Your pattern is rooted in unhealed emotional wounds
originating from unresolved emotional experiences.
Now that you know the root cause of your repetitive pattern, you might be wondering what's contributed to developing it and what to do about it. As they say, awareness is the first step to freedom and here are few possible explanations and tools you can use to begin your healing journey.
If the same type of people and situations keep showing up in your life whether it's with friends, co-workers or romantic partners, it’s a sign you might be recreating relationship dynamics from your past and unconsciously replaying your past programming. Usually, these dynamics revolve around themes of power, lack of trust or abandonment.
We acquire limiting beliefs through a family of origin (the family unit you grew up in), early romantic relationships, friendships, or the school environment, and then we play them out in the future because we have been conditioned to do so on a deep subconscious level.
contributing factors
- Maybe you grew up in a strict or controlling environment, and any attempts to think for yourself were squelched.
- Perhaps you were not allowed to question authority or whenever you did you would face dire consequences.
- Possibly you never felt like you belonged or measured up to expectations placed on you.
- Or maybe others made you feel ashamed of who were.
- Perhaps during your formative years, you had to abide by an unspoken rule that certain qualities or emotions were not to be expressed.
It's important to know that your repetitive experiences are symptoms of something deeper. The problem is that often we don't realize what's causing the "symptoms." We don't have any idea that it's connected to an unresolved emotional experience. Everyone on earth regardless of how good their childhood might have been experienced some degree of trauma. Not feeling seen, understood or connected is traumatic as is being controlled or denied our feelings. In essence trauma occurs when an event exceeds our coping skills. And as children our coping skills are not fully developed.
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
You are more than your past conditioning. It's time to unwind the natural potential you were born with out of your unconscious.
Repeatedly getting involved with emotionally unavailable people might stem from a subconscious belief like this one: “If I get him/her to love me and accept me it’s equal to getting love and approval I had never received growing up."
If you tend to form friendships and relationships with people who aren't caring and supportive, most likely you were deprived of love and belonging you needed, and developed a belief that you don't deserve love.
If in your professional life, you continously end up working for the same type boss or dissatisfying workplace. It could be that you are transferring dynamics from your family of origin onto authority figures.
The reasons why:
Any of the factors listed above could have potentially been traumatic to you and make you to reject parts of yourself to "fit in" or to feel safe. When we deny something or suppress it doesn't disappear, it just hides from our conscious awareness. That's why you will keep running into people and circumstances which highlight what's rejected and repressed within yourself, so you can heal and become whole again.
The reason you keep running into the same kind of situations because at an unconscious level they feel familiar, they feel like home, and ultimately they provide a playground for resolving prior hurts and traumas. As human beings, we tend to gravitate to what is known and familiar even if ultimately it doesn't serve us.
You might not be aware of it, but deep down, you want to heal the original experience which created the pattern of repetition. Intellectually you know what you want and are willing to tolerate, yet you repeat the behavior because unconsciously you hope "It's going to be different this time and I am going to fix what had happened before." In short, subconsciously you want to repair in the present what had occurred in the past.
Usually, it takes more than one time for us to get to the point where we recognize the pattern and are ready to do something about it. And what we need to do is to accept and integrate parts of ourselves which were suppressed or rejected.
Why You Can’t Outsmart Your Behavior Patterns And What To Do Instead:
First, you need to uncover subconscious programming drawing you towards similar situations and repetitive behaviors.
Practice 1 - Uncover your beliefs
The point of this exercise is to illustrate your hidden beliefs about love and connection and explain why sometimes unhealthy relationship dynamics feel like home to you. (I borrowed this practice from Teal Swan and loved how illuminating it was.)
In a journal or on a sheet of paper draw a line dividing it vertically in half into two columns.
- On the left-hand side write on top of the column write “My childhood home was…..” ( you can replace with "My childhood was..."
- Next, on the right-hand side, depending what you want to work on, write “Love is…”
- In the first column titled “My childhood home was…..” list all the words and adjectives that come to your mind. You want to do a stream of consciousness writing, so your analytical mind does not get in the way. Don’t overthink it! (Word examples: loving, controlling, warm, distant, chaotic, peaceful, confining, demanding, welcoming, cold, rejecting, conditional, etc.)
- Now transfer all the words from the first column where you described your childhood home, into the second column and place them underneath the heading “Love is….”
Conclusion
You should have two columns with a list of words underneath each heading. One column titled “My childhood home was…..” and the second one called "Love is..." Now read all the words in the column titled "Love is..." Those words indicate what you unconsciously associate with love or intimacy. Making unconscious conscious will increase your awareness and help you recognize unhelpful situations or people before you engage with them.
Practice 2 - Take Care of your inner child
Something you can try for yourself is pulling a photograph of yourself as a young child and writing a letter to that child where and assure them that you are there for them. Feel into that picture and sense what that child wants and needs and then try to fulfill those needs in your daily life. This child is still within you. I encourage you to use reparenting affirmations in your letter, such as:
"I am glad you were born." "You are a good person." "I love you, and I am doing my best to be on your side." "You can make mistakes - they are your teachers." "You can know what you need and ask for help." "All your feelings are ok with me." "You don't have to be perfect to get love and protection." "You can pick your own friends, and don't have to like everyone."
If you learn how to fulfill your emotional needs which weren't met in the past, you'll stop attracting people who reflect your unhealed wounds to you time and time again. So take care of your inner child, embrace the younger parts of yourself and provide them with love, encouragement, and support which was previously not available to you.
Please check out my free 5-Day Mini-Course which will introduce you to processing and transforming your emotions using image and metaphor. This course takes you through the process step-by-step and contains detailed instructions, audio guided visualizations and much more.
Practice 3 - Get in touch with your emotions.
It’s crucial you get in touch with uncomfortable emotions you have most likely suppressed. By processing painful emotions such as hurt, loss or sadness, you will release the pent-up energy which was dictating your behavior and acted as an attraction point for negative relationships and experiences. Effectively, you will unblock yourself.
We know that painful memories and emotions are logged in the right brain. Expressive art enables us to work directly with right brain and access the unconscious material, that's why it's one of the most effective modalities for processing and releasing of painful emotions.
Bonus: Ask yourself this deep question and journal the answer: If you had painful experiences in the past, what made you go through them? How did you do it? How did you manage that?
Answering this question will help you realize that you have lot's of strength and resilience inside of you.
What Happens Next - Free Mini Course Is On Its Way.
In 24 hours time, I’ll email you a free 5-Day Mini-Course.
It isn’t your average life-coaching exercise. It’s highly unlikely you’ve tried this little-known technique before.
This course will guide you through the step-by-step process of releasing and transforming painful emotions, so instead of blocking you and keeping you stuck in a repetition cycle they will become your ally and a guide.
For the next five days, you’ll need to set aside 30 minutes to complete a simple task. And within just a few days you you’ll be able to understand your beliefs and emotional patterns from a completely new perspective.