There are times, I feel, that moving forward successfully in life requires looking backwards, to find patterns and links between events in our lives, and making sense out of it. We need to understand what happened before, that makes us behave the way we do now.

It’s not easy to analyze why we are functioning as we are. We are following a pattern like a road map that we don’t understand very well. Subconscious thoughts can interfere and add confusion.

We tend to dismiss thoughts that are confusing. Maybe because we think that they’re not relevant, or maybe because we are in denial of our past life stories. But that is really our ego trying to dismiss the problem stemming from cause and affect.

Our ego does not allow us to see the links between early-life cause, and the effect of how we are functioning now. Our past experiences may haunt us. What complicates things even more is that there may very well be multiple events stringing along in our lives that don’t seem to be connected.

We need to try to keep an open mind about where the problems we have today are coming from. Looking back is not as easy as pinpointing the childhood event, or whatever it was, that is controlling our behavior today. One event may have caused another, and that one triggered another. So now that we are adults, we lose track of it all and end up wondering why we are functioning the way we do.

We need to work hard at tracing our life events from the problem we are experiencing now, backwards to the previous event that we think is controlling our behavior today. Then back another step to the event that caused that event. Until we get back to the early-life event that started the molding process of whom we are today. I call this Reverse Pattern Recognition.

Once we have this series of events clear in our mind, our ego looses strength and can’t hide it any longer. And we will be free to create a new behavior pattern, one that is more in line with our present goals.

To make this clear, I’ll give you an example of how this works with an analogy… a specific pattern that I had most of my life. Maybe it will help you discover patterns that your own ego is hiding from you.

I always seemed to select needy women for relationships. By using Reverse Pattern Recognition, I was able to discover that this pattern started when I was in my teens. I had a needy mother and I learned how to give her what she needed, rather than considering my own needs. I could have rebelled. Most kids did. But my mother’s neediness was so severe that I put more effort into keeping her contented. This was ingrained into my behavior so much that I subconsciously continued the same pattern with women in adult life, by being more attracted to those who needed special attention.

I didn’t know it at the time, and it took a therapist to bring this to my attention, but I was not connecting the dots. I was not aware of how my past was influencing my present and affecting the way I was functioning. I had been following certain patterns that were not benefiting my life path, but I was not aware, at the time, of the links between the cause of these patterns, and the patterns themselves.

I consciously knew that I wanted an equal, a woman who was competent and who knew how to deal with life’s issues. But for a long time, I was not aware of my dilemma. Since the issue was never resolved, because I didn’t rebel with my mother, I was still repeating the pattern of desiring needy women. Rather than rebelling, as most kids would have, I tried to pacify my mother until I moved out at the age of 20.

Understanding and Awareness

I never did rebel, which might have helped changed my internal programming. And of course we can’t rebel in adult life. But just the understanding and awareness of what is going on, by using my method of Reverse Pattern Recognition, has helped. I no longer seek out needy women.

Rather than just taking life as it comes, we can change our patterns by discovering the link from our unresolved past. This will help us create a preferred future.

If you find yourself repeating patterns that you feel are negative and are not in sync with your vision of what you really want out of your life, then try this exercise. By tracing your life events backwards from the problem you are experiencing today, to the previous event that you think is controlling your behavior now. The understanding and awareness that you get from this exercise may help you break your negative pattern, apply more thought to your life’s path, and put more planning and creative goal setting into your life. Then you’ll find yourself moving forward more successfully and achieving the goals you wish to accomplish.