Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Remedial Cycle Breaking 101

This class is for those of us* that have put ourselves into situations that brought us pain. This class is for those of us who consciously or unconsciously re-create situations that hurt us in our childhood. We re-create those situations through relationships in our adult lives.

I’m Angie and I’ll be your classmate and teacher for Remedial Cycle Breaking 101. This quarter we will learn how to break the cycles! We will learn to value ourselves and only become involved in relationships that are healthy for us! We will stop dating the same kind of people and having the same thing happen.

Let’s begin by identifying our “re-creation pattern.”

Ask yourself, “What did I want/need in my childhood that I did not get?”

Chances are we are trying to get it over and over again in our adult relationships. For instance, if your answer to the question sounds something like this,

“I experienced some really terrible things when I was a little girl and I just wanted someone (my mother and father) to see my value and choose me. I wanted my mother to pick me over some other choices she made, pick me over her fear, choose me over her preoccupation and insecurity. I wanted my daddy to choose me over the streets, other women and the “outside kids”. I wanted him to choose me and change. I wanted to be valued and chosen.”

You probably re-create situations in your relationships in which you want the other person to see your value and choose you. To choose you over the other people they are involved with. To choose you over their fucked up character. To choose you over their own sincere needs. To choose you over their greed. To see your value and move heaven and earth to be with you.

When the relationship doesn't work out, and they never do, you feel just like you did when you were a child. You feel just like you did when you didn't get what you needed. The yearning can become addictive. You don’t know how to set up situations so that they have a different outcome – so you become addicted to that feeling.

But we can change that.

Said change is not easy or quick, but it can be done. We must learn to change our patterns - to teach our brains a new way. We must retrain our brains to respond differently to that feeling of want, to work towards getting our needs met in a different way. For instance, the person who answered the question above would begin to change her pattern by following the steps below.

When you are attracted to or are interested in someone:

1. Ask yourself if I you like them, not if they like you.

2. Don’t invest too soon.

3. Don’t sleep with them right away, no matter what.

4. If they : are dating another person or people, are “separated”,
spend lots of time away, do not communicate well,
don’t keep their word or lie, are emotionally unavailable,
are wishy washy, are negative or weak….

Walk away! Don’t talk it over. Don’t question it. Don’t think they will change. Just walk away.


That’s it for our lesson today class. Please join us for our next session entitled “Mantra’s For Cycle Breaking”





* I do it too.

5 comments:

West said...

"I'm not only the President,... I'm also a member."

Nice one.

TDJ said...

Nice post Angie.
"Ask yourself if I you like them, not if they like you." Can I put that on t-shirt please? I was trying to explain it to my goddaughter. Evaluate your feelings FIRST, without taking looking at the other person's. Keep the power and let the choice be yours.

James Burnett said...

"Walk away! Don't talk it over..."

Best advice I've heard in a long time. Wish my sister and some other women I know would have listened to that before they "settled."

Angie said...

West, if you are the president, I must be the vice pres, cuz I've been working this pattern for as long as I can remember. Well, not anymore. As sister has seen the light!

tdj, You are so right. As young women we are not taught that we have the power. Frequently, what we see at home and in the media teaches us that we don't have the power. Many times our mothers have not broken thier cycles, so the can't teach us how to. I'm trying to do it differently with my daughter. I hope it's not to late.

James, we'll get it together. Teach your daughters thier worth. Keep your word to them - so they'll expect the same from the men in thier lives. Let them see you treating thier mom with love and respect. Don't talk down to them or degrade them, not even jokingly. If you do they will remember it forever, and they will except it from others.

Okay, Im stepping down from the soap box now. Thanks for reading me guys.

Anonymous said...

Speaking soley to women....Let's hope some of us can learn this before we allow life to drain us of our youth.