Why Your Old Patterns Keep Repeating and How to Change the Story
Do you feel like you have a repeating pattern on loop in your life?
Maybe you keep attracting the same kind of boss who never truly listens. Maybe you find yourself shrinking in important conversations, even when you know you have something valuable to share. These repeating patterns aren’t random. They’re built on stories you wrote for yourself a long time ago…often before you even understood the world around you.
Sophie remembers the first time her voice caught in her throat.
She was six, sitting cross-legged on the rough carpet squares of her classroom. Her teacher called on her to read aloud. Sophie had always been a quiet child, the kind who listened to the rain more than she spoke, who loved the edges of things more than the centre.
When she finally found the courage to open her mouth, her voice came out softer than she intended. The teacher snapped, “Speak up, Sophie!” and the kids in the back row burst into giggles. One boy repeated her quiet voice in a mocking tone, and Sophie felt her cheeks flood with heat. Her heart beat so loudly she thought it might shake her right off the floor.
At home, dinner was no different. Her brothers were quick and loud, always jumping over each other’s words. When Sophie tried to share something, someone would say, “Speak up, we can’t hear you!” Then came the laughter, the teasing about her “mouse voice.”
In those moments, Sophie learned that staying small felt safer than being heard.
Years passed. Sophie grew up, earned degrees, led teams, and sat at important boardroom tables. But when it was her turn to speak, she felt that same old heat rising in her cheeks. A manager would interrupt with, “Sophie, can you speak up?” Someone down the table would cough, trying to hide a laugh.
In an instant, she was six again, carpet squares, giggling kids, a teacher’s sharp tone.
Sophie knows, rationally, that she’s capable and respected.
But deep inside, she still carries the story: “If I make myself small, I’ll stay safe.”
How our old stories are formed
When you were young, your world was small and deeply personal. Developmental psychologists describe this as an egocentric stage, you couldn’t yet grasp that other people’s reactions often had nothing to do with you.
When Sophie was six, she didn’t think, “The teacher is stressed,” or, “My brothers are just loud.”
She thought, “There’s something wrong with my voice. It’s safer to be quiet.”
Over time, these moments became the foundation for your self-beliefs.
You started seeing yourself through this lens: I’m too much. I’m not enough. I don’t belong. I need to be perfect.
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The brain’s love of old stories
The brain doesn’t easily let go of old stories. In fact, it works to protect them.
Your brain is an energy-conserving machine, it looks for shortcuts to save effort and avoid overwhelm (Baumeister & Tierney, 2011). With so much information flooding in every day, your brain relies on pre-existing stories and patterns to filter what matters.
Enter the Reticular Activating System (RAS)….your brain’s filter for what to pay attention to.
Once you hold a belief (“My voice isn’t valuable”), your RAS scans the environment for evidence to confirm it. If you believe your voice is a problem, like Sophie, you’ll notice every smirk, every interruption, every moment someone talks over you, and you’ll ignore the nods of agreement or the moments you were actually heard.
This ties into confirmation bias, our tendency to seek out and remember information that supports what we already believe (Nickerson, 1998).
The brain holds on to these stories because they feel safe and familiar. Changing them requires more mental effort, and for a brain designed to conserve energy, that feels risky.
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Why we don’t always update our lens
These beliefs live deep in what psychologists call implicit memory, memories tied to emotion and the body rather than clear facts (Schacter, 1992).
You can know, logically, that you’re safe and competent. But when you feel that rush of heat, hear a certain tone, or see a certain expression, your body pulls you right back into the old story.
Like Sophie, you might find yourself shrinking before you even realise it’s happening.
The adult you vs. the story
As an adult, you now have resources you didn’t have when these stories were formed.
You have context, emotional tools, and perspective.
You can see that people’s reactions say more about them than about you. You can choose who you allow into your life, how you want to show up, and what you want to believe about yourself.
But unless you pause to question these old stories, you keep seeing life through the eyes of the child who first learned them.
What protected you then (stay small, stay quiet, stay perfect) can quietly hold you back now, keeping you from taking opportunities, using your voice, or truly connecting with others.
A gentle invitation to update
This isn’t about forcing yourself to “just be confident.”
It’s about creating space for new experiences, new evidence, and new ways of being.
This is where your identity begins to shift.
You’re no longer that small, young version of you who didn’t have the resources or the reasoning to understand why people acted the way they did.
Back then, it made sense to think, “I’m the problem.” It might have felt true in that moment, but it’s not true for who you are now.
As you start to see the story for what it is, you can begin to rewrite it.
For Sophie, that might look like re-examining her old belief that she needs to stay small, and gently replacing it with a new truth….that her voice matters and deserves to be heard.
It might mean actively looking for evidence that people do want her contributions, that her presence is valued. And then, practicing speaking up, even if her voice shakes, because she has earned her seat at the table.
For you, it might be a similar journey: noticing the beliefs that have been holding you back, asking if they’re still true today, and creating new ones that feel aligned with the person you’ve become.
Finding evidence to support these new beliefs. Changing the internal dialogue to reflect an updated version of who you are and how you belong in this world.
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Reclaiming You: A Method for Changing Your Repeating Patterns
If this is something you’re navigating and you’d like support, you might want to explore my Reclaiming You program. Together, we’ll uncover your old patterns, explore where they began, understand how they show up today, and create new beliefs and stories that reflect your wisdom, your strength, and your capacity right now.
Your repeating patterns don’t have to define you.
They can become invitations, to see yourself clearly, to choose differently, and to reclaim the parts of you that have always wanted to be heard.