Humans are creatures of pattern. We fall into routines easily. Our behavior is no different. Some behavioral patterns are good for you. Consistently working out or consistently learning something new result in positive outcomes. However, If there are negative patterns in your behavior – if you do the same thing over and over in a way that hurts you, now is the time to recognize that and remove the root cause.
Negative patterns can take many forms in many areas of you life from finance to relationships, physical or health issues, parenting and more. They key is to recognize when you are repeating a negative pattern and then get to the heart of it to dissolve the root cause.
Step one is to recognize the negative pattern. Do you already know what it is? For example, is food what you turn to when you are stressed? Do you overspend your budget in certain areas? Do you not buckle your seatbelt and therefore put yourself at risk? Do you find yourself with abusive partners over and over? Do you cause your own demise at work, job after job?
When something negative happens in your life, examine if this is the first time. Or does it seem to happen all the time? If it is a pattern, acknowledge that. If it might be a one-time thing, acknowledge that too.
Next, examine the cause. The root of the pattern is often buried below layers of psychological excuses. You will have to dig to find it.
Why, Why, Why?
One great way to do that is to ask yourself the question, “Why?”, and to keep asking why until you reach the root cause. For example, the progression might look like this: why do I eat when I am stressed? Because it makes me feel better. Why? because it makes me feel cared for. Why does it make me feel cared for? Because my parents always would give me food when I was upset as a way to quiet me down. AHA! Now we have it. There was a pattern established in childhood that put the belief in your head that food is how we calm down. Cookies became the security blanket of anything stressful or upsetting. But now this pattern is harming your health, your self image, your opportunities, and so much more. But by shining a light on the truth, you will find that it dissipates. Now that you know the root cause, you can see that you need a mechanism to comfort yourself in times of stress. If you recognize how the pattern started, you can establish an alternate method of comforting yourself and slowly the urge to eat when you are stressed will go away.
Tony Robbins’s Parent Centered Approach
Another method that works wonders comes from Tony Robbins. In this method, you consider the question: which of your parent’s love did you crave the most? You surely wanted love and acceptance from both but there was one that you wanted it form MORE. Which parent was that? Then, what did you have to be to get that love and acceptance?
Negative Emotions As The Root Of Patterns
Sometimes a negative emotion is the root of your pattern. Practice recognizing and naming your feelings. For example, you may give your children too much for too long, ultimately harming their ability to create independence, all because you feel guilt about what they went through in the past.
When feeling guilt, shame, regret, sadness, or other negative emotions, ask yourself why you feel this way. Take the time to explore your reactions (do not suppress them). Keep asking why you feel this way until you get to the real root of the issue. Acknowledge your truth and remind yourself that it is all part of being human. When negative emotions are fertilizing the roots of your harmful patterns, it is important to be compassionate to yourself.
Regret, in particular, requires a lot of self compassion to heal. Remind yourself that you did what you could at the time given who you were and the circumstances that surrounded you. You are a different person now. Can you imagine sitting with that old version of yourself and offering compassion like a good friend? Work to let these feelings go by shining a spotlight on them every time they appear and offering compassion to yourself and anyone else involved. In time, these feelings will dissolve along with the patterns they cause.
Rules
As you recognize unhealthy patterns, you will need to either replace them with healthy patterns or stop them cold. Rules help. Make a list of rules to operate by. It helps to have rules to remind yourself what to do in specific situations. What rules do you need to put in place to avoid falling into negative patterns?
