The 5 Personality Patterns: A Map for Understanding Yourself and the People Around You

You've done the work. You've read the books. You've tried to change.

And yet something keeps getting in the way. The same patterns. The same reactions. The same moments where you end up wondering... why do I keep doing this?

Here's what nobody told you: it's not a character flaw. It's not a lack of discipline. It's a survival pattern your nervous system built when you were young, one that was brilliant when you needed it, and one that is now quietly working against you.

Until you see it, you'll keep bumping into it.

This episode is your map.

We're diving into the 5 personality patterns, a framework by therapist Steven Kessler that is a foundational pillar of my somatic and inner child training and one of the first things I work through with every client I take on. 

Because when a woman finally understands her pattern, when she can see why she responds the way she does, the shame loosens, the self-blame softens, and for the first time she actually has access to change.

And it doesn't stop there. When you start seeing the patterns of the people around you (your partner, your kids, your boss) everything shifts. Conflict feels less personal. Relationships feel less exhausting. People start to make sense.

Here's what you'll walk away with:

• A clear understanding of why you respond the way you do under pressure
• The ability to see exactly where you're getting in your own way
• A new lens for the people around you (your partner, your kids, your boss) that makes conflict feel less personal and relationships less exhausting
• The awareness that once you see your pattern, you can give yourself what you actually need

Think of it like a health diagnosis. Once you understand why you've been doing things a certain way, you can finally prescribe yourself something different.

You'll leave this episode understanding yourself in a way you haven't before. And you'll probably never look at the people around you quite the same way either.

Work with Jessica:

→ Take the Pressure Pattern Quiz to find out which pattern is yours.

→ Golden Era Mentorship: My signature 1:1 mentorship for the woman ready to do the deep work.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

You can have a life that looks successful and still feel like you're carrying way too much. The pressure, the overthinking, the constant weight of holding it all together. This is Live Lighter. I'm Jessica Berg, and this show is for women who are done living like that. Each week, we'll be breaking down what's actually keeping you stuck in that pressure and how to start letting it go so that your life doesn't just look good, it actually feels good. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Live Lighter Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Berg, and I am so grateful to have you here. Now, for today's episode, we're gonna start making sense of why our lives tend to feel so heavy, why we tend to find ourselves in overwhelm and a very overfilling plate. Now, I want to start today with something that I notice almost every time I sit down with a new client. Now, the women I tend to serve are between the ages of 35-55. They have a really solid career that they've built up over the last decade, two decades of their life. And many of them are also moms. So they have this juggle of excelling in their career and wanting to be fully present and available at home for the people that they love the most. So a lot of times they are literally, quite literally, hanging by a thread when we first meet. And they tend to have this weight that they're carrying around, this weight of responsibility, this weight of being the one who is holding all the cognitive load of everything from things that are happening at work to things that are happening at home. And they have this exhaustion and there's stress, and there's also this quiet underlying confusion about why do I keep doing this? Why does this keep happening? Why do I always end up here? Why can't I just stop? Right? And I've learned that one of the most powerful things I can do in that moment when I'm first meeting with them, it's not to give them a tool or a strategy, it's to actually give them a map. Because here's what I know when we finally see why we respond the way we do, not as a flaw, not as a failure, but as a pattern that made complete sense once upon a time, there's something that shifts within us. The shame loosens, the self-blame softens, and for the first time, we actually have access to change. And that's what this episode is about today. So we are going to be talking about one of my favorite topics, which is the five personality patterns. This is a framework by Stephen Kessler's work that I come back to again and again and again in my coaching and in my own personal life. And by the end of this episode, you're going to have a whole new lens for understanding yourself and probably understanding a few people in your life, whether it be your partner, your kids, or your colleagues, or your boss. So let's get into it. What I'm about to talk about comes from a therapist named Stephen Kessler. And his book that he wrote is called The Five Personality Patterns. I highly recommend it. It is a New York Times bestseller. Now, Kessler's belief and his framework is that we, as human beings, in our childhood, we develop one to two of these survival mechanisms as our nervous system's response when we're in a state of overwhelm. And we these become our survival strategies. And we develop them from when we are in our mother's womb, so zero, to 10 years old. And over those course of 11 years, that's when we pick up on these patterns. And there are survival strategies, again, that we develop in order to one feel safe and two feel loved. And those strategies, they don't just disappear when we become adults. They actually become the unconscious ways that we're moving through the world. They shape how we respond to stress, how we relate to other people, how we handle pressure, and even how we experience the beloved burnout, which I'm sure many of us have encountered over the course of our time, especially in corporate. And when I started learning about these patterns, what I started realizing within myself is all these aha moments were happening on, oh, that's why I have trouble saying no. Oh, that's why I keep pushing through for the light at the end of the tunnel. Oh, that's why I keep stacking one thing on top of the other. Oh, that's why I have trouble asking for help. So we start to make sense of who we are and why we react certain ways and why those certain patterns are likely driving to our overwhelm and our burnout as a whole. Now I want to give a real life example of how powerful it can be to really understand what your nervous system patterns are and understand what the patterns are of someone else that's important in your life. I'm going to use my husband for this example. So for my husband and I, when we get into an argument, and it's not that often, but I like to use this as an example because it's really powerful. So say him and I are in an argument. My nervous system's primary response to find safety is to connect with him, is to fix it, is to literally have physical hugs and have eye contact and to literally come to a resolution and to connect with him. His nervous system's response pattern when he is in overwhelm is that he just wants space. He wants to hunker down, push it down, and just have space to process and to be by himself. So you can imagine that when the two of us are in an argument, my nervous system's safety response is to connect, his is to find space. It's literally as though I'm chasing him around the house, room to room, and my response is making him want more space, and his response is making me want to connect more. So this is why just having this level of awareness on how you learn to find safety can be powerful even in some of the most important relationships of your life. So now when we are in an argument, and again, this doesn't happen often, but I'm just using this because it is such a really potent example. When we are in an argument, I now know, okay, he needs space. And so it allows me to not take it personal when he is not wanting to connect with me, when he is not wanting to look me in the eyes and talk to me and give me a hug to make it better. It's not anything to do with me specifically. I mean, yes, obviously from the argument, but I now know that what he needs, what his nervous system needs to feel safe is to have space. And so, in that awareness, I can now give that to him instead of taking it as a personal attack on me and a reason to chase him around the house more to fix it and connect. Okay, so the way that I usually describe the personality patterns to my clients is that everyone, based on Kessler's theory, everyone has a primary pattern that they run when they are in a state of overwhelm. Most people have a secondary. So when the primary one is not working, then the secondary one kicks in. Some people also have a tertiary, but most people have a primary and secondary pattern. Now, the key is to think about when you are in overwhelm, which one of these come online. Now, one of the things that I want to be very clear on is that each pattern, they have gifts and they have the shadows. The shadows can keep us stuck. The gifts are what we tend to operate in when we've done some of the internal healing work on ourselves, when we're feeling present, when we're clear, when we're confident and we're grounded in who we are as a person. The shadows are more of the wounds that we haven't faced or healed through. Now, as I walk through each of these, I want you, there's there's five of them in total. And the reality is that you might see yourself in all five. However, the way to identify which one is your pattern is to think about when you are in overwhelm. And you can think about a recent argument that you were in or a situation where you felt uncomfortable, unsafe, and overwhelmed, whether it be at work or at home. And think about which one of these sounds more like your response in that state of overwhelm. For the sake of structure and ease of following, I am going to cover four specific areas for each of the five patterns. I'm going to first start to cover what this pattern looks like when it is in overwhelm. So you can start to identify whether or not that is actually your pattern. Then I'm going to talk about how this pattern shows up in relationships and work. I will then talk about the gifts of the pattern because every single pattern has them. And then I'm going to wrap it up with what is it that you actually need to support yourself when you are in overwhelm, if this is in fact your pattern. All right, so let's get started. The first pattern is the leaving pattern. I like to call people who run this pattern my little escape artists. So when if you are someone who runs this pattern, when you are in overwhelm, the response that you have is that you want to leave. You, it's hence why it's called the leaving pattern. You are scanning the room for an exit sign, or you are checking out mentally, going into your imagination or your head space. You are literally leaving the situation either physically, leaving the room, leaving the job, leaving the relationship, or you are leaving mentally. Now, a lot of times for people who run this pattern, they tend to also go into freeze mode where they literally feel as though they can't make decisions or they can't move forward because they are so overwhelmed. So they are frozen in place. People who run this pattern also hate conflict. It makes them highly uncomfortable. So they will avoid conflict at all cost. And that is where the people pleasing tends to come online, whether that be at work or in relationships, where they will just go along with it or do what the other person wants them to, just to avoid any loud or big reaction from the opposing side. Okay, so that's how it can show up in work and relationships. Now, the gifts of this pattern is that you tend to be extremely creative. You're also very playful when you are at ease. And you have the ability to really zoom out and see how all the dots connect. You can really tap into the big picture and see how each part of the puzzle plays a piece. Now, if you are someone who runs this pattern, your opportunity is to find safety in the present moment, to build safety within your own body. So it's really about getting out of the head and into the body. And a way to do this is one, you can even just like take your hands and bring contact to your body. You can like squeeze your arms, draw circles on the palm of your hand. Anything that you can do to, when you start to feel overwhelmed, bring you back to this present moment and remind yourself you are safe to be here. You can even look around the room and identify objects of the same color or shape. Again, grounding yourself in the present moment where you are right now. Okay, so it's all about feeling safety in this body, in this lifetime, and not feeling like you always have to press that eject button and get the hell out of there. Okay. Now, the second pattern that we are going to talk about is the merging pattern. I like to call these people the givers. Now, the merging pattern is one of the only ones that is comprised of two types of the same person, right? Of the same pattern. And it's all based on connection, though, to the external. So you are either someone who wants to be saved by other people, you like to be, you know, go into fawn mode and be saved by someone else, or you like to be the one saving others. You like to be the one fixing the situation because that's how you find value in yourself, where other people need you, where you're able to give to others. Now, if you are someone who runs this pattern, how this tends to show up in work in relationships is just that is you are constantly giving all of yourself. You are constantly putting other people's needs and desires above your own. Or you are literally merging with them. So this is actually my primary pattern. And I people who run this pattern, they can oscillate between the one who wants to be saved and the savior. And so for me, when I was younger, I remember growing up and my best friend at one point in high school looking at me and saying, You always become your boyfriend. Whoever you're dating, you end up liking their music, you end up liking the sports that they play, you just end up liking everything that they like. And that is a very huge indicator of someone who runs the merging pattern. Now, as I got older, I started to shift more into the fixer and the savior. And that's really where I kind of am today. But both of those situations, it's all about being filled up and needing the external, needing that connection to feel safe. Now, the gifts of this pattern is that because we are so focused on the external and other people and kind of anticipating what their needs are, we can literally read a room or read someone's emotions without them ever saying a word. I say this to my husband all the time. If there's something that's upsetting him, I look at him, I'm like, what's wrong? He's like, I haven't said anything. And for me, I'm like, I can read you like a book. I it's all written all over your face in your body language. So that is one of the gifts of people who run this pattern, is we really are perceptive of what other people's needs are. We can pick up on them before they even say it. We're also extremely like a very heart-centered pattern. So people who run this pattern are great leaders because they're very human-centric and they do things for the greater good. And the opportunities of this pattern is to build that sense of safety within ourselves versus reaching for it externally. Okay, so it's all about cultivating that safety within our own core when we are in a state of overwhelm. Instead of reaching, instead of chasing my husband around the house room to room, if we're in an argument trying to get eye contact with him, instead of doing that, I need to just go and find that safety and security within myself. Okay. So that is the merging pattern. The next pattern is the enduring pattern. And I like to call these my silent holders or my steady oak trees. So people who run this pattern, they tend to, when they are in overwhelm, the energy literally goes in and down. They tend to have, like from a body perspective, their body use use usually is more heavy in the trunk. They have that great booty, right? Um, and so they are constantly pushing their feelings down, they're constantly suppressing their feelings. And because they're doing that, they are one, telling themselves that my needs don't matter. When they aren't overwhelmed, they like to have space. They like to get small because they feel if I just get a little bit smaller and I'm not seen, I will be safe. This will just blow over. They tend to also be when it comes to like work in relationships, they tend to just push forward. They literally endure it. So they they're the ones who are trudging forward. Okay, I can do this, I can handle it. It's just one more tunnel I have to get through. Or maybe when it comes to relationships, it's okay, I'll I'll do what they want to do. My feelings don't matter. I'm gonna push mine down, I'll I'll sacrifice my needs so that they're getting what they need. So this is very much the enduring pattern, is just a constant suppression of your own needs and emotions and wants and desires. So people who run this pattern, they tend to make decisions very, very slowly. And the pattern, in and of itself, they just move slowly. Like whether it's spiritual growth, they're gonna go at a slower pace. If they're learning a sport, they're gonna be, you know, excelling in that sport maybe at a slower pace than their peers. They just they they move through life at a slower pace. And that actually is really a beautiful thing because they're not rushing. And something that they do not rush on is decisions. So when it comes to making decisions, for example, at work, someone who runs the enduring pattern is going to really take their time on making a decision because they want to take into account all the different scenarios, all the different sides, all the people that are going to be impacted before they make that decision. And this is actually what makes them a really great leader because they are really liberal in that sense. Now, the gifts of this pattern are that they are one, liberal, yes. Justice is usually a really big core value of theirs, but they also tend to be these steady oak trees from an emotional state. So, my husband, this is one of his primary patterns, and he really is my steady Eddie. Like where I am, maybe all over the place sometimes, I know I can rely on him to just be this solid oak tree of emotion where he's not gonna, he doesn't have these big emotional fluctuations throughout the day, let alone the week. That that's more me. So that's where I get to kind of lean on him for that. The next pattern to talk about is the aggressive pattern. And these are very much the armored warriors. They're the ones that learned very early on that they cannot trust anyone but themselves, that they always are having to be on the defense, that they're always having to fight. And for them, when they are in overwhelm, they want to get big. They want to dominate, they want to have control. So they either may get bigger literally, physically, they might puff up their chest and stand tall, they might raise their voice. If they're in an argument, they're going to come with fire with their words because that is a way for them to dominate and take control. Now, when it shows up in work and in relationships, especially I'm gonna give the work example because I feel like the relationship one can kind of feed into it naturally. So people who run this pattern, when they are in pattern, when they are deeply in the shad in the shadows of the pattern, they tend to be more of the micromanagers. They want everyone, if there's a project to be done, they want it to be done their way because they believe that's the best way. And where this might pile up when it comes to work for them is they don't trust other people. So then they're either going to micromanage the hell out of a project or they're going to be the ones that end up just taking it on and saying, just whatever, I'll just do it. So people who run this pattern from a leader perspective, they can either, if they're in the shadows of this pattern, they can be some of the worst leaders that are out there. However, the gifts of this pattern, if you run this pattern and you are coming from a healed space and you are coming from a place of presence, then people who run this pattern tend to be the most powerful leaders. They are charismatic. They are the type of leader that people want to follow. They are the ones that are able to take charge, that are able to make big decisions quickly. They are extremely driven. They literally just get shit done. And so people who run this pattern, when they are in the gifts of this pattern, they tend to be some of the greatest leaders of our time. If you run the aggressive pattern, when you are in a state of overwhelm, when you are your when your nervous system is deregulated, what you can actually do for yourself isn't to dominate, isn't to have to have control. Your opportunity is to learn that there is safety and vulnerability, that you can trust other people, that you can delegate and let go of control so that you are creating that much more space in your life. So the fifth pattern that I'm going to talk about is the rigid pattern. And I love to call these people my achievers. They're the ones who love to get things right. They're the top performers, they're always achieving, they're never messing up. Messing up would be a nightmare for them. They care immensely about how they are perceived by other people because external validation and acceptance is huge for them. They learned early on to maybe be the responsible one or the easy one, or they learned that in order to feel love for mom and dad, in order to feel accepted from mom and dad, that they had to perform, that they had to achieve. And so that is where they got their sense of value. They're the doers. They also tend to have the largest inner critic because they are constantly judging themselves. And because they expect such a high standard within themselves, they also are expecting that of the people around them. So that's how it can show up in work and in relationships. And when that doesn't happen, they get really frustrated and they get judgmental. For someone who runs the rigid pattern, they actually tend to find safety through doing and productivity. So someone who runs this pattern, when they're overwhelmed, they're either maybe they're going and they're cleaning the house like crazy, or they are just like working nonstop. Because if they just get all of their emails answered, if they check off their entire to-do list, then they're going to be safe. And a lot of my clients who run the rigid pattern, their ability to rest is the hardest out of all the other patterns. Because for them, they have to earn rest. They cannot sit and do nothing because they want to be productive. They want to be performing, they want to be achieving. And if what they are doing doesn't feed into any of that, then it makes them extremely uncomfortable. Now, the gifts of this pattern is they are the ones that you can depend on. You know that they are gonna be a top performer. You know that they're gonna get their stuff done. They are exceptional at organizing, they are exceptional at structure. So you know you can depend on someone who runs the rigid pattern to keep a clean house, to declutter, to organize, to be the responsible one, to be someone that you can count on that they're gonna do it right. Now, the opportunity here for someone who runs the rigid pattern is really about allowing their value and their worth to be in their being, not their doing, to be a human being, not a human doing, and to find presence in their body as much as possible. So a lot of people who run the rigid pattern, they are very much In their heads, just like the leaving patterns. There's this saying where scratch a rigid and you'll find a leaving, and vice versa, because they are very much the head space pattern. So someone who runs the rigid pattern, they're constantly analyzing, they're constantly processing information, and their brain just doesn't shut off. They're very much in their mental space. So for people who run the rigid pattern, the big opportunity is for them to connect to their body. And sometimes that isn't it just in the form of aggressive workouts. It's actually in the opposite. It might be in a slow walk through nature and listening to nature. It might be in sitting in meditation. It might be in doing gentle yoga, something that gently connects them to their body, to their emotions, to their five senses. So that is the rigid pattern, and we have officially wrapped up our overview of the five nervous system patterns based on Stephen Kessler's work. Now I want to say something about why I think this work is so particularly powerful for women. Because we live in a culture that tells women to do more, to be more, to give more. And a lot of us, most of us, learned very early that our value is tied to how much we could produce, how much we could give, how needed we could make ourselves. Or we learned that staying small was safer than being seen, or that we needed to fit in versus stand out. Or we learned that if we just endured, just kept our heads down, eventually everything would pay off. There was always going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, but what we didn't realize was the tunnel just was never ending. Once we got to the light, there was another tunnel we were entering. And then we wonder why we're running on empty, why we're not going for the thing that we actually want, the thing that we're quietly dreaming about in the back of our head, why success feels like it costs everything, why we're constantly sacrificing. It's not just a hustle problem. It's not a time management problem. It is a nervous system pattern. One that made complete sense when you were young because it truly helped you find a sense of safety. But it's also the thing that is now quietly running the show in your career, your business, and your ambitions. And so when we become aware of that, then we get to start to take action to offset that. We start to become aware of what we actually need in the moment. What we need is not more doing. We actually need more rest. What we need is to not be small, we actually need to take up space, let our voices be heard, let our feelings matter. What we need is to not constantly give ourselves to other people, but instead find our own sense of fulfillment within ourselves. What we need is to not always be the strong one in control, but instead to find safety in vulnerability and trusting others. What we need is to not check out the minute we are in overwhelm, but instead find safety in our body in this moment in this lifetime. These patterns have been transformational in how I move through my life and how I move through my relationships and how I move through my business. And the thing I love the most about building awareness about these patterns is that it creates such a sense of empowerment. And we start to understand how we work. We start to make sense of ourselves. And the more that we are able to understand ourselves, the more that we are able to really witness ourselves in these moments of deregulation, that's when we can really jump in and start to give ourselves what we actually need. And quite often it's the exact opposite of what we've been doing, of what we've been taught. If you are at all curious about finding out what your nervous system pattern is, obviously you can read Stephen Kessler's book. But if you want something that is a little bit more of a quick get, I do have a quiz that I have created. It's nine straightforward questions. And all you have to do is take the quiz and you'll be emailed your nervous system response pattern. It's it's pretty quick and painless and incredibly informative. So I highly suggest it. You can get the quiz on my website or I will leave a link to it in the show notes below. So thank you so much for being here today. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. And until next time, be well. Alright, so that's today's podcast. Thank you for listening. If you would like to learn more about the services that I provide to women, you can check out my website at Jessberg Coaching.com. That's J E S S B E R G C O A C H I N G dot com. Until next time, be well.