Breaking the Pattern
Chapter 1 – The Pattern I Didn’t Know I Was In
He didn’t call me by my name.
He called me ‘She’ or ‘Her’.
To me then, it meant worthlessness.
To me now, ‘She’ carries Reverence.
I didn’t know I was conditioned, repeating a pattern. I thought I was just living my life.
Making choices. Falling in love. Working hard. Coping and surviving.
What I couldn’t see was that I was moving inside a script that had been written long before I even learned to read it. And until I recognised it, I was not free, in fact the opposite. I wasn’t just captive in my family home, I continued long into adulthood to keep myself imprisoned in my own head, mental loops became torturous until eventually I was crawling to get out of my own skin.
There are roles we play so convincingly we forget they were ever roles at all, blind sided by all the things we ‘should’ be.
I called it resilience. I called it independence.
I did not call it conditioning or programming because I lived in a comfort zone of denial and avoidance. I didn’t see it was a pattern running. Not yet.
It is easier to allow the resentment to boil up, to blame circumstances, people, timing. I pointed the finger a lot, in anger and irritation.
It was harder to realise that I was doing it to myself, unconsciously recreating familiar emotional landscapes because they felt like home. Even when home hurt, which it did every day.
Mine is a classic heroes tale from adversity to success - but those things mean something different to each of us, we all have a unique lens. I hope sharing mine will offer a contrary perspective that helps you question your own patterns as I share some of the stories, lessons and practices that shaped my journey arc.
I love bold ‘out there’ thinking, it’s edgy and I am an advocate for dancing at the edges because this is how we grow and evolve. I became a runaway rebel, on a mission. I’m now part of your revolution - did you realise we were in one?!
I’m still peeling away the masked layers day by day - it takes time and gentle steps to come into a rhythm that will allow self reflection and an opening of our self awareness. It is only through this awareness that we can disrupt the subconscious patterns we run and re-programme ourselves.
We first have to step back from the external noise to recognise that we even have these patterns running, and to acknowledge ‘what’ we are, in order to understand that it is even possible to re-wire our marvellous minds and override the beliefs that beat us down daily if we allow it.
Controversially - it is a choice.
This is why I vulnerably share my story, most of which has never been told, because I have been peeling back my own layers to allow the emergence of this vulnerability, realising there is great courage there.
I share openly because this mission of mine is a shared one, for a more loving human and a kinder more joyful life. I transformed my own life from a pattern I was born into, of fear, constant external distraction and influence, procrastination and anxiety, to a balanced and regulated life of abundance and flow I used to dream of.
How? I hear your logical mind cry (or at least, mine used to - let’s just skip to the ‘how’ and get it done. My standard approach that used to bypass the entire process therefore keeping me in the pattern)!
Transformation of my patterns came through one simple action:
Through taking full responsibility for my life as an adult.
Regardless of my life circumstances and the situation I was born into. Regardless of how I had been treated as a child. Do I want to stay in the realms of fear that keep me down? Or, do I want to take full conscious intentional ownership of my faculties and functions? Realising I don’t need to conform to feel fulfilled and succeed, and that the ownership of my life is mine alone.
So, it makes sense to share with you my wild pivotal moments as I explored the life I was handed. Let’s start with the influencing roots and the day etched in my memory forever, when I walked out of the door of that council flat for the last time and I left my crazy home.
It had to happen now, and we had to leave home that day because he tried to kill her again.
I heard it the night before, I cried out and my dad came into my room with crazed eyes and my mothers blood on his shirt.
In her near death experience she was ‘taken’ by her father, through the tunnel where she saw our family, ancestors and allies who showed how supported and guided we were, and so she finally knew what she had to do.
During a blur of events she somehow summoned the strength to call the Samaritans, a UK charity that supports people through crisis and hardship. She had known for years but the courage was beaten out of her metaphorically and physically.
My Mum and Dad were together for 25 years. Lucky me, not coming from a ‘broken home’. But behind closed doors that was every day emotional and physical torture - which in actual fact eventually came to bestow many gifts.
The pages of this book are designed to carry the message of these gifts of adversity and beyond that - alignment with our big truth and true potential.
If I can change the trajectory of my life and create a new reality - anyone can.
I left home that day age 16, knowing I was never going back.
I left in the clothes I wore, with a few books, my journal and teddy bear (which is still with me at age 50). My first taste of massive risk taking, I was terrified walking out the door with an oversized bag in case he noticed.
To Dad’s knowledge, I was going to college as normal. The secret agreement was that I would meet Mum at the train station at 3pm. The police would meet us from the train and take us to the Women’s Refuge. We didn’t even know the location. The plan was executed and I found myself in a safe house with unknown women, unknown town and unknown future. I was afraid but I was also anticipating my future for the first time.
My journey to freedom and self awareness began and I was completely unprepared.
The pieces of my childhood started to fall together as I studied the psychological development of the brain, and how our formative years shape our beliefs and the patterns we bring into the world.
This isn’t a book about childhood adversity or trauma, I drop this to set the scene because our early environment shapes us, this is an invitation to contemplate your early years. What you did for love, acceptance, connection, attention - this is where the programming and belief system began.
If your past wrote the script, fine - but you are the one holding the pen now.
If She can, you can.
From my upcoming book - If She Can I Can.
Own your pattern - find holistic mindset resources at clarebelmont.net