Patterns for Living

Humans are patterning geniuses. We watch our mom and dad walk and then begin to seek to move on our own two legs-exactly as they walk. We watch and listen to the people around us speak. We then imitate the utterances we hear and so learn our native language. We witness how the people in our world behave toward one another and we set about to reflect this behavior in the process of our relating to those people around us. And we do this (and so much more) without giving it all that much conscious thought.

Imitating the patterns of others and developing our own patterns for thinking and living is as natural as breathing. In fact, it is so much like breathing that we often do not take enough notice of what patterns we are imitating. We tend to think that our patterns are part of out core identity. "This is just the way I am." More often than not, however, our patterns are a product of a random response to stimuli. They are not who you are. They are simply what-up until now-you have learned to do!

A toddler sees a spider. He ambles over, picks it up and puts in into her mouth or possibly ignores it. Another toddler, however, could see the same spider and randomly experience terror: from that moment until now, she has a phobic response to spiders.

Think of a marquee outside of movie theater: one that is made up of hundreds of light bulbs. Imagine for a moment that this is what your brain looks like. Now, over the span of your life, those lights have quite often responded to stimuli in a random manner. There was no conscious thought or choice as to what the lights would spell, what lights would be flicked on, what lights would remain dark. In certain circumstances, your brain randomly spelled out the word/response "fear."

From then until now, your pattern of responding to the same circumstances has remained the same: "fear." In other situations you first encountered, the lights randomly spelled out, "shame" or "pleasure." It has lighted up the same lights ever since. Whatever the pattern "spells," it was created by a random response to stimuli.

The wiring in your brain has often been arranged without any conscious participation on your part. Sometimes the results have been useful, but at the others times not so useful.

The fact is that you can rewire your brain. You can learn to have other responses. You have a choice as to what words (experiences) are spelled out on the marquee of your brain! You have unconsciously learned specific patterns that dictate how you are managing, interpreting and experiencing your life. The demonstrable fact is that you have learned these patterns quite well. This proves that you can easily learn other patterns that will be more useful to you.

I knew a man who learned to depend on drugs. He took enough narcotics to put an elephant to sleep, and he did this for 10 years. Every day. He told me that this was who he was. He had developed this pattern in response to some difficult challenges he had faced a decade ago. Now, he no longer had any choices as to his responses. (His words.)

Not long after his wedding, his wife discovered this particular pattern and said that there would no sexual patterns created between them until he stopped taking the drugs. From that day on he has been drug free. How did this happen? Well, to begin with, he loved and desired his wife more than he desired narcotics. He also feared losing her more than he feared the foreseen pain of withdrawing from drug dependency. From that day on drugs were associated with fear of the terrifying pain of losing his wife: being drug free was associated with…some pretty phenomenal sexual patterns. (His words.)

It is TOO that easy!

You can decide right now to change whatever you wish to change about yourself. Just as you easily learned to walk and talk- two very difficult accomplishments-you can decide to learn other things.

Decide. Now. Choose. Now. Declare war on all that stands in the way of your Quest. Make a covenant with yourself, with the universe, with God, to begin making the sort of choices that lead to joy, health, usefulness and productivity. No more death-producing choices for you!

You may have to fight for a while after you have made these choices, but you can make the choice this very moment.

You have been allotted so much time on this earth: stop wasting it. Another second just past. What are you going to start doing differently so as to pack more and more truth, goodness, grace, nobility and beauty into your life? Ten seconds just past. What changes in your behavior, your belief systems and in your relationships are you about to make to see to it that no more seconds are wasted? The clock is ticking.

And I am not writing here solely about what to stop doing but what to start doing, as well.

When I was a freshman, I set out to major in voice and minor in piano. At the beginning of the second semester my piano instructor, Mr. Nelson, asked me what really wanted in life. Something in his voice told me that he was not convinced I r-e-a-l-l-y wanted t give my life to music.

As I began to defend my commitment to music, he said, No, no …what do you want to give your life to accomplishing? What are you willing to give every ounce of your energy to mastering? You enjoy piano and voice. You are very talented. You love piano and voice…yet, you do not appear to wish to marry either of them."

He went on to explain that I could have a successful career in music. He was not questioning my potential or my skill. What he was questioning, he said, was the depth of my commitment and the level of energy I was willing to focus upon learning these skills. He was not convinced I was doing what I really loved and was concerned that I was wasting precious moments in my journey. (Not to mention wasting my parent's money!)

At an early age I had discovered that learning musical instruments came easy to me. I foolishly concluded that this was the only skill I could master, the only "pattern" available to me for generating income. But if I would learn this pattern, learn these skills, what other skills could I learn, just as easily?

Who do you really wish to become? What sort of behaviors/patterns do you really wish to learn? What skills would you love to master? Start choosing. Now.

The Process

Some people have difficulty choosing other directions than the ones they have been going in because they never replaced the old patterns with learning new ones. Or, they chose to learn new patterns that were not all that motivating for them.

Choosing to stop behaving in a certain way is insufficient. It lacks the answer to the question, "Where to, now?" And if the "where to" does not capture your imagination, does not grab your heart and mind, you may very will return to the old ways, the old habits, the old patterns.

Get a pencil and paper-or sit down at your computer. Start describing in as vivid as details as possible who you wish to become. Start with three months from right now. What will you be doing? How will you be behaving? Be specific. What will other people hear, see, feel, smell when are around you? How will you be experiencing life differently from your present experience? (Do not write about what you will not be doing or not be feeling.) Who WILL you be becoming? What WILL you be doing and experiencing? Do the same thing for 1 year from now and 5 years from now and 10 years from now. Put as much content as possible into this.

Next. What do you need to do so as to make these changes? Specifically. Write down everything that comes to mind. Keep writing. When you have finished, write some more. What are the actual steps that you will want to take to insure your progress? Once you have completed your "how-to-get-there" list, place the steps in some sort of order of importance. "I will do this today. I will do that by next Friday. I will do this, next month."

Now. Ask yourself this. "What resources do I possess that will serve me here?" Then, "What will I need that I do not as yet have that will serve me in this part of my Quest?" Allow me to make a few suggestions.

Do you need a new set of friends? Surround yourself with people who inspire you, with people whose behaviors you wish to model (pattern). Hang out with people who are wiser than you are.

Do you need a coach? Do you need someone who will help you make the changes you are committing to making? Do you need some trusted people with whom you can form an accountability group: a place where you can say, "These are my goals, my commitments and my time frames-hold me accountable"?

Do you need more information about the choices that are available to you? Are you presently stuck in the limiting belief that you only have 1 or 2 choices? Some people do not yet see all the possibilities that are available in this life and do not see how many choices that they can create for themselves. Hanging out with successful people will help here, as will reading biographies of successful people.

Attending one of our Seminars can support you in this quest, also.

Study people whose behaviors and skills you wish to model. Start studying and modeling people that have health relationships. Study people who, over a lifetime, were constantly overcoming challenges and attaining their goals: what choices were involved?

Finally, change your patterns for 30 days. When you brush your teeth, use your non-dominate hand: same with combing your hair. Look for alternative routes for commuting to your office. Go see movies that, up until now, you would never go see. If you have always put your pants on by first placing in your right leg, change legs!

When you do what you have always done you will get what you have always gotten. The object of the above exercises is to look for different patterns and to discover what can be seen or heard or experienced when you do things differently.

This includes things that you already do well. Great, you know how to do "x" in a particular way. Go learn to do it another way. Success can breed laziness. Teach your brain to look for new patterns. Always playing to your strengths will leave you weak in other areas of your life. Actively seek to discover new patterns.

Self-Awareness