Programmed.
The 5 personality patterns is a psychology book I recently bought and has proven itself very useful to me already. The book is intended to be a guide to better understanding oneself and others and developing emotional maturity. In the second chapters, it speaks about Survival patterns and then specifically addresses Patterns versus Presence. I will quote a little bit from the book to explain this a little bit.
“Being in a pattern means that our perceptions are being filtered and distorted by a survival pattern. A survival pattern is an automatic body-based reaction that we go into to try to buffer ourselves from feeling overwhelmed. But it’s a reaction that was conditioned into us by traumas in the past. It is not a response to the present situation. Sometime in the past, this was the best strategy we could find to deal with a situation. Over time it was so deeply conditioned into our bodies that now it automatically kicks in whenever we feel distressed, making us react as if the past distress is still happening to us, even when it is not.”
These reactions are caused by trauma. I call it being programmed and sometimes this happened unconsciously and at other times being fully aware at the time of the trauma but like stated before it was the best we found to deal with the situation at hand at the time. These reactions can be very hard to understand by other people because they don’t see what we are dealing with and often we don’t see it ourselves either until afterward, we evaluate a situation. Awareness is key here.
I can truly recommend this book to everyone who is dealing with such patterns or have loved ones who are dealing with these things. And to be honest with you I think everyone who is traumatized in one way or the other has developed such patterns. Some more healthy than others and some more obvious than others.
