We unconsciously create the very situations we’re trying to avoid. When we can’t feel the original heartbreak — of changing and losing connection, of disappointing loved ones, of being abandoned — our system keeps engineering circumstances that produce that same heartbreak, hoping we’ll finally feel it.
Brett’s pattern illustrates this perfectly: he dives into rabbit holes (crypto, air sports), loses connection with loved ones, crashes, and experiences heartbreak and shame — the exact emotions he couldn’t feel as a child when he diverged from his family’s religious beliefs. The body continues producing early childhood patterns until we can finally feel what we couldn’t feel as kids.
The twist is that we often become okay with one layer (heartbreak) while still avoiding a deeper one (shame). Brett realized he’d learned to handle heartbreak but was still running from shame — so the system kept engineering situations that would produce shame specifically.
“We are creating the thing by the way in which we’re avoiding it. It is the way in which we are avoiding the emotional experience that we’re recreating in our life.”
Related Concepts
- Avoidance of fear invites the feared outcome
- Resistance creates the feared outcome
- Feeling through a pattern ends it
- Fully falling in love with the avoided feeling is the quickest way to stop a negative pattern
- We recreate painful circumstances to finally welcome the avoided emotion
- Emotional avoidance creates the very pattern it fears
- Resisting an emotion is exactly what invites it back
- Fear of consequences is really fear of emotional states