Recognizing patterns helps us learn to break them

Our brains love patterns; our bodies like to acclimate to habits; but our spirits cry out for the opportunities to create, explore and express curiosity. No wonder Substance Use Disorder strips us of our creativity, our drive to try new things and our ability to care about our world and its people!

Recognizing our patterns can be a challenge; the fact that we have patterns means, by definition, that after a good deal of practice they become mostly unconscious. Fortunately, people have studied such things and can help wake us up to the way we relate to our world. We want to learn this so that we can move forward in self-awareness, and make more conscious decisions about when a particular way of being is helpful to our goals versus when it is hindering our ability to change.

Just to be clear - these are changes that we decide we need or want to make because of who we are and want to be...not because someone said we needed to make them. These are volitional choices made with a clear head and an open heart.

Tomorrow we will look at three particular patterns, one of which you will especially relate to - we all have a favorite one of these ways of being in the world.