I invite you to pay attention to your patterns of reacting to the world around you--your relationships, your work, your losses, your frustrations. Do your patterns of reacting work for you? Or do these responses keep you stuck?
The way you learned to respond, cope, and survive in the past may not be the way you want to continue to live now in your present. Your old patterns may be getting in the way of joy, peace, and success in your life now. Your old patterns may be fostering anxiety, fear, or anger. Your old patterns may be anchoring a sense that nothing you do is ever good enough. Your old patterns may make you feel like nothing ever fills you up.
Healing from the things that happened to you in your past can free you from patterns that no longer serve you. For example, a client came to me frustrated that she was not achieving the success she had envisioned for herself at a new job. "I have good--even great ideas--but I don't speak up and share them," she told me. We explored this pattern and she said, "I actually do this often--I feel that if I stick my neck out I will get hurt or burned." Investigating the history of this pattern of protection, she identified that as a child growing up in her family she never felt safe drawing attention to herself or her ideas. She was belittled by parents who dismissed her. She learned to survive by staying quiet. She said that her new boss was kind, and her team was friendly. She shook her head in wonderment when she realized that an old pattern of reacting was not necessary in her life now. She left excited to try to speak up at her next work meeting.
Once you realize, as my client did, that an ingrained pattern of reacting is not serving you, begin to experiment with a new pattern of reacting. Do this in low risk situations first, and then branch out into other areas of your life as you gain confidence.
This can feel like you are wearing a new pair of glasses, experiencing and seeing the world around you in a new way---one that allows you to see yourself in your present, not your past.
