A pragmatic, real-world approach to learning and understanding how we got to be who we are and how to become who we want to be.
About Life Patterns Counseling
Life Patterns Counseling works very differently than other traditional counseling and coaching approaches. This is not traditional Psychology or New Age or spiritual program or religion based. It’s not about steps or higher powers, it’s about you. It’s about understanding not just who you are in real life, but most importantly, how you got to be you. It’s about what it means to be you, to yourself and those around you and what about can change (a lot, it turns out).
Life Patterns Counseling is about uncovering and understanding how you operate, how you make, and have made, decisions in your life and investigating how that has worked for you- as well as how that has not served you well. This may sound simple, but included in these decisions are complex issues from your interpersonal relationships and their legacy, your physical environment, your work and play lives, your talent and relationship with substances and their use and perhaps abuse.
This is not about theories, mysticism or Freud’s cigar, it’s about looking at your own history, often in ways that are not easy, but that’s where the power lies. It’s about discovering the patterns and series of choices and events that have shaped who you are and better understanding them- and most importantly it’s about deciding the best avenues and approaches for your future.
Most importantly, Life Patterns are not judgmental. It is only by facing those parts of ourselves that have created challenges for us that we can address them and change our lives, and that has to be done frankly and openly.
Life Patterns Counseling is 100% confidential.
Romantic Relationships
Who among us has not be baffled by the romantic choices that some of our friends, and even our own family members, have made? Romantic relationships are the biggest and most important choices we make in our lives, and there is no guidebook and no training. The primary reason for this is that there are no right or wrong answers that apply to everyone, but there are guidelines and warning signs that we all too often ignore. Sexual attraction can overwhelm all of the other essential qualities and traits we need to healthy relationships with growth potential, but there are also so many other contributing factors, and most of them change as we mature.
Life Patterns Counseling is about learning to better understand these choices, how and why we have made them, what has worked and what not so much. It’s also about contending with the reality that we are all attracted to different people and qualities at different times in our lives. Today’s ubiquitous online dating opportunities can further confuse the process by turning it into a game or a sport that in and of itself can become destructive and addictive.
Couples
Couples that decide to come and work with us have already made a very important step and have showed each other that they value the relationship and want to work on it. Being a couple is more challenging than ever before for a wide variety of reasons, both internal and external. In the vast majority of cases, communication is the primary issue, either the quality, or the absence, of it. For example, couples often have disagreements over things that are not really the actual problem. What we refer to as “paving” invariably plays a key role- when disagreements, disappointments, unmet expectations or upsets are not dealt with, get pushed aside and get “paved over.” The issues almost never go away, however, and like weeds, they will crack the pavement and grow through. Sometimes it’s because one or both feel the issue is intractable and therefore not worth pursuing, or one or both don’t want “to get started” and ruin a day or evening.
Of course, not all challenges can be resolved, easily or at all, but the vast majority can be with focused attention and partners willing to do the work.
Addiction and Self-control
“Addiction” is a very misunderstood word that we all see endlessly in our media and culture. There are really two kinds of addiction, physical and mental, and they are not at all the same. Physical addition we understand much better, when our body gets chemically connected to a substance and it needs and craves more. Chemical addition presents the brain with conflicting messages that can be very difficult to overcome and in the cases of some substances such as Crystal Meth or opioids, they can be almost impossible. But it is possible. It can be done.
The other kind of addiction is very different, it’s purely mental. People can be addicted to gambling, online dating and shopping, pornography, shoplifting, social media, or even other people. The list seems almost endless. These can manifest as obsessional behavior that overrides our intellectual selves pushing us to behave in ways that we almost always know are not positive and will not serve us- and are even destructive- even as we’re engaged in them . Like physical addictions, they are not easy to overcome but they can be but these can be the hardest challenges to contend with because they are invariably the darkest parts of ourselves. As with any addiction, the first step is always to talk about them, get them out into the open and away from that part of our mind that makes excuses to itself.
Family Relationships
Family relationships are not usually substantively different from romantic ones, aside from sex, they just have more history. But the same basic principles invariably apply- disagreements, disappointments, unmet expectations or upsets are not dealt with, get pushed aside and get “paved over.” Grudges also play a key role, often lasting decades. Too often that most toxic word of all for family relationships- “inheritance” rears it’s ugly head. Family relationships are also often complicated by break-ups, divorces and remarriages that add new actors to the play. Sometimes, as with divorce, the challenges are unbreachable and the goal is simply to find a workable status quo of coexistence.
Work and Employment
We all have two work resumes, one is the standard chronology of the jobs we’ve had, but there is also an underlying one that tells the story of why we had those jobs why. In reality, the vast majority of us did not choose our vocations, and many don’t even remember how they got into profession they are in now. Often it was because of family or friendly connections. But the long-term story of our working lives is really about politics.
Every workplace has politics- also known as “drama and gossip”- that are major factors in determining who gets what job, which promotion and who gets left behind or dismissed. Some of us know how to win but most don’t and Life Patterns is about reviewing decisions, relationships, to develop an understanding of how you got to “here.” That tells us everything we need to know about where “here” is and is it the right place? And if not, how to move on and improve to overcome barriers to be in a better situation with better prospects, whether or not that requires a new challenge or repairing the existing one.
Regrets and mistakes
We all have made mistakes and have regrets, but some of them have been more consequential, even fatal. Context matters and guilt and regret can too easily become disproportionate. While this is easier said than done, to work is to give them, and you, some perspective and to put them into their rightful place in our minds so that they don’t rule over our day to day lives.