your old patterns aren’t failures - they’re invitations, and here’s why.

when creativity feels impossible because you're at war with yourself

how many times have you caught yourself frustrated by your own actions, especially when these actions are not aligned with what you consciously intend to do?

You know - actions that feel destructive, unproductive, unhelpful...

especially when you would much rather be channeling energy to your creative outlets, instead, you often find yourself fighting yourself not to do something (like stop scrolling on your phone, already! or stop lashing out at your partner, already!), or to do something you're not doing (like get to writing that story, already! or get to the gym, already!)

What if those frustrating, self-sabotaging patterns weren’t actually failures—but messages?

What if, instead of fighting yourself to break them, you could understand them, or even transform them into fuel for your creativity?

Lately, I’ve reading more novels in order to spend more time with the younger version of myself that loved reading.

Below is an essay, written in a narrative style, exploring breaking old patterns, making peace with ourselves, and clearing space for fresh, new, creative energy. I hope that it helps you x

what if your self-sabotage is actually trying to help you?

The comfort of structure and control—until it controls you

I feel safe when I know what to do next, when I've figured out my agenda, when my calendar feels accurate, when I've put everything in order on my task manager.

Therefore, I feel unsafe when it's not in order.

I feel unsafe when I'm not clear with myself on what I'm going to do, or when I have periods of empty space with nothing to do, not even a yoga practice.

That has been getting better, as I learned to be more flexible with my creative process, allowing the natural unfolding to happen and surrendering to the flow.

Recently, I've somehow lost track of that and "reverted" back to "my old ways" of obsessively tracking, logging, and rescheduling.

In the past, I have gotten so frustrated at myself, y'all, for not being able to chill out, or to let it go, or to just go sleep already, but instead ALWAYS. HAVING. TO. CHANGE OR ADD. ONE. MORE. THING. TO MY CALENDAR.

But not to worry. I'm not "losing progress."

That's the thing with old patterns, you know, the ones deeply embedded in your subconscious from early childhood experiences as you navigated a big, loud, confusing world as a very young person.

Why we "revert" and why it doesn’t mean we’re failing

You had to learn how to keep yourself safe somehow, and these safety mechanisms that no longer quite work as well as they used to when you were a child are designed to come back over and over again, with each repetition moving you infinitesimally towards the direction of freedom, given you are able to also turn towards the underlying pain associated with a given safety mechanism.

But not to worry.

Even the times when you aren't able to sit with your own pain, you're still learning to sit with your own pain each time it comes around. That's the thing with life, and pain. It always comes back around.

And just like training repetitions at the gym, the more you do it eventually you get better at it. Unless you're not training with proper form, upon which injuries ensue.

But even in that case, your body will tell you and lead you, patiently, back to an aligned way of doing things. As you struggle against yourself.

That's how much your body loves you. :)

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you can't fuck things up because failure is a construct made up by other people to disempower you.

Even when you repeat old patterns, which is just life's way of saying " it's time to hit the gym again," not "there's something so inherently wrong with you that you can never be redeemed because you can't do anything right."

Trust me, I know.

Why every step (even the setbacks) are part of your process

I've been fired before, more than once. I've been suspended from school (except they called it a "leave of absence" because I tried to kill myself and ended up in the psych ward, so they made me take time off to try and learn to live my life without wanting to off myself, ha)

I've accrued pretty hefty amounts of financial mistake and committed acts of irresponsible spending, been the "bad guy" in romantic relationships, had substances abuse issues, had unsafe sex with people I barely knew.

and now I look back at all that and have a healthier perspective on mostly all of it. It was all part of my process of figuring things out. and life kept giving me more chances to love myself through it all. which really is the key to freeing yourself from old patterns (and liberate the trapped energy that's being used to perpetuate the same old programs, so that you can create something new.)

Your own unconditional love.

that's the key.

Knowing that, even if you've done all these horrible things and you can't seem to stop going back to your old ways, you still deserve your own unconditional love.

That's the same thing as what they talk about in Abrahamic religions - you know - "God loves you."

I mean, they got some stuff wrong, but also some stuff right, like the truth that you can't fuck up so bad that God will turn her back to you and never forgive you.

I mean, right and wrong is relative.

But I digress.

What I was saying is, old patterns come back.

That's just how they are and it's not a sign of your defectiveness, but rather, an invitation to turn towards the pain you're holding underneath that old pattern, that you somehow, on some level, think is serving you,

because otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.

Trust yourself, you know?

Trust that you're trying your best, trust your own good (even if sometimes misguided) intentions to meet your own needs, which you need to do to survive, you know? it's only natural to want to meet your own needs and act in order to do so, even on a subconscious level.

Anyways, the old pattern I'm working through is feeling unsafe when I'm not on top of my productivity, it's feeling like whatever I do or get done, it's never enough.

Growing up, I watched my dad come home from work past 10PM most nights, sometimes drunk. He was always working.

Working hard was how he had figured out how to make life work for him, coming from a poor family on a farm where they used his scholarship papers as toilet paper (or so he liked to tell me.)

If I didn't work hard, I wouldn't make it in life, because not working hard meant not being good enough because being poor meant not good enough and you'd be poor if you didn't work hard enough. you know, because then you wouldn't be good enough.

watching this as a young child who really just wanted their dad to be more present, and who didn't understand the concepts of capitalism and exploitation and why some people had to work so much harder than others to get their needs met, I internalized that.

I mean, I was a child, and to my child self, my dad seemed like he knew what he was doing.

Even if most times I went without his attention, which I assumed there was a good enough reason for also, which was that I was not good enough for his attention because I wasn't working hard enough.

And so I grew up equating my worthiness to my productivity, my achievements, what I could do, and not what I effortlessly embodied, just being me.

No wonder I don't feel safe when I'm not being productive!

Your Inner Child’s SOS: Why You Keep Repeating These Cycles

In that sense, you could even say that my obsession with making sure everything's in order is a signal flare, a call for help, from my younger self who is in need of the love and attention they never received.

That's why the inner child keeps making you repeat those "old patterns," in hopes that they'll receive the attention they are still needing so badly.

This time, when I caught myself, I was grateful I did and gently pulled myself out of my old self over and over again, each time I realized I was fixing and fussing over my calendar.

Without berating myself or my tendency to fix and fuss, I reached for a breath practice or a movement practice or a somatic practice in my toolbox, returning again and again to my hand on my chest, feeling my heart bating very fast, feeling unsafe and very afraid, and being present with that sensation and lived experience, connecting with my younger self, without trying to numb, distract, or fix.

Self-compassion (not self-criticism) is the key to sustainably breaking unwanted patterns and moving forward into a place of greater alignment, freedom, and yes, greater creative power.

and that's really all there is to it, to liberating yourself from old patterns to free up energy that can be used to nourish your creative practice. :)

Simple, but not easy, and it's frustrating at first.

Unfortunately, there's no magic pill to "fixing" all of your supposedly dysfunctional behaviors.

Actually, "fixing" or "getting rid of" problem behaviors isn't even the goal to begin with(though imperialist narratives sure want us to believe it is). Rather, turning with love towards the hurting child that is responsible for these problem behaviors, and accepting all parts of yourself wholeheartedly, recognizing that no part of you wants to cause you harm, and seeing what magic unfolds from there.

Really, there's nothing else to it but practicing meeting yourself with love, over and over again.

As you repeat this process of committing to presencing what's really here, and honoring the somatic experience in your body, you grow more and more capable of compassionately transforming energy and redirecting it to your own conscious intention.

You got this!

Have you ever struggled with repeating old patterns? Share your experience below—let’s start a conversation :)