Patterns. As a child I loved creating patterns. In my teens I was making my own clothes. I thought I was very clever. I loved my patterns.
Fast forward to adulthood. Patterns hold an entirely different meaning for me today. Now I see a pattern as something that is holding me back, a place where I am stuck and cannot move forward, something negative. It’s something I repeat, hoping for a different reaction. As Einstein (possibly) said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Doesn’t make much sense does it?
Where did I learn these patterns? Pretty much everywhere. Where didn’t I learn these patterns? Pretty much nowhere. Patterns and the way they take over our minds are a fact of human consciousness. Not that I am blaming anyone today. I am just acknowledging that just about everywhere we turned as children we were taught to function through negativity. It’s not that I never received encouragement. But I do remember learning far more about how to function through what I was told I could not do.
I know all of us as baby boomers were taught that “money doesn’t grow on trees,” “you have to work hard in order to get ahead,” and “struggling is the only way to get there,” etc. Why should I not believe those who lived before me? They must know what they were talking about, right.
Wrong.
But those patterns were put into place so early on that lifting and erasing them is a task, albeit not an impossible one. It is a very necessary one, however, if we wish to live a joyful life not filled with guilt, anger, pain, blame, resentment, judgment and everything else negative. But how does one start the erasing process? How does one change something that seems to be a fundamental part of the human condition? By using another fundamental part, of course.
Love.
Love? Yes, love. Love is the key to happiness, to prosperity, to abundance, increased energy and just about anything positive.
But where do we start with this? Who do we love? What do we love in order to start the process of erasing negative patterns?
Ourselves.
Ourselves? Why ourselves? Because if we can’t love ourselves, then how can we love others? And, in order to love ourselves, we feel that we have to forgive myself for all the hatred and negativity we’ve aimed toward ourselves most of our lives.
Jeez, now it’s seeming to get complicated. Wait… what’s so complicated about loving and forgiving ourselves? Well, we’ve hardly ever done it in our lives, so we think it’s easier to hold onto the negative patterns because they’re familiar. Do they make us happy? No? Then, we need to allow ourselves the love we deserve that will make you happy – and that comes from within. It comes from accepting and forgiving ourselves for any imperfections we possess.
Call it ‘learning to unlearn.’
We can do that. We’ve changed patterns our whole lives. Every time we move to a new place or learn a new skill, we’re erasing our old patterns.
What do we do to erase these old negative patterns and unlearn them? Love is the start – but 
forgiveness is just as important. And thankfulness to the universe and the world for giving us our lives.
So, message to self: I love you and I forgive you.
And message to the Universe: Thank you.
Anyone heard of Ho’oponopono? All this about learning to unlearn all our old patterns is just the tip of the iceberg in this Hawaiian method of ‘rectifying past errors.’
Soon, you’ll be living a negative-free life, and the positive will change everything. Ooh, this is exciting! We’ll have to talk more about this next week!