Insight: Understanding the mind and the patterns we get stuck in is being done by the mind, and we are not the mind. If we’re asking ourselves, “How do ‘I’ understand my pattern, but still repeat them?”, our awareness has become identified with the mind and is using itself to try to fix itself, but the intention behind that, presupposes that something is broken.
If it were true and the mind was able to fix the problem, it would contradict the assumption that it is broken, so it ends up finding more problems about itself to fix. Plus, it is starting this journey from a fixed paradigm that something is broken that needs fixing. But, fixing it doesn’t remove or shift the paradigm, because the existence of the problem was generated by the paradigm.
To fix it requires awareness to observe the mind and realise there is nothing wrong with you, your mind, or anything about your sense of self. The problem is believing the mind’s story that there’s a problem and giving the mind the attention and authority to fix it.
As soon as we become aware at any point in a pattern, it can be interrupted by making a different choice. The more times we do this the less the pattern will have control over us and will eventually stop appearing in awareness.
Breaking Down the Insight
“Understanding the mind and the patterns we get stuck in is being done by the mind, and we are not the mind. If we’re asking ourselves, “How do ‘I’ understand my patterns, but still repeat them?”, our awareness has become identified with the mind and is using itself to try to fix itself, but the intention behind that, presupposes that something is broken.”
What this essentially means is, the mind thinks it is broken and tries to fix itself. The mind consists of beliefs, thoughts, and emotions.
Beliefs influence the thoughts we think > thoughts create emotions > emotions influence our decisions > decisions turn into actions > actions form our patterns.
But none of this is who we are. We can be aware of all of this happening in awareness, and from that place, make different choices.
If I’m thinking to myself:
- “why do I still do this pattern?”
- “I understand the pattern, so why am I still stuck?”
- “why can’t I change?”
…it’s because I have a mistaken identity as these thoughts, and these thoughts are literally telling me what they believe:
“I” am in a pattern
The pattern is bad
I need to escape the pattern
If I understand the pattern, I’ll be able to get out of it
I can’t get out of the pattern
I need to change
Change is hard
What is wrong with me?
And so on…
So you see our thoughts hijack our attention into believing we are them and that there is something broken about us that we need to fix.
“it [the mind] is starting this journey from a fixed paradigm that something is broken that needs fixing. But, fixing it doesn’t remove or shift the paradigm, because the existence of the problem was generated by the paradigm.”
This is the paradigm we get trapped in where the mind gets fused with awareness and we lose ourselves in the thinking and in the drama.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s the paradigm we developed in early childhood to protect ourselves, to get our needs met, or to enforce a boundary, or assert our identity.
However, the pattern is only effective in the short term. If we didn’t feel safe, valued, cared for, competent, or unique in childhood, the patterns provided relief, because it helped us secure these needs, but only temporarily.
So, it’s not effective in the long run, but still pretty impressive!
The problem is that we get hooked by the feeling of relief that the pattern provides us. If the root of the belief structure isn’t changed, we continue our patterns into adulthood.
“To fix it requires awareness to observe the mind and realise there is nothing wrong with you…”
Here’s what’s important…
We do not need to go looking for the beliefs, understand, or overanalyse the pattern to get out of it.
We simply commit to making a different choice.
That choice can be:
Noticing the pattern > taking deeper breaths > practice patient with yourself > thank your mind for trying to keep you safe or meet a core need > tell your mind you are safe now > take a new preferred action towards change.
You’re not changing yourself, you’re no longer acting from inside the pattern.
You may need to do things that feel unfamiliar that require new skills, but we all have the capacity to learn, grow, reflect, and adjust. It is this very process that updates the minds operating system to stop trusting the old pattern, and start trusting your new inner guidance.
“The more times we do this the less the pattern will have control over us and will eventually stop appearing in awareness.”
Everything we experience is happening within awareness. Thoughts, sensations in the body, emotions, images, memories, sounds, behaviours.
All of this makes up the patterns we can observe. But if we aren’t observing the pattern and are caught within it, then it’s impossible to get out of it.
If we can recognise our patterns, but are still struggling to get out of them, it means there is still a part of us influencing our will to make a new choice. We might allow ourselves to continue the pattern for a variety of reasons, but these reasons don’t really matter. Fixating on the reasons is just another trick the mind plays to keep us in the loop.
The only way out is the recognition that the mind has played a phenomenal role in trying to protect us.
But there is another part of us that wants freedom. This part of us is what we truly are. This is the part of ourselves we need to focus on, listen to, and feel into what it is guiding us to.
However, it doesn’t mean to completely ignore or abandon the parts of ourselves that keep the patterns alive. All we need to do is give them love and gratitude for doing such an amazing job or keeping us safe, but that we now know of a better way to keep us safe, that will also bring us freedom, joy, purpose, and abundance.
This intuitive and deeper part of you may not know all the steps or exactly how it will be able to do any of this, but it trusts itself. When the mind starts to trust this intelligence, it no longer keeps pulling us back into patterns that disempower us – and instead, assists us in our liberation.