We repeat old worn-out patterns, patterns of responding, choosing, acting, that don’t work and don’t produce happy outcomes. Through a process of psychotherapy, we begin to see evidence, glimpses of these patterns at work. Psychotherapy involves a process of looking at patterns in relationships, beginning with our earliest relationships. These “object relations”, that is, relations between our self and other people, formed during our childhood, establish the patterns that informs our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Therapy begins with uncovering these patterns, then recognizing them when they are occurring in our present relationships. We begin to recognize these patterns when they are operating in the present moment, even the moments within the therapy session. When we can recognize these patterns as they begin to operation we can make choices to respond in a more helpful way. We new responses occur, they form a new healthier pattern. Will we still zig and zag? Of course, but with greater intentionality and beginning from a healthier, more stable place.
Zigging and Zagging
Life isn’t always easy; maybe it never is easy. I suppose there are those among us who have never made mistakes or made the wrong decision or chosen the wrong path, but I don’t know who they might be. As for me and everyone I know, life seems to be filled with “zigged when you should have zagged” moments. How we respond to these moments seems important. We can just blot them out of our mind; sort of “no crying over spilt milk” or “Tomorrow is another day,” as the movie Scarlet O’Hara would say. In a sense, what is done is done and we must live with the outcome. Of course, we can blame others for spoiling a good decision or beguiling us into an unwise decision. We can even re-write history, convincing ourselves and others that our choice was what we had planned all along, even if we know that isn’t so. This is all okay when we learn from our mistake, learn to make a different choice, or learn to gather crucial information that we hadn’t gathered before. But what if we don’t learn? What if we don’t even see our mistake as a mistake? What if we fall into a pattern of repeating the same mistake over and over, believing that the bad outcome is some random intrusion of fate? How do we come to recognize these patterns when they are part of our experience of living and influence every choice and every act, big or small? Recognizing these patterns, and then changing them, is part of the psychotherapy process.