How do I start Noticing Patterns of behavior?

One of the things I mentioned in yesterday\’s blog post about Patterns of Behavior is that I started to notice the stories I told myself were not matching up to the reality that I was living. This is where I started to have light bulb moment, after light bulb moment of awareness, and in turn, was more confident in trusting the changes that must occur for the betterment of self and those around me.

I can talk forever about the various things I have learned about myself, but I wanted to take those things I noticed and transform them into maybe some sort of guide that can help you use as an example to transform your life today or soon … do not forget I have a goal mapping session that is private and helps you learn to use these tips & tricks in your life on a more personal and clear way that works for your invidual situation.

When I moved up to the North Country here in New Hampshire, something shifted inside of me. I have previously experienced similar temporary shifts when walking along the ocean shores or hiking up into the mountains around the New England area, mostly NH and VT, but this was more permanent and more beckoning to my soul.

I felt this draw from an inner space that was something I could not ignore. I had to trust whatever this was and listen to the calling. This led me to running into an ex, this led me to getting a specific job, and this led me to trusting other processes in my life, such as the divorce I referenced yesterday.

Emotions are Interesting

I started to practice observing myself from the outside in. This means that I started spending a lot of time looking at the feelings I had/have arisen in various moments. This could look something like, \”I feel triggered\”. Wow, that\’s interesting!

I start to pause and recognize the triggered feeling, which could be anger, sadness, nervousness, or similar feelings. I place a label on the feeling, but I don\’t get caught up in what the feeling is; rather, I now step outside of myself to visit what\’s going on with my environment in this moment.

I look around, without judgment, at what is happening on face value. Perhaps this was the first step to me realizing that I had been lying to myself about what was really happening in my life for the last six years.

As I started to feel various emotions, I realized that the life I had been living and saying was stable, secure, and safe, actually wasn\’t quite any of those things. Sure, on surface level it appeared to be fine – the shelter of an apartment or a camper, the smiles in the photographs, or the experiences of hiking and enjoying nature – it all appeared to be safe, stable, and secure, but behind the surface there were many cracks that had started way back in 2019 that had been there long before I started to be an adult.

Yup, that\’s the truth! The feelings and reality started to make me see that I had been trained that my love wasn\’t as important as the needs of my parents or other elders. They did their best; this is never to blame anyone; it is simply my part of the journey I am on to recognize where some of my patterns of behavior were perhaps established.

I had clues over the years that the family shared with me. A time when I was a young toddler circling my mom, saying I love you over and over again, only to be met with a mom who was annoyed with me. I can see a pattern of me being the enemy in some ways, because I was born to a 15-year-old human.

Can you imagine what the feelings were there? Life is over, and I am obviously to blame for that.

I am not saying whether that was right or wrong; it just is, and it makes LOTS OF SENSE to me. I probably would struggle with similar emotions at age 15, becoming an unplanned mother. I love my Mom, and that needs to be stated in case you read this, Mom, I LOVE YOU.

Can you imagine how that started to train my little girl brain?

I quite possibly overcompensate my love and expression of it to try to give that Little Brandy a bit of extra love and attention. I feel like if I overdo it, and give more of myself than I should, even at the risk of depleting myself, that maybe I will find that person who is not annoyed with my love but will express love back.

Maybe I learned from a young age, and this example that I had to put the needs of my elders and those around me before my own. I simply wanted love. I was a kid, an innocent kid full of love and joy in a world that, like many of us, slowly withers away those joyous parts of us in a guise to \”fit in\” or \”be more tolerable\”.

Again, I must clarify that I am not sharing this to say it is good or bad. It just is.

This is just one example, but there are many others. I learned that physical attention must mean love, and that if someone has sex with you, they obviously love you. This is not true. How did I realize this was not true?

Well, I started to notice how I felt after experiencing this deeply connected point with another adult. I didn\’t feel that loving connection; I felt sad, lost, used, abandoned, and unloved.

Now isn\’t that interesting?! I also used alcohol to avoid and cope with such feelings, but more on that another day.

Once I started to peel away these layers and more, I noticed that I had to refrain from sexual contact and alcohol as a coping mechanism to truly find more of myself and give Little Brandy more love.

The years without sex, quite honestly, transformed even more of me. Without the distraction of chemical cave man connections, I was better able to clearly work on my shadow side and inner child wounds. I began to notice those emotions I shared earlier in this post, and defined them and worked through them to give them a bit of love and acceptance.

To this day, I pause and self-reflect in any situation, whether it be FULL of love and light or FULL of nervous energy and sadness. I evaluate. I pause. I allow myself to be in the moment and recognize more layers that are starting to surface as I make new connections and mend old connections.

I believe that you must be open to realizing that you are the one constant in your life that you can change. You must be ready to begin unraveling the pieces of yourself that you hid from the world. You need to be honest with yourself about the people around you and what value they have in your life as of today.

You must pause and ask yourself about the choices you are making today. Are these choices more of your inner child fear, or are they coming from a place of wholeness that is a flow that feels so right that you cannot define it to others; you simply must trust it. If at any moment you pause your choice out of fear, you need to recognize that feeling and figure out where it is coming from.

As you continue to build yourself better, you must recognize that fear is supposed to be a protection mechanism from true danger, but we were taught to fear judgment and abandonment rather than using fear for safety purposes.

If nothing else, I hope that you can pause today and recognize that you deserve the type of connections that allow you to be yourself fully. We are in such a rush to find a partner and build a family that we rarely take the time to see if that person is truly aligned with the darker and lighter parts of who we are. Can we be our full version around them? Can we come from a space of love in our darkness and lightness with them?

I cannot answer those questions for you, but I can help you work through them. The darkness that you have within you is not bad. Nor is the lightness you have within you all good. Each of these energies mesh together to form a dance, and when you find that soul in a human body that matches your light and dark with opposing desires and needs, or such, magic happens.

You can only get to that space of meeting the other half of your light and dark sides when God feels that you both are ready for this journey together. The key is to work through your emotions, be observant, recognize your patterns, give love to the inner child within you, and become more confident in who you are and never, ever lose that again – even if you meet your magical partner in this lifetime. Recognize who they are, and be grateful for them every day, for you wouldn\’t have met them if you were not ready and did not do the work you\’ve done thus far.