Identify Your Patterns

Life is characterized with habits and patterns. You do something and expect something to happen in return. For instance, when the gardener sows a seed he knows that a seedling will burst forth from the ground after the requisite amount of time if he continues to water the soil and keep it moist. The baker knows that when yeast is added to the dough, the dough will double in size if left alone to ferment overnight and make the bread softer. The orchard owner knows that if he does not pluck the flowers of the tree, he will get to harvest the delicious fruit that is sure to form in just a few weeks time.

 Patterns and habits such as these exist everywhere around us. In the natural environment for sure and in the human world as well. For instance if the children make too much noise, mother will shout at them to tone it down. If a brother cut the hair of his sister’s  favourite doll, she will make sure that his favourite action figure loses its weapon, or some other form or retribution is sure to be forthcoming. If the boss seems unhappy, it is not the best time to present him with the plans for the office picnic because he is sure to refuse it in his present frame of mind. If your friend is feeling unhappy because she broke up with her boyfriend, you are going to take her out and feed her ice cream, or maybe take her out to a movie to make her feel better. 

These are easy patterns that lead you to form habits, but there are some patterns that you are unaware of.  There are some patterns in your life that may not always be in your best interest. For instance never speaking up when a family member bothers you by saying something, just to keep the peace. Trying not to be confrontational even when you know that you are in the right and the other person is in the wrong. Believing that you need to work very hard indeed to attain any measure of financial success. Sabotaging your own goals of weight loss and fitness by over eating or not exercising enough. These are behaviour patterns which do not work for your highest good, but you have them all the same.

They may arise from a number of limiting beliefs that you may have. The trouble is that till you identify your life’s patterns you are not going to be able to identify the limiting beliefs behind them. And a belief is merely a well entrenched thought. No matter how deep rooted a belief may be, it is just a thought which can be changed. By replacing the old limiting belief with a new positively charged affirmation it is possible to literally change the pattern of your life. All you need to begin with is to identify the existing patterns in what you see going wrong in your life. Think about it, what seems to never go right in your life? Now identify the pattern to get to that particular limiting belief.

Is Your Help Hindering Someone’s Growth

Sometimes in the daily rush of living, we get to hear or read a few lines that bring you a fresh perspective on your own ideas. A while ago I received a short story which I found had a very profound meaning in our daily lives. It has been going around on various social media platforms and I am sure you would have already read it, but I’ll quickly recapitulate it here before I go ahead to make my point. The story was about a man who watched a butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. He watched it push itself out millimeter by millimeter and was fascinated by what he saw of the butterfly’s determination. 

 When it appeared to give up, perhaps it was only resting as it needed a short break, the man decided to help it emerge from the cocoon by taking a scissors and snipping it away. Unfortunately, the lower part of the butterfly looked deformed and no matter how hard it tried, it could not fly. Apparently the struggle through the cocoon opening is required to strengthen the wings of the butterfly for flight. While the man wanted to help and was coming from good intentions, his actions inadvertently damaged the butterfly forever.

Now I’ll ask you to think about all the good you do for other people in your lives. Do you run to help out someone who is having a difficult time? Is your timely help to the person in this situation denying the person a lesson in life that would allow them to grow as an individual? Obviously I am not speaking about life and death situations or crisis events where your help is a must. There are some other situations where a person may not even have asked for your help, but you decided to give them the benefit of your “expertise”.

Please understand that this is not criticism for being a helpful person, but rather a query to check if you are doing more than you should. More than you need to do. It is noble of you to offer your help in many situations and the person who receives this help is benefited immediately when he receives it. However in the long term, did your help actually hinder the person’s progress? Did it steal away a chance for him or her to learn a new skill that would come in handy later in life? Don’t be so eager to take away all the challenges in a person’s life that he does not get to learn the soul lessons he is here to learn.

Think about the proverb that when you feed a man a fish you help him for a day, but when you teach him to catch his own fish you have fed him for the rest of his life. So be helpful, share your resources and expertise, but allow the people around you to find their own way out of a muddle of their own creating. Even if you help them this once, the challenge will keep revisiting them all their lives till they learn the soul lesson they were supposed to. Guide the person to solve his own problems the next time, rather than racing in and solving it for them.