Why You Repeat Painful Patterns And How To Break Them

The patterns that hurt you are rarely random. If you keep reacting the same way, choosing the same type of relationship, or freezing when you know what you “should” do, there’s usually something deeper at work than willpower. We go straight into the real question: why do we keep repeating pain, and what are we actually trying to avoid?

I talk about how fear of rejection, humiliation, abandonment, punishment, or “not being good enough” often points to an old wound the body already recognises. When we don’t understand what’s happening inside us, we suppress, distract, and distance ourselves from discomfort, hoping it will stay away. But avoidance has a cost. The more we run from the wound, the more it quietly drives our choices, becoming the hidden architect of our behaviour and shrinking our ability to live freely.

I also share a turning point from my own life: being alone on another continent, leaving with $3 and a suitcase, and having someone hold up a mirror that stopped me in my tracks. That moment sparked a lifelong curiosity about human behaviour and self-awareness. We unpack a challenging insight: sometimes the person we most fear is ourselves, through self-rejection and a cruel inner dialogue. Awareness is not judgement. Awareness is seeing, and what we can see, we can begin to change.

If this lands for you, share it with someone who needs an honest conversation, then subscribe, leave a review, and tell me what pattern you are ready to name.

Transcript

Why We Repeat Pain

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, and welcome to Rise Up Podcasts. My name is Vicky Ross, and I'm your host. Today I want to talk to you about suffering. Not in a dramatic way or in a hopeless way, but in a really deeply human way. Because I think that one of the biggest questions people have or people carry is this. Why do I keep doing the things that hurt me? Why do I repeat patterns that create pain? Why do I react the way that I do? Why do I make these decisions that I make? Why do I feel so afraid of rejection or humiliation or abandonment, punishment? Basically, it's stopping and looking at yourself and going, I know what I'm supposed to do. Why am I not doing those things? What stops me from doing those things? And I do think that one of the reasons, if not the main reason, is you fear what's going to happen. You fear those things, you fear rejection, you feel humiliation, abandonment, you fear you're scared of those things. And that is because somewhere deep inside of you, you already know the pain. Because if you didn't know it, you can't be scared of it. So the fact that you're scared of it tells me that you know it. So you already know what rejection feels like in your body. You know what humiliation feels like emotionally, you already know the ache of abandonment. And a lot of us know the fear of not being good enough. And instead of sitting without pain to understand it and work through it, bring some awareness to it, what we tend to do, and what you are doing is you spend your life trying to make sure nobody else touches it again. And so much of human behavior begins here, not from freedom, but from avoidance. You avoid this pain because you do not fully understand what is happening inside of you. You don't know how to stop it, you don't know how to change it, you don't want the pain to end. And so you suppress it, avoid it, distract yourself from it. And let's face it, what makes us magnificent is that we as humans, the way that our brain is structured is that we can think way past survival, which is why we can build cars, while we can build houses, while we've got technology, when dogs and cats and tigers just keep going in a way that they've done for years. The adaptation is very small, but for us it's huge. But here's the biggest problem, which is part of this. We are not taught to think about our thinking. I'll say it again. We are not taught to think about our thinking. So you know that you're feeling something, but you don't know how to stop it, you don't know how to change it, and all you want is for this pain to end. So you suppress it, you avoid it, you distract yourself from it.

Avoidance Becomes Your Hidden Driver

SPEAKER_00 3:25

And secretly you hope that if you stay far enough away from this wound, the wound will stay away from you too. But the strange thing is that the more you avoid the wound, the more the wound unconsciously drives your life. Because your whole life is now geared towards avoiding this pain. It becomes the hidden architect underneath your behavior. Avoidance of pain, avoidance of rejection, of shame, or feeling unsafe, or feeling not enough. And suddenly your life is no longer about living freely, it becomes about trying not to get hurt.

A Crisis That Changed My Life

SPEAKER_00 4:07

And this is one of the reasons I became fascinated by human behavior. And honestly, it is one of the reasons I started up the Rise Up Stories. Because I became fascinated by those moments in people's lives where something broke open. Not a motivational quote, but a real moment. A moment where somebody reaches a point where they think, I cannot keep living like this. It's that crisis moment. And for me, I had one of those moments. I've had lots of moments like these, by the way. But one of the ones that really comes to me is I was young, I was about 22. I was in a completely different continent to my friends and family. I had got married to the wrong man, and it was a sham. And I needed to leave, and I knew this, but I couldn't do this immediately. I felt very trapped, terrified, alone, destitute, helpless. There was no emails, there was no none of this kind of support. I was literally alone, and I left my home with $3 in my purse and a suitcase. And I remember how incredibly stressful that period of my life was. Now I was fortunate that some of the friends that I had made over the two months that I was there took me in and cared for me. It was in that moment where I left with my $3 in my purse and my suitcase that one of my friends said, I know you don't have a mom here. My mom is very happy to have a cup of coffee with you and support you in whichever way. And that turned out, that cup of coffee turned out to be that I stayed with him for two months. So one evening, her stepfather, who used to talk to me every night, sat me down and said something that changed my life. He basically held a mirror in front of me. And he said to me, I was either heading towards a nervous breakdown or I needed to stand up for my life and change it. And I was like, what? Because I didn't see this coming, but something about that moment stopped me. Because for the first time, I really saw myself. And truly, this was the first time. So it wasn't the story, it wasn't about blame, it wasn't the chaos around me. It was me, the way I was reacting, the emotional chaos I was living inside, the decisions I was making, the patterns I was repeating. And when I eventually returned home, I became very, very curious about myself. Not curious about what was wrong with everybody else or even what was wrong with me, just very curious about myself. I would ask myself, why did I do the things I did? Why did I make the decisions that I made? What was driving me internally? Because if I was being very honest with myself, which I hadn't been, I knew that the decision to get married and then go to another continent was the wrong decision. And instead of following through to my gut instinct, my intuition, I kind of pushed it away because everybody else seemed to be in agreement with it. And I thought, oh, it's just nerves instead of listening to me. So when I started being curious, I did this because I didn't like what I was doing to my life. I didn't like the chaos. I didn't like the suffering. I really didn't like what it was doing to me or to the people around me. And I think that that was really the beginning for me. The beginning of this deep longing to understand. And, you know, it there's a Greek sentence that has stayed with me for years. It says, Ineya psychismu nakata lave, translated, it is the longing of the soul to understand. And I think many of us carry that longing, that longing to understand why we suffer or why we react, why we disconnect from ourselves, and why we keep repeating patterns that hurt us. And years later, that journey became a work. It began with me trying to understand myself.

The Fear Is Often Self-Rejection

SPEAKER_00 8:48

And one of the things I eventually realized is that the thing you're most frightened of is yourself. So if you're terrified that other people will reject you, somewhere inside you're already rejecting yourself. If you're terrified that other people will humiliate you, somewhere inside you are already humiliating yourself. If you are terrified that other people will punish you, somewhere deep inside, you're punishing yourself already. It's happening. And yet most people never sit quietly enough with themselves to truly see it, just to notice how they betray themselves, how they abandon themselves, how cruel their inner dialogue becomes, and how often they override their truth and how often they disconnect from themselves. And this is why awareness matters so deeply. Because awareness is not judgment, awareness is seeing. And what you can truly see, you can now begin. Bishawa, who is an alien entity that is being channeled, always says, while you're unconscious about something, it's a habit. Once you become conscious, because now you see it and you keep doing it, it's now a choice. And when I heard that the first time, I thought, oh my goodness, that's so true. And it's so scary because it's scary to think that we would choose this for ourselves, whatever the pain is. And I think that many people spend their entire lives trying to avoid the suffering without realizing that avoidance itself becomes a suffering. Because avoidance disconnects you from yourself. And eventually your soul begins longing for something deeper. You know, it wants truth, connection, meaning, wholeness. It doesn't want performance or perfection, just wants truth. And maybe healing is not about becoming somebody else. Maybe healing is about becoming honest enough to finally see yourself clearly. But not with shame, not with punishment, but with awareness. Because awareness creates choice and choice creates freedom.

Awareness Turns Habit Into Choice

SPEAKER_00 11:09

So again, I hope this has sparked some introspection in yourself and that this episode spoke to you or reminded you of somebody that you care about, which in that case, please share this with them. Because sometimes one honest conversation can be the beginning of healing, whether it's yours or somebody else's. And if you'd like to do deeper work with me, I run a beautiful membership community where we explore all sorts of things to do with changing your life, transforming your life, and creating a life that truly feels aligned and yours. For the rest, be gentle with yourself. You're not broken, you are becoming conscious. Well done. Congratulate yourself. It's a journey, and please do not compare your journey to somebody else's because nobody's journey is like yours. And your journey is not like anybody else's either. So we we can't compare ourselves because nothing is the same. And until next time, I wish you a good week. Thank you for listening, and here's to your success.