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The past is in the past. Is it really?
If you have a streak of broken relationships with crazy exes and wild drama, your past is not really in the past. It’s still alive. In fact, it’s possessing you and making you act out the same tragedies that traumatized you in the first place.
Maybe as William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
That said, let’s quickly explore 7 possible reasons why you find yourself in the same shithole over and over again.
Why? So that you can have a peaceful relationship without broken china dishes or, worse, hearts.
Reason #1: Fantasies
The past will keep repeating itself when we hold on to our immature, juvenile fantasies instead of reality.
Imagine you had 10 colored mugs in front of you. And you had to choose a specific color each time.
One problem, though. You’re wearing rose-colored glasses.
It’s almost certain you’ll always make the wrong choice every time.
And I’m not talking about mugs! Take off your rose-colored glasses and see things as they really are — not as you wish they were.
Reason #2: Kissing our opened wounds
The past will repeat itself until we understand what wound we are foolishly (and inefficiently) trying to heal…
…and then heal it in the right way.
Let’s say your leg is broken. It hurts like mad. You’re in terrible pain as a result.
However, let’s pretend that, for a mysterious reason, you didn’t know that the source of this pain was your leg. You were just in pain.
So, you try to ease this pain using all sorts of things. You sleep, drink, and take random medications. This helps you feel less pain for a while, but since your leg is still broken, the pain always comes back. Stronger!
You think you have tackled the source of the pain and that you’ll be fine this time. But because you don’t know that it’s your leg that’s broken, and you’re doing things that won’t help it heal, you end up with even more pain.
You’re on this roller coaster of feeling pain, medicating it, and then feeling even more pain.
Feel attacked?
Tune in to your reality to figure out where the wound is. Then, work on healing it. Only then can you stop the same pain from damaging your life over and over again.
Reason #3: Navigating the world with an outdated map
It will repeat itself when we don’t reflect on it and extract the lessons we failed to learn at first/initially.
This is like running east looking for a sunset. You’ll never find it. You will fail. But more importantly, you will encounter many signs telling you that you’re on the wrong path.
However, you don’t pay attention. You don’t sit down after a long day thinking about why you didn’t reach.
For one, you don’t notice that shadows should’ve been pointing towards a specific direction, but they weren’t. And you don’t reflect on the possible reasons for your failure (one of which is that you are heading east).
Failure is not a bad thing unless you learn nothing from it. When you do not reflect (not dwell) on your failures, you fail to extract the lessons you need to move forward. And that is one of the ways you keep repeating the same stupid mistakes.
Sometimes, we fail to reflect because doing so is scary. Who wants to admit they were stupid enough to head east while looking for sunset? Who wants to face the repressed demons they have been running from their entire lives?
. . . which leads us to the next point.
Reason #4: Too scared to look under your bed?
The past will keep repeating itself when we are too cowardly to look under our beds and confront the monsters that lay down there.
Imagine there were real monsters under your bed. You can balance that by imagining, as well, that you are not a child anymore (which you are not by now).
Now, you have 2 options.
- Sleep and get attacked suddenly by ruthless monsters.
- Go down there and face them.
If you hide in your bed sheets and sleep, here is what will happen. The monsters will come to attack you when you are hiding and trying to cry yourself to sleep. Even if you are not hiding or crying, they will attack you when you are asleep, which is when you are the most vulnerable.
If you choose to go down and face them, there are possible scenarios:
- You kill them. You don’t come back.
- They kill you. You come back and sleep safely.
I think you get the idea by now. There are no monsters under your bed, but there are demons in your past that you need to kill (or they will attack you when you’re the least prepared and most vulnerable).
If you don’t, you will repeat the same miserable mistakes.
And if you think you don’t have such demons in your past, maybe you should read the next point . . .
Reason #5: Arrogance and ego
It will keep repeating itself, painfully, when we’re too egoistic and arrogant to admit that maybe, just fucking maybe, we’re doing something wrong.
Isn’t it possible?
I don’t like explaining myself to arrogant people, so I’ll say nothing.
However, there’s another subtle, covert type of arrogance that looks like this
. . .
Reason #6: Waiting for the magic to happen
As long as we’re not willing to do something about what we’re doing wrong, it will keep repeating itself.
This is for people with the mentality of, “I am waiting for the right person/partner.” after every failed relationship.
They fail to see a connection between the fact that all their exes are batshit crazy and what that says about them.
They typically ask questions like, “How do I find the right partner?” In reality, this is the wrong question. And they usually mean the following, “how do I find a partner who will make me happy without me having to change my toxic, intolerable behavior and without me having to become better.”
Like the sleeping beauty, they’re waiting for the kiss of a prince who will save their lives.
The right question is, “How do I make myself the right partner?”
If you do not, the past will keep repeating itself.
Reason #7: Why change if I’m getting everything I want (and enjoying it)?
As long as we’re enjoying the “secondary gains” we get from being in a toxic situation, we will keep repeating the past and recreating the same hurtful situations.
There is a term for that. It is called enabling.
Enabling is caused by too much understanding, empathy, and tolerance. It’s when someone is behaving like shit, and you take their BS instead of holding them accountable.
By enabling them, you’re telling them it’s okay to act like this and that there will be no consequences. So, why would they ever stop?
Toxic people typically prefer enablers over secure people with solid boundaries. Why? Because secure people, while they can be understanding and empathetic, will eventually hold them accountable.
In short, you will keep repeating the same patterns until you hold yourself accountable and listen to those whose advice might be too painful to hear.
Telling someone I care about that they’re playing the victim role and that they need to change is the ultimate demonstration of love. Not accepting them as they are.
…
I hope this was helpful
If you enjoyed reading this, Get free 12 practical tips on how to:
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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