Dear Annoying Old Pattern

If you could just go away already, I would be greatly appreciative.

Regards
A tired and impatient me.

My desire in this post is to acknowledge and appreciate the consistent difficulties of being human.

– Every morning,
– You wake up.
– You brush your teeth again.
– Unload the dishwasher again.
– Get yourself and others dressed, fed and out the house again.
– You go to work again and return again.
– Now you’re dirty again
– So you shower again
– Cook again so you can eat again.
– And load the dishwasher again.
– Sleep AGAIN

I know that this picture is dramatically bleak (for effect) and is ignoring all the joy, meaning and colour of life.

The point I am making is that the ongoing nature of showing up each day can feel repetitive and relentless.

This said, I’m not here to talk about dishwashers.

I want to talk about patterns:
– The messages inside you that repeat and play-out.
– These messages are unconscious beliefs about yourself and the world.
– They are created during growing-up years and often are connected to trauma and wounding.
– They are responsible for the patterns in your life.

Q: What is a pattern?
A: A life situations that keeps coming back into your experience in different forms:

• I was left out at school.
• My friends make plans without me.
• People in this organisation are clique.
• Why am I not invited to meetings

It is accompanied by a feeling:

• Loneliness
• Rejection
• No belonging etc.

A pattern could also show up as a type of relationships that follows you around:
Like…I always have domineering bosses
Or…I land up picking narcissistic romantic partners

Now these are pretty basic examples and not all patterns can be seen so clearly.
The important thing to note is that you (and every other person on the planet) has them and if you are not aware of your patterns, you will be driven to action by them.

When this happens, you fall into the trap that lives in the pattern.

The pattern is there to keep you safe (discussion for another post).
So instead of propelling you forward to progression, expansion and experimentation, when you do fall into the trap, your behaviour lands up hurting you or holding you back.

Let’s say, you have a wound of not belonging and the pattern plays out at different times in your life, with different people, in different spaces….
But the feeling remains the same.

Every time you have it, you spin out and get buried in anger, frustration, shame (major discomfort).
You feel like you’ve been treated badly and you identify as the victim of your story.
You have fallen for the trap.

You decide: “I don’t need these assholes….FU@# them…I’m out.”

And you take steps towards separating yourself.

Now you’re even more alone and you definitely don’t feel a sense of belonging.

The wound from which the pattern is generated remains ignited and ready to be triggered again… and you can be sure that it will.

The reason I’m talking about this is because I have spent a lot of time and energy, working on and with my patterns by really going deep and confronting the wounds inside (at least those that I have been able to access).

I have cried and screamed and thankfully, I have, over time, created space between stimulus and response so that less and less do I get caught in obvious traps.

And when things are going well in my life and I feel the warm sun on my skin, and my heart fills with love at the sight of birds and rainbows and all that crap….

At these times, I can romance myself into believing that I am a job well done…I am sorted/sound, I have a sexy-like psyche with an auric field to die for.

And then BOOM!!!

My awareness slips and I find myself confronting an old pattern, a frenemy I thought I had ditched a few thousand kilometres back.
But what do you know?
She hitched a ride and she’s back.

I can get really down and hard on myself when this happens.
Because I should know better.
I do know better.
And yet here I am, struggling with an old demon,showing up in a very familiar pattern.

As I’m navigating my relationship with myself, I’m realising that the work of personal transformation is ongoing.
We are transforming all the time, especially if we are doing the work.

The return to old patterns is not a return to the same place.
It does not mean that you have regressed.
The opposite is true.
It’s about deepening and expanding who you are and what you can hold inside you.

Growth is not about becoming perfect.
The journey does not get easy.
It gets rich and full and when you lean into discomfort, instead of avoiding or running away from it, you peel-away another layer of the onion and return to a more authentic version of yourself.

And you need to do this, if you want to live in-purpose, because purpose is connected to who you are in your essence…your truth…your authentic and unique energy.

This is why we are working on ourselves.
Because living a life of mask wearing is just not good enough.
Running from our pain, hurting ourselves and others because we have been hurt, is holding us back from personal stardom.

And that’s just not good enough.

I know it feels like a lot…it does for me too.

But it’s so worth it.

I invite you to journey with me. I’ll be right next to you, holding your hand, every step of the way.
Book a free chemistry call…you have nothing to lose.

.