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When we fall back on harmful patterns & cycles

February 20, 2020 By gwynn

There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace – these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death. ~Frank Herbert, Dune

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

~Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear (Frank Herbert)

Be mindful of people who feel like home, when home wasn’t a safe place to be. ~TheMindGeek

Change is often challenging.

And if we’re really honest with ourselves and each other, change can also be terrifying.

Why is change so terrifying? Why is it so easy to fall back into old (often harmful) patterns, cycles, even relationships? Why do we keep going back to things we know are hurtful and or damaging?

The why we do this is simple enough. It’s because when we were young, as our brains were first developing and our neural pathways were forming, as we were learning about the world around us, we lived in abusive, neglectful, and or chaotic environments. The neural paths that were then formed, associated what is known and understood with this chaos or harm.

We learned at an early age how to navigate harm. How to side step it. How to get through it. The chaos, in many ways, became “safe.” Even as it was hurting us.

It was safe because it was known. Not because it was actually safe. Not because it wasn’t causing harm.

Simply because it was known.

Breaking patterns and cycles is stepping into unknown territory. A land without any type of road map or navigation system. A land without paths or trails for us to follow.

Breaking patterns and cycles is not known to our brains. It is not what our neural pathways understand. It feels foreign because it is.

Because of this it feels uncomfortable. Even terrifying. It may not feel right. It likely won’t feel good at first or for a while. Even though what we are doing is actually good for us.

We fall back on old (harmful) patterns and relationships because they feel safe. They feel safe because they are known. The cycles we fall back into again and again remind us of our chaotic childhoods and that is understood.

We know how to navigate chaos.

We have no idea how to navigate peace. Real (non-oppressive, non-abusive, non-demanding, assuming, expecting) love. Freedom. Calm. Actual safeness.

And because we don’t know how to navigate it, because it is foreign, it feels weird, uncomfortable. And not just weird, oftentimes boring. And even more often, out and out unsafe. And so we avoid it, run from it, resist it, reject it.

So what does this mean then, as we are doing our work to break life long, often generations old, patterns and cycles to also learn to trust ourselves? As we are doing the work of processing our trauma? Of coming into our bodies and the present? How can we trust ourselves if what feels “safe” is actually harmful? How do we sit in the discomfort of change when every fiber in our being is screaming No! Go back to what we know!! ?

How do we leave, and stop returning to, relationships that are abusive, oppressive; that stunt our personal growth and healing; that keep us stuck in patterns and cycles that are harmful not just to ourselves, but ultimately to our children, to our other relationships, to the ways we interact with and in the world, when those harmful relationships are what feel like “home”?

First we need to develop a metric fuckton (yes, I believe this is an actual measurement) of self-compassion. Because a truth is we will fall back into these patterns. We will revisit these cycles. We will retreat to these relationships. That all, ultimately, cause us harm. Cause those around us harm. Cause our world harm.

We need to understand this is not failure. This is part of the process. With each falling back, it will feel less and less “right.” Not that the new ways of being and doing in the world are comfortable yet, but that what we knew just doesn’t quite fit anymore, and we know it, we feel it, viscerally.

Then as we continue to do the work of processing our trauma, of coming into our bodies, of learning to be in the present moment, we need to be able to allow the space to be curious, to explore, to question ourselves and our motivations. Am I doing X because it is what I know? Is what I know about X ultimately harmful to me? Am I avoiding Y because it is unknown and therefore feels unsafe? Or is Y actually unsafe?

Sometimes we won’t know the answers to these questions, sometimes we will answer the questions incorrectly and end up continuing a pattern or cycle that causes us and or others harm.

This is part of the process. This is part of learning to do different. This is part of breaking those patterns and cycles.

When we enter into new relationships that feel “boring” we need to explore similar questions. Does this feel boring because it’s actually emotionally and physically safe? Or does it feel boring because we actually don’t have much in common and therefore is intellectually unstimulating? Do I feel anxious around this person because they may be a threat? Or do I feel anxious because they are offering me actual safeness, understanding, freedom?

Again, we will answer these questions “wrong” sometimes. And that is OKAY. That is part of the process. It is part of the learning. It is part of getting to know ourselves.

Remember that first step of developing some self-compassion? Yeah, that. We always fall back on that.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t do the repair work we need to do when we cause harm in our relationships, in our world. We do that too. Having a history of trauma is not an excuse to cause harm and does not give us free pass to perpetuate harm.

We can be gentle with ourselves as we journey through this work. As we enter into, then retreat from, then enter into again, the unknown territory of breaking patterns and cycles, of learning what it is to be in truly loving and freeing relationships. Of owning the ways we cause harm to ourselves and others, and doing the work of repair without shame, but rather with the true intent and motivation to create change, within ourselves, within our relationships, and out in our world.

/../

This was originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on February 17, 2020. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe right here.

We will be learning ways to break patterns and cycles, to slow down and self-regulate, to come into our bodies and reclaim them as our own in the six month Trauma Informed Embodiment™ for Sexual Trauma Survivors (TIE STS) program that beings March 16. To learn more click here.

Filed Under: agitated state, anxiety, avoidant dismissive attachment, avoidant fearful attachment, breaking cycles, breaking patterns, childhood trauma, Collective Relational Trauma, Complex Trauma, Cultural Relational Trauma, developmental trauma, insecure anxious preoccupied attachment, insecure attachment, inter-generational trauma, intergenerational trauma, processing trauma

Dysregulation, compassion, & finding equilibrium

December 9, 2019 By gwynn

When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.
~Bessel A. van der Kolk

The only consistent thing about living as a human being is that change is inevitable.

Sometimes the changes that come our way are out of our control.  

Sometimes the changes that come our way we do not consent to.

Sometimes the changes that come our way stem from our own choices.

Sometimes the changes that come our way are our own choice, and still we may wish they didn’t happen.

Life is complex and rarely stagnant.

When big changes come our way, they can throw us off kilter.  Our systems may become dysregulated. Our old traumas may be triggered.  The change itself could be traumatic in its own way. This can happen even when a change is of our own conscious choosing.  

I have witnessed that basic human response to change, sometimes even to changes of our own choosing, is to fight like hell to return to the status quo – the way things were before the change.  This fight is almost always a losing battle.

The dysregulation our systems experience when change happens is inevitable.  Systems theory confirms that when a change happens within a system, the parts of the system will do all they can to find equilibrium again.  Sometimes we call this “finding our new normal” when it comes to the changes that come into our lives.  Until we find this equilibrium however, our systems, including our nervous systems, will be agitated. 

Change happens.  Dysregulation happens.  It is how we move through the changes, how we find our ways back to equilibrium, or our new normals, that matters.  How we do this is up to us and frankly is unique to each person and each situation.

And.

What I would love all of us to remember, including myself, is to have some compassion for the dysregulation that is an inevitable part of being human.  To have compassion for ourselves as we find our ways to the new normal of each new change in our lives.  To have some compassion for trying things and feeling like failing and trying different things until we are able to figure out what works for us. 

This is true even when the changes we experience are of our own choosing, are welcome, perhaps even wanted. It will still take time for us to find our feet again, to find that “new normal,” to get back to our equilibrium. 

Reminding ourselves that we are trying to find our way back to a “steady state” as we shift through a major or even minor life change is important, and is part of where our self-compassion comes in.  Giving ourselves the grace of knowing we are doing the best we can with the resources we have.  Slowing down to allow ourselves to feel the myriad of emotions that may be coming forward, some possibly expected and some probably not.  

We are all complex beings, and our life experiences are complex.  Sometimes change is welcome, and even in this welcoming for a short period the change will cause some amount of chaos and dysregulation.  Remember to be gentle with you.  Remember to give yourself time and space to breathe and feel all the feelings you are having.  Remember to be patient with yourself.  And most importantly remember to have compassion for yourself as you stumble along finding your ways to your own new normal. 

/../

This was originally written for my weekly(ish) newsletter on July 15, 2018. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

Filed Under: agitated state, anxiety, Change, Complex Trauma, developmental trauma, dysregulation, intergenerational trauma, processing trauma, Relating with trauma, Transitions, trauma, trauma informed care, Trauma Informed Embodiment

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