When a pattern repeats in your life, it’s a good idea to examine that pattern. There’s something there for you to learn. But once the learning is done does the pattern automatically stop? No. That’s the conventional wisdom on the matter. That once you’ve learned the lesson you no longer need the pattern and so it fades away. It’s like magic. Learn this lesson and you never have to go through it again. The wand waves, sparks fly through the air and you’re onto the next lesson.
But real life is much more like math than magic. In math, once you learn how to add you don’t stop having to add every again. You use your understanding of addition to figure out subtraction. From there you learn multiplication which actually can make large-scale addition much easier. 🙂 Don’t get me started on division. I’ve never quite forgiven the world for that one. “Math is hard.”
When you learn something, when you truly get it, you aren’t done with it, you’re the expert on how to deal with it. You learn to see it coming a mile away so you can take the necessary steps to have the best outcome possible or to avoid the situation entirely. You’re able to help other people with the situation when they can’t see they’re in it and don’t know how to get out. So what happens then? That’s up to you. You can choose to leave it at that or to become an expert. An expert can see the pattern no matter how it camoflages itself in your life. They not only understand the patter but can see many different ways to resolve it and select the best one for each situation as it arises. They make the very difficult look easy and in doing so provide pleasure and grace to all around them.
So be your own expert. When you learn something about yourself, don’t think of it as situation specific, think of it as applying to all aspects of your life. Then, one by one, start figuring out the resolutions and implementing them. The more you do that, the better your life becomes and the more expertise you have to offer yourself and others.