Making the same relationship mistakes?

Relationships are triggering!

Our close relationships tend to be the most triggering of all our connections. They get their power from the fact that they stir up unprocessed childhood feelings. 

There's actually a good reason why it's happening once again. You're engaging in a reenactment.

Okay, let's unpack that. 

Basically . . . we get drawn into replaying an important scene(s) from our life in the hopes of having a different ending.

This motive for a "different ending" isn't a mere thought nor is it insignificant. Your brain isn't driving you in this direction for some mysterious reason.

When during a childhood experience(s) the sense of yourself, your integrity, self-worth or self-esteem is assaulted it affects you on many levels. You hold that unfinished business in the deep recesses of your brain's data banks waiting for the right time for it to be rectified. 

The side effects of the nervous system holding this energy at bay—until it does get resolved—affects your health, behavior, emotions, and cognitive abilities. You see, as neuroscience explains, you can't separate your mind, body and emotions.

Notice that these major functions optimize your ability to survive in the world. So it's in the brain's best interest that you find a way to process and finish what didn't get done.

Just know that the "scene" from your past that I refer to above may look quite different from what you're dealing with today. However the script and energy that's driving your present day issue, is no doubt unmistakably familiar.

Ask yourself, where has this theme showed up in your life?

Relationship Repeat Patterns:
Going down the same road

Recognize this?

We'll repeat statements (eg. "You're always on my case." "It's your fault.") even tho it rarely generates a positive step forward.

Making the Same Relationship Mistakes: There's a Good Reason

Yes, we'll repeat a reaction even though it hasn't worked in the past. 

On the outside this repetitive remark might not appear to serve a purpose. However, there is meaning in the madness . . . as they say. 

Unconsciously, you learned to avoid getting your parents upset with your concerns as it seemed the family was already under stress.

That's an optimal strategy that works for a while. 

So in later intimate relationships, you found it hard to assert your needs especially if you felt they were at odds with your partner. (You see, as a child when 'attuned care' is limited, you'll learn to tolerate more than you care to and you'll naturally give up your needs to preserve the family's survival.)

Eventually, you end up feeling your partner doesn't care. A string of failed relationships leaves you feeling the exact same way, unheard and uncared about.

No matter how positive the relationship starts, it eventually plays out the same familial pattern you're familiar with. 

Despite your ability to observe these patterns, you inevitably feel powerless to avoid reenacting the same scenario.

Relationship Mistakes Emerge from Childhood Early Patterns 

Finally, after doing enough of your own personal work working with triggers related to the deficits you experienced growing up, you begin to develop a sense for how the pattern starts and how you get drawn into it.

Most importantly, you do necessary healing. In time, you're no longer triggered into making the same relationship mistakes.

You can maintain your equanimity even if the discussion becomes a little heated.
How awesome is that!

To the outside observer, repetitive reenactments look really confusing. It's hard to understand why you go from one miserable situation to another.

Let's take a classic example. For instance, let's say, I've had a series of relationships that have all ended badly. My partners have eventually all become physically abusive.

Thing is, initially, it sure didn't look like this was coming down the pike. In fact, each new partner felt distinctively different and I was so hopeful that this time around he was a keeper.

Yet, "the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree". In other words, each new partner ended up having the same MO as the last and the patterns of abuse continued.

We actually relive these moments frequently.

Imagine this scenario.

In response, her mother recalls a similar experience she had as a young girl. She bitterly remembers her own mother telling her to stop making a rukus. She now feels anxious at her daughter's liveliness and exuberance. She moves to temper her daughter's excitement.

"Now Marnie, settle down."

This message was repeated in many words, in many ways, over many occasions and over many years.

Jump twenty years into the future. That same child is now a grown woman. One sunny morning as Marnie looks at the beauty of the scene from her back deck, tears form in her eyes. She is in awe. "Isn't it beautiful" she exclaims to her husband. 

In response, he remarks, "Yeah, yeah Marnie", as he exclaims dismissively. "We've got to get going. We've got things to do."

Marnie collapses internally and in despair thinks to herself, "I don’t know why I said that, I don’t' know why I thought it could be any different."

Marnie was hoping to have a shared moment with her husband, a moment during which she felt "seen".

A new way of looking at relationship reenactments

Reenactments are an attempt to free oneself from the blocked energy of an historical experience. We feel drawn or compelled to recreate dynamics in our interactions with others (including other events) in ways that trigger the emotional pain of earlier experiences.

Owing to the interconnectivity of the brain, the present day reenactment naturally triggers the neuropathways related to that past event. In this way, the new heals the old.

The term reenactment is synonymous with trauma. A popular example is the sexually abused girl who grows up to become a prostitute. She is theorized to be engaging in a reenactment.

If a pattern is laid down during a traumatic event(s), the successful resolution of trauma enables us to discharge the 'fight or flight' energy that otherwise is immobilized in the nervous system.

More typically, we are unaware of the act of reenactment and confound ourselves by our own behaviour. Sometimes we rationalize around it; other times, as mentioned above, we completely block it from awareness.

Bringing consciousness to our behaviour aids in the process of preventing the reenactment but even consciousness may not be enough. A full resolution of the fight/flight energy may be required.

Reenactments arise from the body's innate wisdom

According to Chinese medicine, emotional pain held in the body requires energy to contain it. Too much pain essentially means too many body resources are being devoted to containment, robbing the body's defenses of its capacity to mobilize against threat and to repair damaged cells, organs, glands etc.

So it is natural that the body/mind would devise ways to increase the chances of getting rid of this unwanted energy. (And you thought that the left "logical" brain was the only one controlling the show…)

Neuroscience to the rescue!

Not everyone has the option of going to psychotherapy and there's no guarantee that your therapist does this type of work.

Nonetheless, for a courageous few, it is possible to work through your triggers. Once you understand the plan, you can actually give your brain experiences it can learn from through imagination.

If you'd like to learn more, consider my program: Eliminate Triggers with DeCoding the Brain.

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