When you buy a mobile phone it comes with default settings. Over time you download a variety of apps to help you to use the phone more efficiently. When something happens and your phone needs repair, it usually comes back with the default factory settings and you have to download all your favourite apps again.
The advantage is that now you know which apps are the most useful and you only download those, not bothering with the ones that you rarely or never use. You might also download a few new and different ones because you want to test them out and see if they will be helpful. So now you have a phone that is functioning even better than before.
After a few years you decide it’s time to upgrade, the one you have doesn’t suit you anymore. You upgrade to a new model that is faster has more features and again you download the apps that make your phone even more efficient. Some of your old apps don’t work as well on your new phone or maybe are no longer necessary because they have been replaced by your new phone’s default functions.
Like your mobile phone you have your default pattern of behaviour that has often been established from a young age. As you go through life, through personal development, counselling, kinesiology etc you have learned strategies and techniques (your apps) which help you to function better in your world and may, in some cases, override your default patterns. When you are under stress you may slip back into your default behavior, but now you recognise the pattern and put your strategies back into place. You may vary them a little and only use the strategies that have worked the best for you and you may try a few new ones. As time goes by, your default behavior may upgrade and if you do slip backwards, your new default may not be as bad as previously, and you find it easier to put your strategies back into place again.
My message here is to be gentle and forgiving towards yourself when you feel that you have slipped back to the beginning on your personal development journey. Hopefully, as you find and use your strategies you don’t slip back as frequently and if you do, you recognise it and bounce out of the default pattern quickly. Remembering we can and do change our default pattern to a less toxic version (upgrade). Don’t beat yourself up for slipping back, congratulate yourself for how far you have come and acknowledge how much better you are at dealing with those old default patterns.
