Bad habits feel automatic—procrastination, negative self-talk, numbing, anger—but in Christ, you’re not stuck. In this encouraging episode, Nina Pajonas shares five Bible-anchored steps to break harmful patterns and replace them with life-giving habits: identify the root, renew your mind (Romans 12:2), replace—not just remove—rituals, rely on God’s strength (Philippians 4:13), and seek accountability (Proverbs 27:17). With Scriptures like 2 Corinthians 12:9–10, Romans 6:21–22, Lamentations 3:22–23, and Luke 18:27, Nina reframes weakness as the doorway to God’s power and fresh mercies. She also offers a vulnerable testimony from her recovery, to remind you that transformation is possible, practical, and deeply personal. Walk away with a simple, doable plan and the faith to start again, today.

If today’s message spoke to you, follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.

If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out my book, From Broken to Butterfly, available now on Amazon. 

📩 Have questions or want to connect? Please send me a DM on Instagram at Born To Be A Butterfly or email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com.

Remember, the Lord can turn your wounds into wings—you were Born to be a Butterfly! 🦋

Born to be a Butterfly © 2025 Nina Pajonas All rights reserved. The content of this podcast is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. For the full disclaimer, visit ⁠ninapajonas.com.

hey friend, welcome to Born to Be a Butterfly, the podcast where we embrace transformation, healing and growth. My name is Nina Pajones and I'm so glad that you're here today because we're discussing something that we all struggle with Bad habits.

Today we're going to dive deep into how to break free from bad habits and replace them with good ones that bring life and strength.

We all have habits.

Some serve us well and others hold us back.

Maybe it's negative self talk,

unhealthy coping mechanisms, procrastination,

or it could be something deeper that feels impossible to shake.

But here's the good news.

We don't have to stay stuck in Christ. We have the power to change.

Today we'll talk about why habits form, how to break the ones that keep us bound, and most importantly,

how to replace them with healthy habits that align with who God says we are and will anchor everything in His Word. Because that's where real transformation happens.

Lets start with a powerful scripture from 2 Corinthians 12:9 10 but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I love this passage because it reminds us that even when we feel powerless to change, we are not alone.

Our weakness is not the the end of our story.

It's the place where God's power begins to work.

Let's talk about why bad habits seem so deeply ingrained.

Habits are patterns that we repeat, and often without even thinking.

Some of them started out as coping mechanisms, maybe scrolling on social media to numb our emotions or lashing out in anger because it feels like the only way to be heard.

But here's the Bad habits don't just hold us back. They have real consequences.

Romans 6:21 22 says, what benefit did you reap at the time from the things that you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.

This verse is a wake up call. It reminds us that our old ways, those habits that we used to rely on, it reminds us that they never truly served us well.

They led us to frustration,

to shame,

and ultimately to separation from the life that God wanted for us.

But now, through Christ, we are set free. We are not bound to our past or our struggles. Instead,

we can walk in holiness,

growing in his grace every single day.

That's why breaking free from bad habits isn't just about discipline.

It's about stepping fully into the freedom Christ has already given us.

That brings me to another powerful verse,

Lamentations 3:22 23 because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his mercies never fail. They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

If you've been stuck in a habit for years, you might feel like it's too late. But God's mercies are new every morning.

That means every single day is an opportunity to start fresh.

You don't have to be defined by yesterday's mistakes.

Now let's talk about the practical steps we can take to replace bad habits with life giving ones.

1. Identify the root cause.

Instead of just focusing on how to stop a habit, ask yourself why it started.

Are you procrastinating because of fear?

Gossiping because of insecurity?

When you deal with the root cause of the problem,

real change can happen.

2.

Renew your mind with the truth. Romans 12:2 says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Every habit begins in the mind.

Focus on filling your thoughts with God's truth instead of the negative narrative of the enemy.

3.

Replace,

don't just remove. If you simply remove a bad habit, you will leave a void and chances are another bad habit is just going to slip in its place.

So instead of scrolling endlessly on social media,

replace that time with prayer, reading the Word, or anything else that you feel nourishes your soul.

For example, if you struggle with negative self talk,

replace those lies with affirmations from Scripture.

4. Rely on God's strength.

This brings me to another favorite verse, Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Breaking a habit isn't about willpower alone. It's about tapping into the supernatural strength that God provides.

Speaking of which, I just came across a reel recently with CC Winans in it and I had to stop the scroll. I had to.

Number one. I absolutely love her music, but I also greatly admire her walk with the Lord.

So I stopped to watch it. And in the reel she says that God specializes in the impossible.

And then she goes on to say, if God can raise the dead, he can handle anything you're going through. And I couldn't agree with her more.

who then can be saved?

Jesus replied,

what is impossible with man is possible with God.

The Lord saves us in so many ways and one of those ways is saving us from ourselves.

We need to surrender the things that we struggle with to our Savior so that he can do his best work in us.

Number five Seek accountability.

We were never meant to do life alone.

Christ is always calling us into community and having accountability on your journey is so important.

You need to find a trusted friend,

mentor, or support group to encourage you, challenge you, and remind you of the truth. When you feel discouraged,

the right people will help you stay on track and strengthen your faith as you grow.

so one person sharpens another.

Now I'd like to share a quick story about my own journey in overcoming bad habits.

Those of you who have been following the podcast for some time will already know this, but there might be somebody who's joining us for the first time.

So I'm going to reiterate the fact that I am a woman in recovery.

I am a recovering alcoholic and I wound up coming back to God while I was in rehab.

It was in rehab that I started to pray to the Lord on a nightly basis,

I would pray to him to help me overcome the habit that I had that was killing me,

which was drinking.

For 17 years I struggled with alcoholism.

I also struggled with shame and a complete lack of self worth.

There were so many broken parts to me, so many broken parts in me that to be honest with you,

I didn't even know where to start, where to begin, or if I could ever really be healed.

I mean, I knew God since I was a child, but then I had run from him for so long that when I came back to him, my faith wasn't full.

My faith wasn't vibrant. It wasn't strong.

It was weak.

I was hanging on by a thread and I was trying to grab onto a thread of his garment.

I was grasping for God. But I didn't know.

I didn't know. If I can't believe, I'm going to say that I didn't know if he could help me. But I didn't.

I really didn't. That's how little hope I had for myself.

But somewhere deep inside,

I had hope in him,

whether I realized it or not. Because otherwise, why was I praying? I mean, why was I every single night making it a Point to pray to God. If I didn't believe somewhere deep down inside that he could do the thing that I couldn't do, that he could get me to stop drinking,

if I didn't earnestly believe that in some small part in my body, no matter where it was,

no matter how deep down inside it was, if I didn't believe it, I wouldn't have prayed.

I had to have believed it.

I guess that's why they call it a mustard seed of faith.

I'm just making that correlation right now. I've literally. That's just like the Holy Spirit is saying to me right now in this moment, Nina, that's exactly what it was. It was a mustard seed of faith.

You had barely any faith in me and in what I could do, but that's all I needed from you, was a mustard seed of faith.

He gives us these promises.

NIna Pajonas: He gives us these promises in His Word, and we act like they're just letters on a piece of paper,

but they're not.

It is the living, breathing word of God.

That's why I encourage you to always read scripture. That is why I am always referencing scripture in these episodes. And I'm sorry I'm crying. I know I must sound like a mess right now, but I don't care.

Nina Pajonas: I don't care.

NIna Pajonas: I want this.

I want this to be a space where, you know, you can cry, too, and you can be your authentic self. And if I can't be my authentic self, you're not going to be.

So here we go.

Nina Pajonas: I'm ugly crying right now. And it's okay. It's okay.

NIna Pajonas: I'm allowed to, because I'm remembering where I was.

And I know how.

I know how much pain I was in.

I know how much it hurt.

Like everything inside me hurt because I couldn't stop doing this horrible thing that I was doing to myself.

Nina Pajonas: It was such a bad habit.

And the phrase bad habit doesn't even.

It doesn't even fully encompass what the disease of alcoholism is.

I'm telling you about all of this because I want you to know that it doesn't matter what your bad habit is.

It doesn't.

There is nothing that God cannot do for you.

There is nothing he can't heal you from.

There is no wound that his love will not heal. I always say that at the end of my episodes. I'm saying it now.

It healed me in that rehab. That's why I can say that to you.

And it continues to heal me to this very day.

I have been on this journey of transformation with the Lord for over seven years now.

And alcoholism isn't the only thing that he's healed me from. That's not the only thing I struggled with.

I struggled with negative self talk. I'm human like anyone else. There's never just one thing that we could fix or look at or try to work on.

None of us are that evolved. We want to be, but none of us are. There's always something to be worked on. There's always something, another new way that we need to grow in Christ.

It doesn't matter how long we're on the journey with Him. There's always gonna be something that he can help us get better at or heal us from, or an area that he can grow us in.

I'm telling you about my time in rehab because within three weeks of my getting there,

after praying to God every single night,

one morning I woke up and I was up for about a half hour or so,

and I was making myself a cup of coffee,

and all of a sudden I realized that I hadn't thought about taking a drink.

If anybody struggles with addiction, who's listening right now,

you have to appreciate what I just said. I was up for half an hour or so, and I hadn't thought of alcohol at all.

That was unheard of for me in the 17 years that I had been drinking. I woke up every morning wanting to drink. It was the first thing on my mind as soon as I started to regain consciousness.

And for the Lord to take that mental obsession and that physical compulsion away from me in three weeks,

that was a miracle.

And the God we serve could have done it in three seconds if he wanted to. And it's not that he wanted me to suffer for those three weeks. If you start going there, I'm just going to stop you.

Why wouldn't he do it in three seconds then? You know why. I'll tell you why. Because we would never learn how to get closer to Him. That's why. Because we wouldn't learn to rely on him and to be dependent on him, and not the thing that is breaking us or destroying us or killing us.

That's the lesson we have to learn. He can heal us, but if he heals us instantly,

it's not going to help us spiritually.

Immediate gratification never serves anyone well.

It just doesn't.

It just doesn't.

And God knows his children. He knows us so, so well.

He knows we love things quickly, but he knows it's not good for us.

So he healed me. Yes, he absolutely did.

And yes, it took about three weeks.

But let me tell you,

during those three weeks,

I started to build the most beautiful foundation of faith in the Lord.

That's what I was doing. That's what I was learning.

And that foundation has held strong for all these years.

And it is my greatest prayer that it will continue to hold my relationship with the Lord beautifully until the day I go home to be with Christ.

And I pray the same for you.

I want you to have a strong foundation for your relationship with the Lord.

That's what I want for you.

That's what all of God's children need to have.

I think our motto should be no crutches,

only Christ.

I think that's what it should be.

If you're struggling with a habit that feels unbreakable,

please,

please remember that you're not alone.

You are not alone.

God is with you.

His grace is sufficient and he is ready to give you his strength.

Now I'd like to pray over you.

Faithful Father,

thank you that your mercies are new every morning.

Thank you that we are not defined by by our past,

but by who you say we are.

Lord. For anyone listening today who feels trapped in a bad habit, I ask that you give them the strength to break free.

Help them to see that your power is made perfect in their weakness.

We trust that through you we can do all things in Jesus name. Amen.

Before we go,

I want to encourage you.

If today's episode spoke to you,

please take action.

Pick just one habit to start working on today.

Pray to the Lord about it and watch how he moves in your life.

I promise you, you're going to be amazed.

And if you're looking for more encouragement,

you can check out my book, From Broken to Butterfly, which is available on Amazon. It's the story of my transformation in Christ and I speak about how his love brought me back to life.

If you have any questions or want to connect, I would love to hear from you.

Please feel free to email me@ninapejonesmail.com or you can DM me on Instagram.

There are links to both in today's episode description.

Don't forget to follow Born to be a Butterfly so you don't miss the next episode.

Until next time. Remember,

the Lord can turn your wounds into wings. You were born to be a butterfly.