1.  Is there a pattern?  Have you been here before?  It could be painful and frustrating to acknowledge, but if you have been in these shoes before, you still need to learn something.  Instead of getting bogged down in beating yourself up for being in this place again, I encourage you to try something new.  Respond differently.

 If you and your partner always fight about the same thing, I’m betting you are really fighting about the boundaries of your relationship or unmet needs.  If you are always broke, this is not about a job, but you and your deserving or being enough.  The problems are in fact opportunities for transformation, but first you have to transcend the beating up of self (ego trap.) 

 Beating yourself up keeps you down, stuck in your ego.  What if you responded with compassion and curiosity?  What if you used humor?  One of my self-defeating patterns is worst-case scenario thinking, because if I think of the worst thing, I’ll be ready, right?  Wrong, I’ll just be tired and anxious. 

 Here’s the compassion part – this strategy was born in my frightening childhood.  I was raised in a violent, alcoholic home, thus worst-case scenarios happened, but I am not a child any longer.  I don’t live in an alcoholic home; hence those strategies are hurting me today, instead of helping me. 

 Here’s the curiosity – what am I afraid of?  Afraid of losing?  Afraid of change?  Afraid of success? 

 We all will find ourselves in a pattern every now and then – it’s ok, we are always growing and expanding.  The key is to not get stuck in a pattern, but to use those moments to readjust and transform to what does work in this new day.

Tags: abundant life, balance, exhausted, happy, healing, meditation, patterns, peace, self-defeating, stress

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 11:20 am and is filed under Best Life, Communication & Relationships, Empowerment, Spiritual Self . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.