I have many clients come to me with what seems like very confusing problems. They seem to have it all, yet they also seem hell bent on destroying their lives and marriages, but they tell me they no longer want to life to be this way, but still carry on.
To them what they are doing seems normal, but to the outside world everyone can see the pain they are causing themselves and those they say they love.
Maybe you or your partner are experiencing this very thing.
There is of course many reasons why this can happen, but the over riding reason is because the individual does not feel safe and is running a pattern that they have learnt that will give them security again.
This is why victims of abuse struggle so much in later years. Every time they feel unsafe they run the patterns that were designed to cope with a moment in time.
The problem is that very often the pattern they run is out dated.
What’s critical to know is what you or your partner is attempting to get to. It could be love or security.
But they could be trying to get to it through anger, depression, running away, or a contradiction of other core values such as respect or honesty.
All these are responses to a fear that feels very real to them.
A decision about what patterns we use to live our lives usually happen naturally, but when situations are perceived as threatening in some way, it’s this high level of emotion that creates a need to feel safe again fast.
A pattern will be created at this point to cope and be brought into play whenever life creates a situation that feels similar.
In reality what this means is an adult can behave like a child when they don’t feel safe as they run an old pattern to get back to safety or love.
The problem is this old outdated pattern will not work no matter how many times they run the pattern. But because they were not consciously aware they created this pattern, they feel that what they are doing is normal so they relentlessly run the pattern over and over again, slowly destroying everything including themselves.
They can become depressed, angry, guilty, blame others, run away, overly control and behave in many more destructive ways..
Is this happening to you, do others keep telling you to stop what you are doing, but to you it feels normal?