Blog Layout

Teresa Ford • May 24, 2024

Blog Post #43

Ending Negative Patterns

#groupconversations #realplay  #deepwork#nervoussystemregulation #nervoussystemhealing #overwhelmed #exhausted #restless

I'm so excited to talk about our subject today because I want to talk about what matters most to you. 


Not everybody likes change, and not everybody wants to think about the thoughts I have because they don't go anywhere. 


What I do know is that you care about changing negative patterns that drag your life down. 


I know that you would like to be the person who can end old patterns that cause you to be afraid, cause you to have anxiety, cause depression, cause more sadness, cause more anger. 


Building relationships may have been a sticking point for you. 


The financial income thing may be a sticking point for you. 


Finding self-acceptance and self-validation has been a sticking point for you. 


Perhaps it's a sticking point to let go of what other people think of you. Perhaps it's a sticking point that you're always the people pleaser, and then you're burned out. 


Whatever the sticking point is, that's a pattern. That's the thing you care about changing the most. Okay? 


We've got to dive into the mechanics of this. 


Where did those patterns come from? Because if you need help understanding where they came from, it will be hard to change them. 


You then continue in that roundabout, haven't you? I've been through this before.


I exited the roundabout thinking I would do something different, but all I did was enter the same roundabout again, going in circles, and it got old. It gets really old after a while. 


I want to help you end negative patterns today. We're going to keep the good ones. 


There's no need to even talk about those. Okay, because those are truths that are working for you. 


What are patterns? 


They're habits of thought that turn into beliefs, and those beliefs drive our behavior. 


Those habits of thought, the thoughts that do not serve us and cause these negative pattern repetitions, are what we think is the truth when they're not. 


They lack truth and a big platform that I like to stand on; my pedestal is that it lacks love. 


It lacks the good stuff in those thoughts that don't serve you. 


They're turning into patterns and habits; now, we have behaviors matching our thoughts. 


If we do change our thoughts, guess what? We'll change the thing that matters to us, and that's ending those negative behavioral patterns. 


Let's go slow. Let's take this a little at a time and turn it into a story because I want you to see how your life has come to be. That's important. Okay? 


Before the age of seven, your parents did their best, good or bad. They were trying to teach you some sort of value system from their thought habits. 


You picked up on them because that was the only thing before you. 


You're like, well, I would trust you to tell me the truth of what I need to know to survive in this world. 


Since I had no other options as a baby, I'm going to trust you to feed me, change me, and help me dress me. Right? 


That became our first habit: trust the people caring for us. 


In doing so, they trained us to believe and think a certain way. 


The difference is that you are not them, and they are not you. 


My mother was a helper, and I'm a helper. 


There were many similarities there as far as energy and the desire to pitch in and help, which, on a negative plane, turned into people-pleasing, worrying about what other people thought of us. 


However, we have very similar energies that way. 


My dad was a challenger. He was not a helper. He was the guy with the big vision. He was going to be right no matter what. It was difficult—no pun intended. 


It was a challenge to work with the challenger in the house. He constantly challenged people and forced them to examine their truth. 


If their truth didn't agree with his truth, and he was going to be correct, he would challenge their truth and see if he could get them to believe what he believed. 


This was happening in front of me as a child, and I was going to develop stories based on my personal sensitivities. 


I was looking at what they were trying to teach me and processing through my underdeveloped brain. 


Now, before the age of seven, our brains are always in development mode. 


They're always trying to figure out what's right or wrong, how and what expectations are placed on me. 


Who is asking me to do what? Do I have the skill set to perform? 


This was happening before the age of seven. 


What that does, if it was negative training, if you had an angry father and an anxious mother, that what they were sharing with you, first of all, had nothing to do with you. 


Second, it causes you to think that only you would feel if you're a loyalist, a perfectionist, a peacekeeper, an enthusiast, a helper, or an achiever. You're any of those personalities. 


Whatever personality you are, it's perfect, but you will only see things from your perspective. 


Even though these parents were trying to do their best and teach you what they wanted to teach you, their reactions and behavioral differences still matched their thoughts. 


Still, it wasn't necessarily serving you because now you're picking up how to think. 


The thoughts you think become habits or beliefs, and those beliefs turn into behavior. Okay, let's back up just a hair. 


The thoughts you think about change the way your nervous system responds. 


When your nervous system is responding negatively, it causes you to act or behave in protective ways. 


This could be in fight or flight, which means breaking out your sword and swinging it around to see if there's someone you need to attack so that they don't attack you first, or you could be running away. 


Those are trauma responses to any degree. It could be a slight degree. 


I don't want anything to do with that person anymore. Or I got to run danger, danger. Okay. 


Those are happening when your nervous systems are super stuck. 


You'll go into a freeze response, like a tiger jumping out on the trail; you'll walk on, surprising both of you, knowing you don't have a plan to handle the situation. 


When your nervous system is responding like that, you have stuck energy. 


You almost stopped breathing. 


You just tied up in knots, and you have that sucker gut punch in your stomach. 


Then, if you're in a fawn mode because it's the only way to avoid the conflict you're sure is, it will befall you. 


That's when you're like, Oh, I'll do whatever you need me to do. 


I'll be whatever you need me to be. I will morph and be a chameleon and go along with it to avoid abandonment, rejection, disloyalty, whatever it is. 


Whatever you're worried about. 


That's how your nervous system is acting on a negative scale. 


When your nervous system is happy and safe, the thoughts that you're thinking about cause your nervous system to say we're good. 


Your nervous system is in charge of sending out all the little hormones throughout your whole body. They're saying something in between. 


We are not safe alerts, and all the adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, and chemical soups for survival come up. 


If you're at rest and digestion, your whole body has a really nicely regulated set of hormonal messengers. 


Just putting in that nice, easy heart rate and blood pressure, all the organs are on a little vacation, and everything's going smoothly. Okay? 


We have those extremes. There's everything in between. 


You might even be triggered in your nervous system with a little thought that you had that didn't bring up massive anxiety or massive overwhelm or extreme fatigue or any of those other negative feelings that we have. Let's go back. 


A thought that you learn to think. That thought over and over again, like if you see a homeless person and think you learned from your parents to get a job, and that thought is what you think over and over and over. 


It builds a story about you having to work hard for your money or you can't be lazy. 


Whatever story you learn, it's going around in your head, causing you to form thoughts that you think over and over, and they become your beliefs. 


Now, when you have a belief, but it's causing cyclical negative patterns to happen in your life, that belief is missing truth. 


You're operating as if it is the truth. 


If it's the truth, it would produce good results in your life. 


You would have no money blocks. You would have healthy interdependent relationships and this magnetism that manifests everything you like; it's not a problem. 


I am limitless. 


You would have this sense of complete freedom to express yourself, try something new, and be uninhibited. Okay? 


If your thoughts are stuck, they trigger your nervous system, which now governs your behaviors. 


You'll keep hearing the same old story over and over. 


What I want you to understand about what you want most, which is to change negative behaviors, is that you have to go back and ask where that thought came from. 


What do I really think about that thought? 


Let's take money, for example. 


If you saw your parents struggling with money, and clearly, I did, my dad acted like money had no limit except when he was out of it because he would spend everything he had.


Worry my mom to death. 


My mom coming from the great depression does always describe herself as a three-year-old sucking on a potato. Cause there was nothing else to eat. 


Scarcity and prosperity issues. This is what I saw my parents doing. 


For years and years and years, I was like, I'm not going to be like my parents. I'm not going to be like my parents. 


I wasn't changing. What I believed about my parents and what I saw them do. 


One way to examine one's beliefs is to realize that the thoughts one has isn't true. 


The fact is that my parents didn't have money, which has no meaning. 


There was no meaning to it. It just meant that they grew up poor and made sure they stayed poor. Okay. 


There's nothing wrong with that until I add meaning. 


What I saw them doing was living in pain. They wanted money. 


My mom was cut from a royal cloth. She was a beautiful lady, and mink stoles looked really good on her back in the day. 


My dad also wanted to be seen as successful, and money was the most important thing. It was always money and then relationships because that's how challenges are built. 


He wanted to be the big man on campus, to be seen as a super successful money guy. 


They had to make a lot of errors, and all they were doing in front of me was exposing their pain of deprivation, their pain of status or lack thereof. It was just painful. 


When I asked myself, what did it mean to you? 


My higher self answered that they were not taking care of themselves. It lacked love. 


Cause when you take care of yourself, there's a lot of love involved. 


There's just, it's good stuff. It just feels good. 


There's no guilt, there's no shame. There's no disrespect. There's none of that going into self-care, self-love. 


When I thought about that, I was like, Oh my gosh, not having money means I'm also not taking care of myself because we need money. 


Money is good. Money's very good. 


The more you have, the more you can do, and the more it frees you up. 


The more you can give, the more you can donate, and the more generous you can be. 


Money is a great thing. 


It was part of my self-care program that I needed to participate in. 


I needed to instill it in my life and install it. 


That was how I broke through my money issues. 


I asked what it meant because you're assigning meaning to your thoughts. 


Often, we assign meaning to our thoughts based on what we learned before the age of seven when we were too emotionally underdeveloped to process what it meant. 


If you watched your parents and it didn't make you happy, what meaning did you add to it? The same goes for death. 


Someone dies; there's no meaning to that. 


They were here, but now they're not done—end of story. 


It only means something once you assign a meaning to it. 


When you assign a meaning to it, that's when you get the emotion. 


It feels good if it has a higher vibrational energy, which is towards the love side of things. 


I'm not saying that there won't be a grieving process if you lose someone you love. 


The grieving process will cycle much faster when you're like, but they're in a better place. 


I love them. They love me. 


We know where we stand all as well. 


If you didn't get a chance to share what you loved with them, you could have a better thought by saying they are in a better place, and I'm grateful that they are no longer in pain. 


It may not remove any pain you feel about not being able to share your love with them or them not being, owing you an apology or whatever is happening. 


But when you can come up with a thought that has a better meaning to it, things get better. That's how patterns change.


Do you change the meaning of the thoughts you're having? I get it. 


The hardest part is asking what thoughts I have. 


I don't know what, but that's when you go back and think about what you were thinking just before you felt what you felt. I know, I know. 


You just think if you feel sad, angry, bitter, or resentful. 


Maybe you've thought a million times before, and it's just built up all this anger, resentment, bitterness, and rage. 


The habit of thought is a belief system. 


All men are bad. 


You're sticking to it because something happened before age seven, and you decided that would be your story. 


If you pull it back, you're like, but are all men bad? Can I find an example of a good man? Yes. They're all around us. Yes. Y


You can see a good example of a good man. 


Then, is your story true? No, because you assigned meaning to it and decided that would be your story.


Now, if you're looking for a relationship, that's going to be a problem if you're heterosexual. 


If you're looking for a man suitable to you, healthy, and emotionally available, but you think all men are wrong, you'll just find the bad ones. 


You have to change the meaning that at that time in my life, I thought that thought, and I added the meaning that all men are bad. 


If it's not true, I can have a higher-vibrational thought that will help me find a man to have a healthy, good relationship with. 


It's the meaning you assign to it. 


I always say that you think a thought subconsciously, assign emotion to it, or assign, sorry, a meaning to it. 


That meaning is either closer to the fear side, which is the absence of love, or it's drawing closer to the love side, which is an absence of fear. 


When I had that thought about my parents, they weren't being good to themselves. 


I was following in their footsteps, which meant I was not being good to myself, which pulled me back. 


I was like, whoa, hold up. I want you to be good to me. I don't think like they do. I'm not a self-deprecating person. 


I'm worthy and lovable, and I believe in all the good stuff about myself. 


Why am I still operating by a belief, which is a habit of thought that I thought of way back? When I couldn't ease my parents' pain. 


Part of being good to me is not just self-acceptance, self-love, and self-care but also money. 


I changed the meaning of what money meant to me.


Money brings you pain. That's what I was thinking. 


Money is not good because it makes my parents fight. 


It makes my parents sad and angry. They feel like money cannot be good, but I did that.


I assigned that meaning to money. 


Money didn't do it. Money's got no meaning. 


The thought and meaning we assign to money makes it meaningful to us. 


We can assign a meaning to money that says it is a problem and watch us struggle because it lacks truth, love, and truth. It's just fear-based. 


Money is part of my healthcare plan, wellness plan, mental health plan, emotional health plan, and spiritual battery charging plan. 


You can decide the meaning of money, the meaning of loss, the meaning of prosperity. 


If you think people with money are bad because they're prosperous, you will struggle with money. Probably. 


But if you're good, you struggle with money and say people with money are wrong. 


You need to reassign that money or that meaning to money. 


You can be a good, prosperous person too. 


You're a good person, but it's a struggle without money. That's the pattern you want to break. Does that make sense? 


When you think about your nervous system triggering your behavior, you'll keep cycling through it unless you teach your nervous system to feel something else. 


The thought you have, the meaning you assign to it, triggers the nervous system, triggers the emotional outcome, triggers the pattern, and you seem like one thing in your head triggers everything else, and that is it. 


On the whole, it determines how your life goes. 


Life is good and easy for you. 


Life is hard, and it is always a struggle. 


You have to work hard. 


But, all the people that work hard and we're still broke, man, that's not true. 


It's not true that you have to work hard to earn money. Right?


We're starting to go, oh, I always grew up with this value system that you had to work hard to have money. 


Yet we knew people who worked hard and still didn't have money. That's not true. 


It's only if you believe you deserve money, that money is good, that money comes to you, that money is always in flux, and it might as well stop and visit you at your door or your house. 


When you assign a new meaning to a thought, it triggers your nervous system, pushing your behavior forward, right? 


Fawning, freezing, fighting, or flight are behaviors, right? 


If you're triggered and you just blow up and you're starting to have these panic attacks, or you're blaming somebody, or you have an argument, or you're just going to confront someone, those are triggers. 


You're in fight mode. 


Where did that come from? 


Your nervous system is located in your brain. 


Where are your thoughts located in your brain? 


It's a thought with a meaning, and that meaning triggers the nervous system to decide what to do next. 


Rest and digest, fight or flight, and then your behaviors follow suit. 


If you want to break a pattern, it will be super important to change your thoughts and the meaning assigned to them. 


You can't change the thought once you get to the meaning. You have to identify the meaning. 


What does that mean to me? That's the question. What, not why? What does that mean to me? 


As soon as you decide that the thought you had, which you'll only recognize the emotion first, makes me angry, and I'm so frustrated. That is so stupid. 


The emotion there was created from a thought you had first. 


You have to backtrack and go to that thought you had first and then realize that your thought is lacking truth. 


It no longer serves you.


It causes the same patterns to be cyclical in your life, frustrating you and dragging your life down. 


You've got to figure out what the meaning was. 


What does that mean to me? Where did I see it first? What meaning did I assign to it when I was young? 

Because it's an emotionally underdeveloped meaning. 


As an adult, you want those meanings to transition into a positive, high-vibrating love, thought, and meaning. 


You just want to upgrade it. 


When you can do that, you can identify, oh my gosh, that didn't have truth in it. 


Now I can talk about what is more accurate for me now. 


When you find more truth, it is an equal match to light and love. 


More truth is in that direction of feeling good. 


When you feel good, you feel like the pressure is lifted. 


You feel lighter, at ease, and relieved. 


When you feel relieved, you're on the right track. 


You're going on your way to breaking patterns. 


Those patterns, the new patterns you're forming, the thoughts you think, and the habits of thought that turn into beliefs will hold more truth because those beliefs have a meaning assigned to them that leads you to your nervous system behaving and your emotions coming through.


Then, your actions align with a better thought and meaning. 


That's how you change your patterns. It's a lot.


I always offer free help. 


If you need free coaching, just talk on the phone about changing this in your life. 


There's always a link in the show notes to my calendar, schedule, and appointment.


I would love to talk to you because your happy life is one of my favorite things, and we have to work out these patterns to work for us, not against us. 


Note: You can access the full blog content in audio versions on Spotify and YouTube. Happy listening! 🎧 

.

.

.

#somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystemregulation #nervoussysemhealing #nervoussystemhealth #traumainformed #emotion #stressrelease #traumarelease #stressrelief #somatichealing #sympatheticnervousystem #rest #relaxation #overstimulated 

#somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystemregulation #nervoussystemhealing #nervoussystemhealth
By Teresa Ford September 3, 2024
You are creative at the heart of who you are. You would rather be in charge of creating your life and deciding the who, what, and when of your daily schedule. When you discover your true self, you won’t be able to plow through every day like a drone, exhausting yourself with people pleasing or trying to meet unrealistic expectations in hopes of being valued and appreciated. Your inner genius is your spirit. She is love and light. She has so much to say, share, and experience. It would be a crying shame to keep her stuffed away, never to contribute her gifts and talents to the world, wouldn’t it? Your inner genius is very wise and wholly intelligent. If you take time every day to ask her questions to which you seek answers, she might surprise you with the creative ways she nudges you to be the unrestrained genius you have wanted to give you the answers to the test.
#anxiety #anxietytips #depression #depressionsolutions #cortisol #hormonehealth #hormonehealing
By Teresa Ford September 3, 2024
If you listen to your body, which is talking to you all the time, you will have a much better handle on your real needs and what are just coping strategies. You may feel like there is a void you can’t fill. Stop, breathe in three sharp breaths, hold for three seconds, and exhale slowly—repeat three times. When you tune in to your actual needs to get more sleep, start a project you’ve been putting off, or engage in a creative outlet and take action, you will avoid the frustration that comes with the myriad of ways we can find to procrastinate and become out of alignment with our true selves. With practice, it will become clear how to end cycles of procrastination that breed self-doubt and allow yourself to feel fulfilled, attuned, and complete.
#somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystemregulation #nervoussystemhealing #nervoussystemhealth
By Teresa Ford September 3, 2024
A balanced and regulated nervous system supports not only your inner child, who needs you to stay with her when she feels insecure and afraid of the “situation” you might be going through, but it will exponentially change your outer world as you walk with confidence and assurance that who you are, as you are is the only person you can be. The real you is when you are simultaneously connected to your soul, your inner child, your intuitive guidance, and your body. Not a single part of you is being denied, ignored, or abandoned. Your body holds all of the past memories, good or bad, through the conditioning of the nervous system, and it just so happens that your spirit also lives in your body.
#anxiety #anxietytips #depression #depressionsolutions 
#traumaandsomatics #emotionalregulation
By Teresa Ford August 26, 2024
Are you feeling drained and stuck in a rut? Discover how a powerful morning practice can ignite creativity and sharpen intuition. Imagine starting your day with frequency music that resets your nervous system and fuels your resilience. Dive into visualization and intention setting to unlock personal growth and self-discovery. Elevate your high-frequency energy to spark inspiration and enhance your emotional well-being. Through mindfulness and automatic writing, you'll tap into profound insights. Embrace servant leadership and adaptability to transform your energy and conquer exhaustion. Tune into our latest podcast episode to learn how to flow seamlessly with life and turn your daily struggles into a vibrant, balanced existence.
#traumaandsomatics #emotionalregulation #somatic #confidence #confidencebuilding #meaningfuldialogue
By Teresa Ford August 26, 2024
Have you ever felt like you're stuck in a never-ending cycle of exhaustion despite your best efforts? It's time to tap into your expansive spirit and elevate your energetic frequency to break free. By addressing the impact of trauma on your nervous system, you can foster profound personal growth and embrace change. Start by reverse engineering your aspirations, conquering doubt, and resetting your nervous system through nurturing your inner child. Invite divine abundance into your life and find humor in the process. This approach will not only lift your mind to a higher state of being but also help you go with the flow of life and find much-needed relief from exhaustion.
#stressrelease #traumarelease #stressrelief #somatichealing #sympatheticnervousystem #rest #trauma
By Teresa Ford August 26, 2024
Your job has never been to do hard things. Your job is to find the way to doing challenging things more easily. Another way to say that is to let go of the resistance you added to the experience and let yourself find the more simple path. Imagine this: You're on a rowing boat, facing upstream, fighting against the current, thinking, “If I just paddle harder, I’ll get somewhere!” But there’s one caviat; all rivers flow downstream. Upstream padding is not what is needed most. Setting the paddle down and letting the current take you is easier. But, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. Haha
#stressrelease #traumarelease #stressrelief #somatichealing #somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystem
By Teresa Ford August 17, 2024
Your nervous system plays a crucial role in your overall well-being, and finding ways to calm it is essential for maintaining inner peace. Whether you’re dealing with daily stress or on a journey of healing trauma, it’s important to find practices that help you relax and reset. Discover how to calm your nervous system and make peace with gentle techniques for releasing tension and negativity. By taking time to calm your nervous system and release all stress, you create space for healing and renewal. Learn to let go of the past and embrace the present moment by learning how to calm your nervous system and release negativity. This process not only supports emotional balance but also helps you reset your nervous system and release stress, fostering a deeper sense of well-being. Allow yourself to experience the peace of a calm and balanced nervous system and take steps towards profound healing and tranquility.
#somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystemregulation #nervoussysemhealing #nervoussystemhealth #trauma
By Teresa Ford June 5, 2024
In this transformative podcast, Teresa dives deep into understanding the inner workings of your nervous system, helping you heal from past trauma, and empowering you to live a life of emotional freedom and fulfillment. Get ready to reconnect with your inner self, nurture your emotional needs, and embark on a journey of self-discovery and healing. Tune in and let Teresa be your compassionate guide on the path to wholeness and empowerment.
#somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystemregulation #nervoussysemhealing #nervoussystemhealth #trauma
By Teresa Ford May 24, 2024
We seek Emotional Freedom, but unless we are able/willing to give up emotional chaos, it will illude us, and we may never feel at peace and harmonic with the flow of life. This makes life hard. In this episode, Teresa Ford helps you identify the habits that must be abandoned in place of the thought patterns that can shift you from a state of negative emotion, such as anger, betrayal, disappointment, irritation, sadness, and grief, into a state of peace of ease. If you pick up a nugget of insight or two, please be sure to share them in the comments.
#somatic #somaticpractice #nervoussystemregulation #nervoussysemhealing #nervoussystemhealth #trauma
By Teresa Ford May 24, 2024
The Power of three is everywhere in our lives. It starts with God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Also, Christ rose on the 3rd day. Why 3? The number 3 biblically represents divine wholeness, completeness, and perfection. We spend most of our lives trying to connect the Body, Mind, and Spirit to feel whole. Our personal patterns of becoming the highest versions of ourselves involve Growth, Expansion, and the Journey that eventually becomes the story and legacy we leave behind. It is also the number indicating time – past, present, future, birth, life, and death. If you look at the patterns of 3 in your life, you may discover the lessons you were being called to learn so you could live more fully in Harmony, Wisdom, and Understanding. You might enjoy a little life review session looking for patterns in 3s that either held a disintegrating pattern for you or an enlightened pattern that helped you up out of dark places.
More Posts
Share by: