When I got the inspiration for this writing I was tempted to title it” Déjà vu doo doo” as in “crap, I’m doing it again”. So I guess I just did, even though to some of you that may seem inappropriate. I was sitting down with my darling husband earlier today as he’s getting all tied in a knot AGAIN about some work/personality issues. It’s the same old train, leaving the same old station, heading the same old direction. So let’s talk about patterns, and self-awareness. Ooooooooohh, most of you know this is my venom in life. We keep doing the same things over and over, sadly, often believing we’re doing it different. Which just makes it more frustrating when a bit further down the road, we see the same results appear, AGAIN. We work on self-awareness, seeing who WE ARE in the situations of life, and learning to be aware of how we respond, which is what creates the same results. So slyly, like a sneering cat, we believe that once we see the pattern, we’ve got it licked!! The mouse is ours!! Not so my friends.

Way too often, we respond differently in the moment. We see the old pattern and then while we’re off taking our victory lap, guess what moves in…the next phase of the old pattern. You see, patterns are not tied up in a nice little box with a pretty bow. It’s not an event. It’s not a thing. It’s a flow. Which means to say, there is the pattern, and then there is the pattern of the pattern which follows that pattern…confused yet? I hope not. You see for every time we stand our ground when we used to cave, for each moment we remind ourselves that we are worthy and deserving of our success, for every “YOU GO GIRL” we tell ourselves that allows us to do something in our lives differently than before, there is an entire evolutionary cycle that takes place AFTER we do something different. The old pattern has an entire PROCESS to it, which can last hours, days, weeks or more depending on the pattern and how attached our ego is to it.

I’ll use myself as an example: I was raised in a household that functioned around the emotions of one person. So while we had no addict, we have a very co-dependent family structure. My lesson as a kid was that I was there to keep someone else happy, and if they weren’t happy, well, there would be trouble. As I grew older and started engaging in other relationships, I found myself incredibly afraid to exert my power, even though it seemed as though I was the one in charge. The position I took on was one of making sure the other person had everyone they wanted so I could be ok. As time and counselling, and a number of trips around the learning curve, more books and seminars than I can count, went on, I learned my pattern in these relationships. YEAH ME! I’m free!! I see how I operate, I’ve got this!! So I began exerting my true empowered self in my life. Look at me go! Nothing would stop me now! Sad, so sad. Because every time I stood up for myself, every time I spoke up for what I wanted and made constructive moves to make myself happy. It would erode. Not right away, not immediately, but in the days and weeks to follow, it would disintegrate. Until the next time! I thought if only I’m more aware next time, or, next time I’ll let myself receive. Until finally I started to realize, my pattern had an entire other sequence of patterns attached to it. I would exert myself, feel good about it, and then as minutes and days passed, I would begin to feel bad. Had I been selfish? Did I really deserve?? Yes, yes of course I do! Then the guilt would set in, “Is there anything that I can do for you?” because if I was getting to have happiness, then I needed to make sure the other person was too. Then the fear would come, “What if he’s mad at me?”, “What if he’s plotting against me and I just don’t know it?”, “What if he leaves me because I’m being selfish?” All of these and more would come, not all at once in a tidal wave, but just trickle, over time, until eventually I was right back at the beginning of feeling bad about myself and doing everything I could to make the other person happy, believing on the inside that THEN it would be safe for me to be happy. It was the pattern that came after the pattern’s pattern.

So short story now long, we have to learn to not just see ourselves in the pattern, but to give it time and continue to see ourselves and be witness to the patterns that come after that pattern. It takes a whole new version of stick-to-it-ness, but you can do it!  Be still, see the signs, hear the words and signals, stay with YOURSELF so that you can see the entire cycle unfold, and step by step, do it differently. Now when I have to get in MR. Cronin’s face about something, even something small, I know when I feel bad, and then more to feeling scared, this is just the old pattern evolving through me. I don’t attach to it, I don’t go for the ride with it, and I just sit and watch it move and be uncomfortable and love myself through it, because that is “ME” also. Our old patterns are a part of us, and we MUST LOVE OURSELVES through the entire process. If we’re harsh, then we reestablish the old message that we’ve been trying to change, therefore providing our ego the defeat it was convinced we would experience the entire time. Hence its drive to maintain the old story…make sense?

Allow your Divine vision to help you see the multitude of places within the pattern that we can allow change to happen. Love yourself, even if you don’t love how you feel in it. Change happens, the ego can truly be retrained, and life takes on an entirely new perspective and Divine aligned direction.

Go slow, be gentle.  Find Joy in each step.

Blessings Galore

Anne