Why do issues repeat themselves?

“Patterns repeat because you’re meant to work through them.”

This article is about patterns. Or repetition of patterns.

Now, this is something I’ve noticed in my own life and in the lives of some of my clients who have come to me several times, or who have gone to several therapists over the course of their lifetime.

Not necessarily hypnotherapists, but, you know, different kinds of healings or therapy sessions—Reiki, Theta Healing, hypnotherapy, psychiatric issues, sometimes psychologists, or various other kinds of healers and therapists.

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Chapter 1 — When the Same Thing Keeps Happening

So, one recurring pattern that I noticed, and that led me to question the efficacy of therapies itself at one point of time, was that issues tend to repeat themselves in a person’s life.

A person might find themselves often in similar patterns of problems or similar circumstances as before—problematic circumstances that they have thought they have dealt with or gotten out of.

One of the common theories in holistic healing systems is that patterns repeat until you learn how to deal with them.

Patterns repeat because you’re meant to work through them.

And until you have successfully dealt with them and learned how to deal with such situations, they keep repeating in your life, no matter where you are.

It also goes to say that wherever you go, you bring your own mind with you, and thereby you take your own problems with you.

So, a person finding themselves in a situation like an issue with a mother might find themselves in similar issues with other relationships in their lives.

Even though the relationship might be different, the issues could be the same—repeating patterns.

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Chapter 2 — The After-Effect of Trauma

Now, another kind of pattern that I’ve seen repeat itself is the recurrence of the after-effect of trauma, even though the person has dealt with it in the past.

Let us say a person has gone through some trauma in their life that has caused them to react in a certain way to certain people. It has caused them to withdraw or change their behavior with others in a certain fashion, and it is not beneficial for them to behave like that, but that is unfortunately the effect of the trauma they’ve gone through.

Like, for instance, a person who has gone through some kind of abuse in a past relationship might have developed a set of coping mechanisms, defense mechanisms, that kind of put up a guard, you know, on relationships or similar relationships in the future.

And that might be causing the person from entering into similar relationships because the person is already on guard and is not giving a fair relationship a chance.

Or causing the person to react in similar fashions, like they did in the past.

The person might be on guard so much that they might be assessing the person, or the relationship, or the circumstances unfairly, or in a biased fashion, out of the fear that they do not want to repeat similar circumstances or put themselves in the same situation as in the past.

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Chapter 3 — When Protection Becomes the Pattern

For instance, I’m had a client who had been cheated on in her first romantic relationship in her life, and all subsequent relationships, she began to approach with caution, to the point where after a couple of failures, or a couple of similar circumstances she went through, she reversed the rules.

She would become the person who, by two-timing, or having multiple relationships at the same time, would make sure that she would not feel disappointed or traumatized when one relationship fails.

I’ve had another similar client with similar issues, but not perhaps that extreme.

But they developed a coping mechanism where even the slightest inkling or a doubt that the person is about to cheat her, or has an intention of cheating, she would dump them.

Even though, on one part of her—the rational part of her—she would argue that she doesn’t know if the person has a real intention of cheating her.

But it led her to deal with or treat all similar relationships, or even approaches by people, with suspicion and mistrust.

Now, if you look at these patterns, you might even recognize similar patterns in your life.

It may not be the same issue that I’m describing here, you might notice recurring patterns in your life.

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Chapter 4 — When You Thought You Had Healed

And like I’ve said, in this second kind of pattern that I’ve noticed, a client might have dealt with a similar issue in the past and have gone to therapy and have actually dealt with it.

But they noticed that even though they have assumed, or they thought, they had worked through the issue and worked down the emotional trauma behind it, and been able to let go of the past, being able to move beyond it and worked on the beliefs that came up because of the trauma of the past, there might be some times where the similar belief system or emotional buildup seems to repeat itself.

And they might find themselves stuck in the same cycle, or going back into the same cycle again.

Why does this happen?

Well, at one time, it kind of led me to even question the efficacy of therapy itself—the therapeutic systems that I was practicing, like hypnotherapy or Reiki healing. And I thought maybe I should explore other systems of healing.

But I’ve noticed similar patterns occurring in other therapeutic systems or other holistic healing systems as well, where I’ve had clients and friends and fellow therapists talk about their experiences of similar experiences.

For instance, I’ve had clients who have been trying to deal with an issue all through their life, and it’s been coming up several times, or they’ve noticed it come up a few times in their life.

And they’ve been to several therapies or a few therapies in the past, and had been pretty sure that they had dealt with it.

But now it’s repeating itself.

Or clients who have been trying to work through the same pattern all through their life.

Eventually, I’ve come to have deeper insights into this problem of repetition.

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Chapter 5 — How Much Are We Ready to Let Go?

So, it’s not easy to, if you think about it.

Personality is a sum of all experiences of the past and a reflection over those experiences of the past.

What we try to learn from the past and what we went through in the past.

And therefore, any therapy, if it involves shedding of such a personality, we can only shed as much as we are ready to at that point of time.

And sometimes, even though our rational mind is quite ready, emotionally, or egoically, we might find it very hard to let go of some parts of it because we still believe in that part of it.

I’ve had clients who, even though they approach therapy, have found it difficult to believe that they would be able to get rid of the issue completely.

They have kind of lost faith in healing or therapy and come to believe that life is what it is.

It is an accumulation, but not a shedding of, or clearance, according to them. That’s another reason why we do not let go fully.

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Chapter 6 — When the Pain Is Too Much

And like I’ve said, in some other instances, the resistance comes from a pain or hurt that has still not been processed.

The resistance comes because the past is too painful to work through.

So they are able to only let go of a certain amount of it because they’re only willing to look at a certain amount of the hurt.

And not fully be able to process it completely because the hurt is too much.

There have been instances where clients have left therapy halfway through because as soon as they hit, or regress to, the root cause and see what has been causing them the pain, they stop therapy immediately or suddenly because the pain is too much for them to handle.

I’ve had clients come back a few months or a few weeks after this, after them being able to look at the root cause, because now it took them that much longer for the pain to be processed.

And those are the cases where the clients allow the pain to be processed.

And there are instances where clients don’t come back because they shut back, they shut down the whole issue again because it’s too painful for them at that point of time.

Nothing wrong in doing that.

And in fact, it is sometimes very wise to do that because it means that they are not exactly entirely ready for it.

And they will come back, or go to healing, or healing will happen when they are ready for it.

It’s not necessary that healing always has to happen through therapy.

Incidents in their life also lead people to go through healing.

Life has a way of finding its—finding situations, or pushing itself to heal.

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Chapter 7 — When Life Gives You Another Opportunity

Now, that is where the first pattern occurs.

That is where, if you notice, in people’s lives, the repetition of an issue occurs because life itself, as an intelligence—a deeper intelligence—is pushing the person to deal with it.

Giving the person an opportunity, a second or a third or a fourth opportunity, to deal with the issue they’ve been trying to evade and not work with in their life.

Even though at some level they might be afraid, there is an intellectual fear built around it.

There is an aversion that they have built over the years to even approach the issue.

And life will eventually, I’ve noticed, take them into a situation where they will have to deal with it.

And that is an opportunity rather than a repetition of trauma or issue.

Because if you look at it, think about it—if you pause and reflect, or let a deeper reflection emerge—you will notice that this is the time, again, when you’re ready to deal with it now.

And you’ve given yourself a second chance, or a third chance, or a fourth chance.

Another chance to work through it.

And this might be the perfect opportunity for you to finally get rid of it.

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Chapter 8 — The Last Layers

Now, does that mean that these patterns keep on repeating themselves even though you have dealt with the trauma?

Do you need to keep dealing with it over and over and over and over again? Not necessarily.

Again, it’s because this might be repeating itself only because you still haven’t completely gotten over it.

You still haven’t shed the last parts of it, the last layers of it.

You haven’t shed the personality or beliefs around it that are false and have come because of fear rather than wisdom.

And for all I know—for who knows—this might be your last round of healing.

Now, this is where one of the things that happens.

This is where, again, sometimes clients believe that their therapy has not really been successful, even though initially they believed it was.

But now they attribute that relief to some kind of authentic release that temporarily happened.

But the issue has not, in reality, been dealt with.

It might be the case in some cases, but generally it could also be because you are now ready for the second round of healing.

It simply means, this is where—does that mean that you will have to keep going back to therapy again and again until it’s all done?

Perhaps, yes, if that is the route you prefer to.

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Chapter 9 — There Are Different Ways to Heal

There are, again, other channels of healing where people pick up self-help tools like Reiki or other meditation tools or mindfulness, or other techniques which help them deal with it by themselves.

This is possible if the pain is not, if the hurt is not too strong, and the technique they’ve picked up is gentle upon them instead of pushing them forcefully into it.

Now, it also can be, in some cases, that life circumstances itself heal the person.

Circumstances evolve, or situations, or events occur where a cathartic release, healing occurs by itself naturally too.

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Chapter 10 — The Patterns We Carry From Childhood

It’s not hard to find these recurring patterns in lives, especially the first pattern, where life situations keep recurring.

Similar relationships keep happening.

Similar financial circumstances keep happening in a person’s life.

Similar self-limiting beliefs present themselves strongly into the person’s life.

And it might feel as if the person has never really aged at all in this regard, and they are carrying still the same old feelings that they had as a child growing up.

It’s simply life’s way of telling you that:

Here is another place where you hear—here is another opportunity to deal with it.

Why don’t we deal with it now and get on with it?

Why don’t we get through at least the first round of therapy and healing before we are ready for the next?

And it’s only as gentle as you allow it to be.

If it feels strong, it simply means the pain, or the hurt, or the aversion, or the fear is strong, and you just need to work through it with some help.

Some outside help.

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The Final Thought

So…

If you find a pattern repeating in your life,

Maybe it’s time for you to…

Look at it head on.

And decide that it’s time to change it.