Relationships are interesting, aren’t they?
As a Toronto based dating and relationship coach, I’ve seen a lot of different relationship patterns over the years.
And a lot of it has to do with habit.
Whether you’re committed to persevering through the rocky times of your relationship or you’re realizing it’s time for your relationship to end, it’s important to recognize and learn from the troublesome moments of your past.
I think the majority of us have the best intentions when it comes to learning from the past.
But what happens when we don’t?
Staying in a Comfort Zone
When you start a new relationship, everything feels, well, new, doesn’t it?
And yet, how fresh is it, really?
A 2016 study by Dr. Kelly Haws at Vanderbilt University explored how different people respond to the urge to make impulse purchases.
Dr. Haws divided the study’s participants into two groups.
She then asked one group to recall two moments where they resisted the urge to make an impulse purchase, and while the other group had to recall ten moments.
Then, she asked them how much credit card debt they’d be willing to take on to buy something they really wanted.
The more times they remembered resisting the urge, the more likely they were to rack up credit card debt.
Why?
Dr. Haws was quoted in The Atlantic as speculating why this might be the case.
In their logic, she thinks, if they were good with self control, it would be easy for them to recall ten instances where they actually did so.
But because they couldn’t, they assumed it meant they actually didn’t have as much self control as they thought they did.
This affected their self image, and caused them to take the idea that they weren’t good with money to heart.
When we believe something about ourselves, it affects the way we behave.
It can hold us in place, making it difficult to move forward, if we let it.
This is true with just about every area in life.
It’s why people are resistant to change, why we sacrifice our own happiness by people pleasing, why we struggle to set healthy boundaries with our parents, and why we have difficulty changing our habits, and why we stay in our comfort zone.
It’s just easier to do so.
But here’s the thing about your comfort zone – it’s not all bad.
During particularly difficult times in your life, it helps to have a sense of stability among all the uncertainty around you.
It keeps you grounded and reminds you that life isn’t just pure chaos.
But when those difficult times pass – and they inevitably will – your comfort zone no longer serves you.
It keeps you stuck, repeating the same patterns over and over, for no other reason than that they’re familiar patterns.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way.
If you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again in relationships, here are a few of the likely reasons.
What Can You Do To Move Forward
1. Reflected On Your Previous Relationship
When a relationship ends, it’s important to take time to reflect.
Spend some time meditating or journaling (or both) and be open to seeing the lessons that relationship presented.
Resist the urge to blame your ex partner or yourself.
While it’s true that much of what happened may seem like it’s someone’s fault, blaming will not help you resolve anything.
After all, you have no control over how your ex behaved, and you cannot change the past.
You can, however, change how you think and feel about the past.
Consider what it was that drew you to your ex in the first place.
Were there any red flags that in retrospect you ignored?
Were you aligning your actions with your highest self when you chose this partner?
Or were you operating on unconscious programming that keeps pulling you toward what’s familiar and comfortable rather than what you know is in line with your core values and your dream life?
2. You Can Heal and Connect To Your Authentic Self
Self reflection can be scary, I get it.
Especially if you’ve been hiding from your authentic self.
In fact, one of the most frightening things for many people when it comes to falling in love is actually being open and honest with both yourself and your partner.
I think it’s safe to say we have all experienced the feeling of hurt in one or more relationships.
The deeper the hurt, the more difficult it can be to open up and be honest.
This can be true if you’ve made a lot of mistakes in past relationships.
If you feel intimated or lack confidence in yourself, giving yourself fully to a relationship can be a real challenge.
If you were in relationship that was toxic or your partner was manipulative, it can make it really scary to step into another relationship.
If you were made to feel guilty or ashamed whenever you talked about your feelings in the past, it’s understandable that you may have reservations about opening up again.
This is where healing the self first is key.
Healing takes compassion and commitment to yourself.
You cannot rush the healing.
And while it may take time, communicating honestly with your new partner will help tremendously.
If you aren’t quite ready to be honest about your feelings, try being honest about that.
Consider talking to your partner about these past triggers and how they’ve affected you.
Help them understand that if you seem closed off or standoffish, it’s not their fault.
And while you continue to heal and work on your limiting beliefs, explore how you can forgive both your past partners and yourself for what happened before, and find a way to move forward.
Of course, you can also speak to a confidence and mindset coach to help expand your mindset and help you heal.
3. Open Up To Change
Look, change can be frightening.
As you continue along your journey, adding new elements to your practice of manifesting your dream life, you’re going to run into obstacles.
And those obstacles might take the form of a decision you made in the last that you feel didn’t turn out for the best.
Perhaps you struggled in a relationship with an emotionally closed off partner, and have now found yourself in month two of a relationship with someone who has the same traits.
Or you just got out of a controlling relationship, and now you’re on the second date of a new relationship where they’re already telling you what to wear.
Maybe you’re constantly fighting about the same things in every relationship you enter.
Regardless, the options before you are clear.
You can go down the familiar path.
The one you’ve been down before.
It’s what you know.
But you know it’s not what you want.
Or, you can take the path you’ve never tried.
If you want to arrive at a different destination, you’ve got to take a different path.
As you continue to connect more with your higher self, growing into new levels of confidence, power, and understanding of your true self and your inner calling, the choice will become obvious.
All you have to do is make it.
Is it time to stop repeating the same cycle of frustration and dissatisfaction in your relationships?
The universe has so many greater things in store for you, but those things live outside of your current reality.
Manifesting the life of your dreams is a journey, and sometimes it helps to have a guide along the way.
I can be that guide for you.
Book your complimentary connection call with me, Evelina Hovich, today.