On Repeating Patterns.

I’m a huge fan of Mark Nepo’s daily devotional called, “The Book of Awakening’. It’s standard reading within my ritual.

One entry titled “Repetition Is Not Failure” focuses on the ways in which life provides us with some of our most important lessons.

As Mark writes, “There is no expected pace for inner learning. What we need to learn comes when we need to learn it, no matter how old or young, no matter how many times we have to start the lesson over, no matter how many times we have to learn the same lesson. We fall down as many times as we need to. To learn how to fall and get up. We fall in love as many times as we need to, to learn how to hold and be held. We misunderstand as many times voices of truth as many times as we need to, to truly hear the choir of diversity that surrounds us. We suffer our pain as often as is necessary for us to learn how to break and how to heal. No one really likes this, of course, but we deal with our dislike in the same way, again and again, until we learn what we need to know about the humility of acceptance.”

The acceptance bit can be quite tricky. We tend to be annoyed and highly judgemental of ourselves when we keep repeating what feels like a mistake.

Acknowledging that we are repeating the same patterns and expecting a different result is, after all, what Albert Einstein would call insanity.

Yet, it’s exactly when we realize this that we make room for our greatest lessons. The truth is, we'll keep repeating these negative patterns until we chose to learn from them.

But first, we have to stop having what the Buddha calls ‘the second death’ - the shaming or judging of the original feeling or action. When we judge our ‘stuckness’, we stay stuck.

Illumination comes when we allow ourselves to just be with the piece that feels like our setback and witness and own it. Then, and only then, do we allow ourselves to be in a place of conscious awareness. And the next step appears.

Take time to visit the patterns that keep you from being your best.

Sit quietly and ponder what each ‘mistake’ is teaching you.

There is no failure if we are being provided learning and growth. Ever.

Here’s to your finding yet another way to step into your zone of genius!