Deep, unconscious patterns can get us in trouble, mostly with ourselves.
Unconscious patterns stem from childhood for myriad reasons. These are tender spots embedded in the psyche that grew out of adaptations. We need to see them as precious and valuable attempts by the then-child to survive within a particular environment even if, as a grown-up, he or she always believed their family of origin was loving.
Little kids don’t know they are adapting. An adult might flippantly say they suffer from the “need to please” but still don’t fully understand why they are adapting (and growing resentful). But the roots of adaptation as such—the behaviors that ultimately make one feel like a dirty doormat—are both hard to see and painfully obvious…once one really truly begins to look.
If any of the above rings true, you may find the following to be familiar.
Feeling that:
- You’ve lost so much time even as an adult, and you’re still hurting.
- You’ve lived like you don’t exist in order to make the parent happy.
- You’ve been used.
- You can seem to say no to your parent.
- You’ve worked so hard not to see the reality of your parent to keep the peace (both with them and inside yourself).
- They didn’t see the real you or cringed when you showed it.
Letting go can trigger your own feelings of loss and abandonment. In other words, sometimes the “something bad” is the fear of the abandonment you’ll feel, an echo of the abandonment you’ve already felt most of your life but suppressed. But that abandonment could also signal a fear that you’ll give up on yourself…which I think is the more poignant fear.
These are the thoughts of a child in an adult’s body, of old wounds that are resurfacing, AND they are also the experiences of the adult you, who you are now. You are learning to hold yourself, to hear yourself as you discover the beauty in being yourself. These old hurts are resurfacing in order to be examined and dissected.
Analyzing the patterns is invaluable to your growth and flourishing.
Photo by Renzo D’souza on Unsplash
