Interrupting the Pattern
One of the things I’m able to see in the people around me, is the cycles they are stuck in. In order for me to see those cycles, I have to be aware of their day-to-day experience to some degree. I have to know at least some of the goings-on. When I do, I quickly spot cycles in their behavior.
Can I just say it’s both a blessing and a bit of a curse?
Being able to see cycles so clearly and combining that with my understanding of self-mastery, gives me the tools to break those cycles very quickly. That’s a blessing.
I can’t live other people’s lives for them. I can’t make people do things. So the curse is the heart-wrenching part where I just get to watch people go around in circles not realizing what they are doing to themselves. The more painful those cycles are, the harder they are to watch play out continuously.
I learned to spot cycles because I was shown my own intuitively. I learned to spot cycles because I began to understand that there were patterns in behavior. The behavior patterns are what create the cycles. Why do you think I often talk about the idea that simply changing your response to what’s happening will change what’s happening? It’s because changing your behavior is a pattern interrupt. It stops the wheel, at least temporarily, to allow you to see the pattern in your life – if you’re paying attention.
Most people don’t pay attention to the patterns, even when they are very visible and obvious. I had clear patterns of bills not being paid every month. It was a cycle. It’s easy to blame the economy, not making enough money, the high prices of food or gas – but the truth is it was my own behavior, my own reaction to what was happening – that was far more of a problem than the bills ever were.
I responded differently to the pattern. I stopped doing anything about it. I stopped fixing it. That broke the cycle. I was able to change the pattern by doing nothing more than changing my behavior. I didn’t need the economy to fix itself. I didn’t need to win the lottery. I didn’t need a miracle. I just needed to change my behavior and then use that to understand the cycle so that I could keep it broken and actually fix the problem in the long run.
I found this idea to be true in almost everything that was happening in my life – all I had to do was change my behavior – and everything changed. Breaking cycles is about nothing more than breaking patterns of behavior and thought. Breaking a cycle of lack isn’t about winning the lottery – it’s about seeing money differently. It’s about the healing the pain of the lack. It’s about learning to be okay in the life you’re in long enough to let it change.
Now I watch people run away from things they want because they are in patterns of people-pleasing and worrying about what other people are thinking. I watch people stay in relationships they aren’t even happy in – they settle – because they think they can’t do any better. I watch people literally and metaphorically run away from everything that happens in their lives – pure avoidance of any and all triggers creates chaos – which is exactly what it’s doing. I watch people avoid making the choices they know they need to make – they sacrifice themselves because they are afraid of upsetting the people around them.
I watch them all spin in these painful cycles. I see all the cycles clearly and I also see the fixes to the cycles. I see the behavior shift that would create the pattern interrupt. I see how to stop going around on the hamster wheel, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s not my wheel to stop spinning. It’s not my life to change. It’s not my behavior to change either. It’s up to those people to see the patterns and cycles they’ve found themselves in and shift it – but they don’t. They go around and I watch.
But maybe it’s giving me something – maybe it’s giving me an idea of how to help people. It’s giving me a way of being able to help people fix it so that I don’t have to just sit around and watch anymore.
I can stay stuck in the pain of watching helplessly or I can find ways to do something about it for those that have the desire to shift it. I may not be able to fix it for everybody, but I can for those that are ready to be cycle breakers.
Spirituality as a way of being – is a cycle-breaking belief system. It opens people up to seeing life differently. That’s why the “awakening” process is often so chaotic. People quickly see that things don’t make sense and usually that results in some cataclysmic breakdown of the life they knew. Why? Because they saw it differently, shifted their behavior, and everything changed very rapidly.
The “awakening” acts as a pattern interrupt. It’s a shift in behavior that happens semi-unconsciously. People don’t totally see what they are doing until much later on. The more willing they are to allow rapid change, the more intense the breakdown is after “awakening” occurs. Some people find themselves in completely different lives only weeks after an “awakening” experience happens. For others, it takes years to clear out all the crud and heal enough to create meaningful life change. The experience is different for everybody.
The “awakenings” that we experience all along the way are meant to be pattern interrupts. You’re meant to change the cycle – change the pattern. You’re meant to act on it and do something differently and allow your life to change. But people have a death grip on the reality they are in, whether they like their reality or not. They are scared of setting that proverbial bomb off and creating the change they truly want. So instead, they stay stuck in the pain.
The same holds true for all the patterns I see in people. They are scared of what happens if they don’t do that thing they do, much like I was. I get the fear. I sat in boatloads of it for months trying to will myself into not doing anything as a way of changing the pattern. It took me a long time. I did it slowly over a period of months, maybe even a couple of years, but I did it. The pattern interrupt worked and it wasn’t nearly as chaotic as my mind wanted me to believe it would be.
How much of a dare-devil are you? How willing are you to break it? How willing are you to just see what happens and trust it?
It is possible to break those cycles. I’ve been breaking cycles in my life now for a while. It can be a little unnerving, but it’s definitely worth it. Freeing myself from all that chaos was worth sitting in the fear of what would happen next. Your fear of the shadow of the unknown is mostly unfounded. Even if something did happen you’d be able to handle it. How do I know? Because you’re reading this. You’re here. You made it this far. That’s how I know you can keep going if you want to.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go figure out how I can use this little bit of awareness to help people.
New things coming!
Love to all.
Della
You can help support my blog by clicking here to make a donation. Your support is greatly appreciated.