Much of life is guided by unexamined patterns that come from the subconscious. Many people just go with the flow of their life, never questioning whether or not they are making an active choice. And that can manifest in negative ways, like finding yourself living a life that doesn’t make sense for you, or that actively harms your own, or others’, wellbeing.
We must examine these patterns so we can better understand them and make better choices. That way, we’re not being guided by unhealed trauma or unhealthy patterns. These are some of the common patterns you want to watch out for.
1. Avoiding hard conversations that need to happen.
I recall once hearing someone say that the quality of one’s life is inversely proportional to the number of hard conversations you’re willing to have. That is, if you refuse to have them, life is going to be harder than it needs to be. That stuck with me because I’ve experienced this myself.
At one point, I had a relationship that was crumbling into pieces, but neither of us wanted to acknowledge it. Because of that choice, the relationship dragged on for a couple of years past its expiry date when it needn’t have. Thankfully, I eventually learned from that lesson, which helped me avoid repeating the same mistake again.
No one wants to have those conversations, but they need to happen. Everyone needs to have the ability to sit through the discomfort of conversations like these. Otherwise, it will prevent you from healing and moving forward.
2. Repeating the same roles in your relationships.
As Psych Central informs us, unhealthy relationship patterns will continue to surface if they are not recognized and dealt with. Are you a chaser? Are you a fixer? Are you looking to try to develop a relationship by putting someone else’s pieces back together? Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, a lot of people in that position find that their relationship ends not long after.
Why? Because the person who is in pieces develops a different emotional landscape once they begin to heal. You can put all that time and energy into it, and then it just crumbles because they are no longer the person you fell for (or they’ve changed so much that you’re no longer the person they need).
Plus, there’s the added problem of some damaged people who just don’t see the need to improve, or who lack the self-awareness to come to that realization.
You fall in love with their potential, but potential doesn’t mean anything. Everyone has potential. But unfortunately, many won’t use it.
3. Confusing intensity for compatibility and connection.
Did you know that the butterfly feelings you get in the pit of your stomach are a nervous system reaction? As Verywell Mind shares, that might be from excitement, anxiety, or a bit of both, but it’s essentially the same reaction. It’s your brain letting you know, hey, this person is really interesting to me. We even acknowledge it by saying, “We have chemistry together!” thinking that means something important.
Unfortunately, chemistry doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s just that nervous system reaction we talked about. And chemistry can actually just make you blind to the situation as you don rose-colored glasses.
Intensity feels great. No denying that. It would be wonderful if the people with whom we had intense chemistry worked out as partners. But that isn’t how it necessarily goes.
Loving, stable, long-term relationships are peaceful, calm, and sometimes a little mundane. They are not never-ending storms of chemical reaction-fuelled passion.
4. Taking other people’s bad behavior personally.
This pattern is often rooted in neglect and abuse. Instead of looking at other people’s behavior as a result of their own choices, you may be personalizing it.
For example, let’s say you reach out to a friend and they don’t answer you. Some people will blame themselves. They’ll think, “Maybe I’m bothering them too much,” or “It must have been something I said or did.”
In reality, that person may just be taking a nap, driving, or not have their phone handy. Where this pattern becomes problematic is that it means you’re more likely to be overly accommodating at the expense of your own needs because you fear pushing people away. And you may end up attracting users and manipulators as a result.
Plus, you end up pushing away people who are genuine because it’s a taxing thing to deal with. It’s frustrating for them because they have to spend so much time trying to soothe feelings, and after a while, they may decide it’s simply not worth the effort, which, of course, only serves to reinforce your negative beliefs about yourself.
5. Confusing unhealthy familiarity with safety.
Familiarity isn’t necessarily safe. Consider a child who grows up in an unstable, abusive home. They get older, and then they get into an abusive relationship. It feels comfortable, despite being awful, because it’s familiar. It’s the chaos they know versus the safety of peace and quiet that they don’t know.
This particular trauma-driven behavior takes so many people into bad situations because they crave familiarity. They know what to expect in an abusive relationship. Maybe they don’t get the dishes done, so they get screamed at for it. But they understand how to handle that.
On the other hand, in a healthy relationship, they may feel uncomfortable when their partner just smiles and says, “It’s alright. Let me help you.”
6. Abandoning yourself to keep people close.
At no point should you need to shrink yourself to fit into a box that doesn’t belong to you. Other people can have whatever desires and expectations they like. You, however, don’t have to care. You cannot make yourself smaller for someone and expect to maintain a long-term, healthy relationship with them, whatever the dynamic.
Why? Because resentment sets in pretty quick when your authentic self is not being valued as it should be. This person or people aren’t your people if you have to earn their affection and friendship by performing. You will never be too much for the right people.
But unfortunately, you’ll miss out on the right people if you don’t recognize this pattern and keep investing your time in the wrong ones.
7. Only considering your actions after the damage is done.
There’s an old saying that goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It’s often said in the context of medical issues to encourage people to take care of themselves. For example, Type 2 diabetes is preventable with exercise and a good diet, which is a far better option than having diabetes.
The best way to deal with a preventable issue is to keep it from happening in the first place. And this also applies to other situations, too.
Consider being in a relationship. You can already tell that things aren’t going the way that you want them to. You’ve been down this road before with previous partners, and you’re feeling like you’re heading toward another inevitability. But you ignore that feeling. Instead, you keep pushing forward until the whole thing crumbles.
Instead, you could have saved yourself a world of heartache by pausing to think about the issues while they’re happening, rather than during or after a bad breakup. The same is true for all situations in life, and that’s why awareness and regular self-reflection are key.
8. Chasing closure from the person who caused the problem.
Closure is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Sometimes, you just don’t get it. In a perfect world, people would be mature, take responsibility for their actions, and give closure when needed. Unfortunately, that isn’t the way people work. Far too many people are perfectly fine with causing harm to others with no apology or explanation.
They don’t care. They lack self-awareness. Or, alternatively, they may even be happy that they inflicted pain and suffering on you. For example, if they feel like you deserved it or that they didn’t do anything wrong, you’re not likely to get that closure from them. Instead, you have to learn how to create closure for yourself.
9. Not trusting peace when you finally have it.
Those who have lived chaotic lives have a difficult time enjoying peace once they finally find it. As we already talked about, if chaos feels familiar, you may find yourself looking for it even in peaceful situations.
For example, those who haven’t healed that part of themselves yet often self-sabotage. They go out of their way to make things more difficult for themselves, blow up relationships, or do something chaotic.
It’s a search for that familiarity because anxiety is driving a fear that everything is going to crumble anyway. So better to light the match yourself first than it is to be vulnerable. Unfortunately, when you take the path, all you’ll leave behind are ashes.
Final thoughts…
Everyone has patterns that they’re acting from. And not all of them are good and healthy. The people who have lived challenging lives or have consistently been in bad situations understand how to survive those. They understand how to live in that chaos. Unfortunately, the habits and patterns you develop in those situations do not work in healthy relationships.
If you keep acting from those patterns, rather than recognizing and changing them, they will keep undermining your peace, happiness, and well-being. The good news is that they can be changed, but it does require some focused effort, and often professional support, to get it done.
