full video is available on my YouTube channel, where I go deeper into each pattern and how they show up under real responsibility and pressure.