Breaking Free From Unhealthy Patterns: Why We Repeat Old Mistakes

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in scenarios that repeat themselves over and over. Same patterns but with different people at different timings. Like a Déjà vu, we know we’ve been there before. Mistakes are lessons in disguise, they keep repeating themselves over and over until we know what we need to learn, or figure out the message behind them. 

 

We wonder why we keep on dating partners so similar to those we run away from, and why we can’t manage to keep that job we tried very hard to get. We don’t know why yet again make choices we once regretted before and find it so hard to change behaviors that drag us into situations we don’t really like. It is unfair, and also irrational, to think that we willingly, fully, choose to repeat the same mistakes, even if we know the consequences we face. There is a reason – though we might not be aware of – why we repeat mistakes of the past.

 

Because we want to recreate happier endings to old sad stories. Sometimes it is hard for us to accept an ending we didn’t want. We draw a picture of how a story should look in the end, whether it is a romantic relationship, a career endeavor, a worthwhile friendship, or a family reconciliation. Then, when things don’t go the way we want, we want to recreate the past, hoping we can put a better ending, yet we forget to look deeper into why it didn’t end the way it did.

 

Because we still can’t figure out what we are supposed to learn. An experience will keep repeating itself over and over again, until we figure out where we went wrong; until we know what we should have done differently. Only when we see where the mistake is that we will be able to break the pattern.

 

Because we have unresolved emotional patterns. Most of our mistakes are not necessarily out of habit, but rather directly tied to unresolved emotional baggage from the past; patterns that we have formed as a response to certain triggers, bad experiences, or childhood issues. Only when we look deeper into ourselves to heal the wounds left open, we will be able to break free from these emotional patterns that push us towards the same mistakes.

 

Because we hold tight to what’s familiar. We’d mostly choose the discomfort of our current situation over the fear of the unknown. Sometimes we choose the same path – even if it will leave us astray – because we know the steps throughout the way, we can expect when and where it will lead us. We feel comforted with the little knowledge that we have rather than throwing ourselves into something we know nothing about.

 

It is true we loathe mistakes, we reprimand ourselves when we repeat them, we wonder how stupid can we be to keep on doing the same things over and over again. But then, it is only when we know what these mistakes are here to fix that we will be able to rid ourselves of their burden, move on, and look forward in the right direction.