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  • Writer's picture Zalman Nelson - Therapist

What Are Life Patterns?


✅Life Patterns are the key to being more positive and productive…having fulfilling relationships…getting free of anxiety, fear, and panic...overcoming feelings of insecurity and rejection...and breaking the cycles of self-defeating behavior.

You aren’t the problem in your life. Your Life Patterns are.

A Life Pattern is a pattern that starts in childhood and reverberates throughout life. It began with something that was done to us by our families or by other children. We were abandoned, criticized, overprotected, excluded, or deprived–we were damaged in some way.

Eventually, the Life pattern becomes part of us. Long after we leave the home we grew up in, we continue to create situations in which we are mistreated, ignored, put down, or controlled and in which we fail to reach our most desired goals.

They are deeply entrenched beliefs about ourselves and the world that were learned early in life. They are central to our sense of self: giving them up means surrendering the security of knowing who we are and what the world is like. Therefore, we cling to it, even when it hurts us.

These beliefs provide us with a sentence of predictability and certainty: they’re comfortable and familiar. In an odd sense, they make us feel at home. This is why Life patterns are so difficult to change.

So, there are two sides to you, two voices at odds with each other inside you. The loud and dominant side is your ego, your inner critic, your Life Patterns. It’s a mask covering who you truly are. A fake picture of the real you. You’ve become addicted to a false sense of self; an untrue story you tell yourself about who you are.🤬