Why So Many “Bad” Behaviours Are Really About Safety

We are very good at judging behaviour.

We know what cheating looks like. We know what avoidance looks like. We recognise people-pleasing, jealousy, ghosting, control. We label them quickly, often accurately, and usually with some moral tone. This is good behaviour. That is bad behaviour.

But moral clarity, while necessary, is often incomplete.

Over the years, through my work in education, psychology, and leadership, and through paying closer attention to my own patterns, I’ve become increasingly interested in a quieter question: what problem is this behaviour trying to solve?

More often than we like to admit, the answer is not pleasure, power, or selfishness.

It is safety.

Safety is not what most people think it is

When people say “I just want to feel safe”, they usually mean “I don’t want to feel anxious”. They want relief. Calm. Certainty. The absence of threat.

Psychologically, safety is something else entirely.

Safety is the nervous system’s ability to tolerate uncertainty and conflict without collapsing, and distance without assuming abandonment. It is not the absence of discomfort. It is the capacity to remain intact while discomfort passes.

That capacity does not appear by pure magic. It is learned, slowly, through early relationships.

As children, we borrow calm before we can carry it. When we are distressed and parents offer their presence, and then enough space for recovery, the nervous system gradually learns that feelings can rise and fall without resulting in catastrophe. Over time, this becomes internal regulation.

But when calm always arrives immediately from the parents trying to ‘rescue’ their kid, something subtle can happen. The child may feel loved, protected, and cared for, yet never quite learn how to settle on their own. Safety remains external.

The confusion between relief and safety

Relief is immediate. Safety comes slower.

Relief quiets the nervous system now. Safety changes its baseline over time.

Many adult behaviours make perfect sense once you see them as relief strategies. They work. That is why people repeat them, even when they regret them.

Avoiding a hard conversation lowers tension instantly. Reassurances soothe anxiety in the moment. Control reduces uncertainty. Disappearing (i.e. ghosting) ends discomfort quickly. Replacing a relationship before leaving another prevents loneliness. Each behaviour brings relief. Each one teaches the nervous system the same lesson: this is what kept me safe.

The problem is that relief is not the same as safety.

Relief behaviours calm the body temporarily while leaving the underlying expectation unchanged. The nervous system remains organised around threat, waiting for the next moment when relief will be needed again.

This is how anxiety becomes chronic, how relationships become fragile, and how patterns repeat even in people who are self-aware, intelligent, and genuinely motivated to change.

Why insight alone rarely changes behaviour

We live in a culture that values insight. We believe that if we understand why we do something, we will stop doing it. Sometimes that’s true. Often it isn’t.

The nervous system does not change through explanation alone. It changes through experience.

You can know your attachment style, understand your childhood, and articulate your triggers perfectly, and still find yourself avoiding, pleasing, controlling, or escaping when the body decides that safety is at risk.

This is not because you are dishonest or weak. It is because regulation lives in another world than language.

That doesn’t mean insight is useless. It means insight is incomplete on its own.

Understanding without excusing

There is a tension here that is easy to mishandle.

On one side, explanation can become excuse. “I behave this way because of my past” turns into a way of avoiding responsibility for the impact we have on others.

On the other side, judgement can become too simplistic. “Just communicate better”, “just have boundaries”, “just stop overthinking” ignores the physiological reality of how threat and safety are learned.

Both extremes fail.

Understanding is not absolution. However, without understanding, responsibility becomes little more than shame.

The more interesting question is not “am I a good person or a bad person?”, but “what am I willing to do now that I can see the pattern clearly?”

Why this matters now

Many people today are fluent in the language of therapy. They know the words: trauma, attachment, triggers, boundaries. At the same time, there is growing fatigue with slogans and with explanations that feel either accusatory or permissive.

What people seem to be craving is something more grounded: a way of understanding themselves that increases agency without flattening complexity, and that holds responsibility without resorting to punishment.

This is the space I am interested in exploring.

Not how to label ourselves more precisely, but how to live with more honesty once we see what has been driving us.

Not how to eliminate anxiety at all costs, but how to stop organising our lives entirely around avoiding discomfort.

Not how to excuse behaviour, but how to take responsibility after understanding.

Carrying safety rather than chasing it

The long-term work is not about becoming fearless or perfectly regulated. It is about slowly learning that discomfort can be tolerated, that conflict does not automatically destroy connection, and that distance does not always mean loss. In other words, you may argue a lot with your significant other without losing what makes you a great couple!

Safety, when it becomes internal, changes behaviour almost as a side effect.