One of the things I find most interesting about what happens after we’ve been through something difficult is the gap between what we know intellectually and what we can still unconsciously carry.

We can know, very clearly, that something is over.
The relationship ended. We no longer live in that house. The crisis has passed. The treatment has finished. The person we lost isn’t here. We may have talked about it, made sense of what we can, and hopefully reached a point where it is no longer so consuming.

And yet, beyond our knowing, the experience still has a presence in our lives.

It might show up in how quickly we notice a change in somebody’s mood, or how difficult it feels to ask for help. Maybe we feel an urge to keep everybody happy, and anticipate problems before they happen. Or maybe we make sure we never depend too heavily on anyone.

None of those things necessarily look like the past. They look like responses to life right now, as it's happening.

After a while, these things simply become part of the story we tell about ourselves. We say we are independent. An overthinker. Someone who hates conflict. Someone who likes to be in control. The responsible one. The person who always keeps going.

Some of that may actually be who we are. It's not always helpful to turn a quirk, preference or difficult emotion into evidence of unresolved trauma. But there are times when it is worth asking whether there's a history underpinning something we think of as a fixed personality trait.

 A good place to start is, When did being like this first start to make sense?

When a pattern once had a job

A lot of the things we become frustrated with ourselves for doing now may have been entirely reasonable responses somewhere else. If:

• you grew up around unpredictable moods, becoming very good at reading a room could be useful.
• people repeatedly let you down, learning to rely heavily on yourself might have felt sensible.
• speaking honestly tended to create conflict, keeping the peace may have been the easier option.
• life changed quickly and without warning, planning for every possible outcome may have given you some sense that you could stay one step ahead.

There is nothing strange about any of that. As humans, we adapt to the environments we find ourselves in. The problem is that life can move on more quickly than some of our adaptations do.

Sometimes, those adaptations stay with us long after our circumstances have changed. We may find ourselves responding to people and situations as though we are still living with the same uncertainty, expectations or risks.

And because these responses have become so familiar, we rarely stop to question them. We may judge ourselves for how we behave today without considering why that behaviour developed in the first place. Understanding that history can change the way we approach our own patterns.

Sometimes the reaction belongs to more than the moment

Imagine you send someone you care about a message and they don’t reply for a few hours.

The facts are fairly limited. You sent a message; there has not been a reply.
Everything after that is where it gets interesting.

One person might barely notice, while another might wonder whether they have said something wrong. Some people can become angry, assume they are being ignored or start thinking through what they need to do to put things right. If, like me, you have been through complex trauma and sudden loss, you might begin catastrophising and worrying about what might have happened.

The unanswered message is the same, but what we make it mean can be completely different.

Of course, not every strong reaction is an echo of something old.Sometimes anger is appropriate and suspicion is justified. Sometimes our instincts are telling us something important about what is happening in front of us. That's why becoming aware of what drivers our reactions can also tap in to our intuition.

The point isn’t to question every feeling until we no longer trust our own judgement. It’s to become interested when the same thing keeps happening. Pay attention to patterns!

Perhaps there’s one kind of situation that always seems to knock you sideways, or one kind of interaction where your response feels disproportionately intense.

When that happens, it can be worth asking what else is present in the room besides whatever is happening today.

•  What am I expecting here?

•  What am I afraid this means?

•  What am I trying to prevent?

•  Have I felt this particular feeling before?

Sometimes we discover that our response has been carrying much more than we realised.

Knowing where it came from doesn’t make it disappear

There's something to be aware of when you start this work. You can understand a pattern, recognise exactly where it came from and still find yourself repeating it.

Insight is useful, but it isn’t a switch.

Sometimes we expect understanding to produce immediate change. We make the connection, perhaps talk about it in therapy or explore it through journalling, and then feel disappointed when the same response appears again a few weeks later.

But perhaps the value of understanding is that we begin to notice what’s happening a little earlier. At first, we may only recognise a pattern afterwards. Then perhaps we notice it while it’s happening. Eventually, we might catch ourselves before responding in the way we always have.

That growing awareness gives us more opportunities to choose how we respond. And different choices, repeated often enough, are how patterns begin to change.

 If you’d like to explore some of those connections for yourself, we created the free Guide to Transmuting Trauma, with reflective exercises and journalling prompts to help you look at what past experiences may still be shaping in your life today.

Download the free guide