Patterns are everywhere if you are paying attention.  There are in our every day without even realizing it.  Kind of like change.  To everything there is a season more or less.

So why is it so important to recognize patterns in our life??? The answer :  To Keep you on Track.   Patterns tell the story of our life in ways we never realize, unless we start to identify them in our selves and others.  For many people they live the same  life over and over again every day, every week and every year until they are literally dead.   For others they seek the new, the exciting and fresh.  Where one persons life can become routine and boring, others becomes more exciting as each day passes.   The boring one sits back and watches the other and lives vicariously through them.   It is the patterns that we create,  listen to and follow that shape our very lives and it starts in the families we grow up in. I love what Ben Franklin said  ” Some people die at 25 and they are not buried until they are 75.”

Patterns of  success and failure are witnessed at a very young age.  Healthy and unhealthy habits of those around us starts our belief system.  Chances are if you grow up in a family of dysfunction you will create one of your own.  If your family pattern is one of drama and bickering you will recreate that in your own life.  Familiarity is comfortable, but it teaches your nothing.  I grew up in a dysfunctional family.  My father was an alcoholic. As his illness progressed it destroyed his life. I felt abandoned and confused as to why his drinking was more important than loving my mom and us kids. He was a functioning alcoholic you see.   He still looked good on paper.  It did not change the feelings I had and the questions as to why. If you have read my previous blogs you know that my father’s story has a happy ending.  I credit my mother for having the guts back in the 70’s to move us away and begin again.  She saw the patterns of his behavior and loved herself enough to leave. It was extremely hard and painful.  It would have been much worse had she stayed.  Patterns are there to teach you.  When they show up and the pain is too great to repeat it you will most definitely change.

 

If you are born into a family that believes money is the answer to all life’s issues you may chase that.  If you have a domineering parent that controls the family with money or manipulation you may become that person too.   Behavioral patterns are there to teach us what we are comfortable with and what we are repulsed by.  It is also there to teach us what we love and cherish.  What feels good and what feels bad is based on our perception of our own beliefs..

When someone is in relationship with  a person that constantly upsets them by “bad behavior” …it is a pattern.   You have the same issues year after year and yet you think the other person is going to change.  They are going to quit drinking, cheating, getting fired, doing drugs,  being plain old nasty or controlling.  Guess what???? As long as your behavior or response is the same every single time the pattern will not change.  That person has figured you out.  You will never leave.  You have had that fight before.  They already know the  way the movie ends.   It is the same story different year.  It is a PATTERN.   I don’t mean to scream at you about this.   It does not matter if it is your child, your spouse, your parent or your friends.  Pay attention to the patterns in your life.  If you feel like I am writing this especially for you….. I am.   One of the biggest lessons in life I had to learn was accepting the things I could not change.  It has been my greatest teacher and gave me back my life.  The minute I start to recognize patterns that do not serve me I run like hell in the other direction.   Friends to let go of, partners that are unworthy, and unhealthy habits.

Maya Angelo greatest quote in my opinion is “when people show you who they really are believe them””  I think she is talking about their personality at their core.   If someone is kind, generous, thoughtful and considerate, believe it.  If it is the opposite believe that too.    When I read Steve Jobs biography on the plane to Bali, something resonated with me about what Walter Issacson wrote regarding  Jobs relationship with his first child Lisa.   He wrote about a pattern of abandonment.   In this body of work he described that those who are abandoned…. abandon.    This is important.  Abandonment is one of the worst feelings in the world.  If this rings true to you stay with me.  Emotional abandonment is a belief that you are not good enough.  It is raw and painful.  Emotional abandonment is what is felt in a relationship when one party is not engaged in the relationship.  The other party puts their needs ahead of everything else.  You can be married for 30 years and feel abandoned by your partner because of their work, their drinking, their cheating, their disinterest.  Pattern work is there to show you again and again and again in  your life until you understand that your response to this is all that matters.   Patterns are in nature, in math and in the human experience.  Watch out for them and they will give you a new perspective as to the good, the bad and the beautiful in your everyday life.

I will leave you with what was written by  Aristotle born in 384BC.

What do you repeatedly do?  Habits become our personality.   You are what you repeatedly Do!   Choose the right habits for you.

 

Who is Better than You??? NOBODY

 

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XOXO

Julie