What is a pattern?
Throughout my personal journey I have explored many different forms of healing. However, I was repeatedly disappointed to find that the deeper patterns always found to a way to reassert themselves. This drove me on, searching for understanding, for answers, searching for a way that actually worked.
It wasn’t until the Art of Embracing began to unfold through me that I began to understand that patterns are more than just computer-like programs. Each pattern actually contains a part of our Beingness that has been split off, become separated. It’s a fragmented part of our Essential nature that has been rejected by others, and then, by ourselves. In fact, every pattern contains a part of our Beingness that’s been locked away, banished. And just as we feel the pain and hurt of rejection, so does it.
I then understood why pushing against a bad feeling/pattern – trying to make it go away by ignoring it, avoiding it, or concentrating upon its opposite – doesn’t work for very long, especially with the really deep issues. Repeated rejection only serves to feed the pattern, giving it more power over us.
With this understanding I began to shift all the judgment, resistance and aversion I had held in relation to disruptive patterns. I began to approach disruptive patterns from a place of heart-felt compassion rather than trying to change or get rid of them. As I learned to perceive them as Living Beings, as patterned Presences, their defences softened. As I stayed present with whatever was arising they would relax, expand and ultimately dissolve within this complete acceptance, this embrace. As they dissolved, this space would be filled with Expansiveness, Light or Beingness.
And the shift is permanent! The pattern doesn’t re-emerge. Needless to say I was absolutely thrilled, ecstatic! I’d finally found a way that really works!