The great part is that by becoming aware of how the mind organizes itself through patterns and by learning ways to consciously become aware of old patterns, you can begin to consciously create patterns that serve who you are today instead of who you were 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

The process of pattern changing and creation has five different aspects:

1. Having a greater understanding about the nature of habits and patterns and what they represent
2. Identifying your habits and bringing the unconscious elements of the pattern to the surface
3. Evalutating which habits serve you today and which ones need changing or modifying
4. Honoring and acknowledging how pattern served you in the past if it isn’t serving you so you can release it
5. Modifying and changing the patterns that need updating

A client of mine, Marcy (name changed), last week had a piece of this pattern awareness show up for her in our session.  Marcy wakes up every day between 5-6 am but finds that she can’t get up despite the fact that her body doesn’t feel as good when she stays in bed.  She was trying to identify why if she is being awakened by her body in a way that feels right and natural to her, she doesn’t have the will to get up. 

Often we associated willpower as the culprit in not being able to make a change or follow a natural cue from the body-mind.  However, the truth is often that is has less to do with willpower than with not understanding the underlying patterning and legitimate need the body-mind is trying to honor.

In Marcy’s case, she realized that as a child she would wake at this same 5-6 am but her parents, who didn’t want to wake up or have her get up, gave her a very strong message that it was not ok to wake up at that time.  As soon as she connected these pieces, it became very clear to her that her continuing to stay in bed after she woke up was a remnant of that old childhood message and pattern.

In this case, her old childhood pattern was in conflict with a current need.  Once she was able to recognize where the conflict was coming from and understand the two pieces, she was able to step into the place of deciding how she wanted to alter the pattern.

I will be teaching a coaching workshop on this very topic of “How Childhood Patterns Shape Actions Today”on Tuesday, February 2, 6:15-7:15 pm.  If you find that you seem to be reacting today in ways that don’t seem aligned with who you are or you want to change your patterns, I invite you to come explore!

I had a client do just this over the past two weeks.  My client, Jane (name changed) is wanting to shift her eating patterns.  She feels that she eats excessively often as a stress response and is not happy with the results of the extra body weight.  In the past, she has tried to control the eating with restrictive dieting and mental planning – neither of which has worked.  From these past experiences, she has felt that she is lacking in self control and that if she could just control herself and her eating, the problem could be solved.

This feeling of lack of self control often shows up in trying to change a habit based on treating the outer symptoms.  Because the outer behavior is really the outlet or vehicle for the underlying need, if we respond only to this vehicle, we aren’t really taking care of the need that we are trying to meet with the behavior.  And as a result, the attempts aren’t successful and we often think it’s because we’re not trying hard enough instead of realizing that we’re trying to fix the wrong part of the problem.

Over two sessions, Jane was able to understand more about how she is using the food and where some of the pattern came from.  The first big “Aha” for Jane was that at the core of eating large amounts of food was a fear of losing something which came an earlier event in her life, again where she felt a lack of control.   The amount of food she was eating was an unconscious way she was trying to “fill up” that empty space.  While this “Aha” left her feeling light and happy since she had uncovered a piece of the puzzle, it in itself didn’t automatically change her behaviors.

In the second session, Jane explored the different times she wanted to eat when it wasn’t purely to satisfy her physical hunger.  Though she identified three major situations when she tended to overeat, she discovered that within each of those areas she was using food as a reward to counterbalance something that felt challenging.  With this realization, we acknowledged that she had a legitimate need that her body-mind was trying to meet.  And that her current way of meeting that need wasn’t serving other parts of her.  Her homeplay for the week is to explore all the ways she can reward herself that satisfy that need for counterbalancing her challenges without making her feel bad in other ways.  At this time, Jane has also made a conscious choice not to use food as one of the possible rewards though for some people finding different, healthier foods could also be an option.

Jane is turning her lock.  She may not completely have the door to her pattern fully open, but she is well on her way.  And her example highlights beautifully that by understanding what the lock is, you are much more able to find the key to unlock it!

I will be exploring more of these ideas and other ways to Beat the Weight Loss Blues on Monday, January 18th.  Come and join the fun if you are looking for your own keys.  Click on the above underlined link for all the registration details.

Several days into the trip, I realized that my bowels were not performing in their usual manner…in fact, I hadn’t had a bowel movement at all.  I didn’t feel overly concerned nor physically bloated but I was having a lot of lower back pain which I attributed to the seven hour car ride and hotel beds.  At this point, I simply observed the situation with a “hmmm, isn’t this interesting.”

Since the first chakra is connected to habits, it isn’t uncommon when one travels and is out of their normal routines for the bowels to be a little thrown off.  This is especially true if the diet changes and less fruits, vegetables or whole grains are eaten.  Knowing this, I made a mental note and a conscious effort to eat more veggies.  Several days later and no change, I took things a step further and did a yoga set called “kriya for lower spine and elimination” which did the trick and slowly got things moving.

That could have been where things ended.  A physical change with a physical stretching remedy.  But being who I am (an exploring mind) I wondered what else might be there for me to see or hear.  Sometimes I ask these questions before my meditation time; this time I chose to simply ponder over several days, along my beach walks and kayak trip, and allow my inner wisdom to share.  And what showed up was around acceptance, specifically around my relationship with my sister but also reflected in the larger sense of accepting people for who they are and trying to find the place of connection which honors both people’s truths.

Over the years as I’ve become healthier inside and out, I feel like I’ve been able to hold this space of mutual honoring better.  And I do think on the surface I was doing that well on this trip.  Yet, as I looked more closely, I accepted that there was still some judgement on my part.  The judgement didn’t show up in outright criticism but rather took the form of sharing thoughts about her with other people.  It wasn’t quite gossip but it also wasn’t neutral observation.  There was a thread of something else in the conversation…emotion, discomfort, drama…I don’t exactly know but it didn’t feel clean.  What I do know is that the fact that I needed to talk about it to several other people meant there was something I was still processing in our relationship, still in the transition of acceptance without resistance.

As this last piece of awareness settled in, my body returned to it’s normal flow and my back pain fully dissipated.  I still don’t have all the answers of how I want to move more completely into acceptance, but I got the message and for today that was enough.

As this topic is a center piece of my work, naturally I’m excited.  These two authors from England, one a psychoanalyst and one a researcher, offer some history and some social commentary.  The history is about how the body-mind connection had a greater recognition in the 40’s through the 60’s and have since been fading off behind the simplistic germ and genetic disposition theories of illness.  If this is interesting, check out the book yourself.

The question I’m pondering today is, do I really look to stretch my awareness and perceptions, or do I gravitate towards that which re-inforces what I already believe?  This isn’t a new idea but I’ve always considered myself more progressive and open minded.  So how do I know…am I attracted to interesting ideas that are simply more accurate or am I stuck in a habit, a rut?

What do you think?  Anyone else caught in such a loop.