One of the questions I ask almost every client eventually catches them off guard.
RECLAIM – R
It isn’t, “What happened to you?”
It isn’t, “How long have you struggled?”
It isn’t even, “How would you like your life to be different?”
It’s much simpler than that.
“What keeps happening?”
At first, most people answer by describing the latest event.
“I had another panic attack.”
“I yelled at my spouse.”
“I started smoking again.”
“I answered the text when I knew I shouldn’t have.”
“I stayed up until three in the morning worrying.”
“I said yes when I desperately wanted to say no.”
They’re describing the event.
I’m listening for the pattern.
Because events come and go.
Patterns keep repeating.
One of the greatest discoveries I’ve made after years of sitting across from people is this:
Very few of us have a behavior problem.
Most of us have a pattern problem.
And until we recognize the pattern, we will spend our lives trying to fix the latest symptom.
Imagine walking into your kitchen and seeing water on the floor every morning.
You could mop it up every day.
You could buy thicker towels.
You could become the fastest floor cleaner in town.
But until you notice that the pipe under the sink has a slow leak, tomorrow morning will look exactly like today.
Many of us are living that way emotionally.
We keep cleaning up the puddles.
We never look for the leak.
I once worked with someone who couldn’t understand why every relationship ended the same way.
Different names.
Different personalities.
Different cities.
The ending was always the same.
“I don’t know why this keeps happening to me.”
That’s a heartbreaking sentence.
Because it feels like life is happening to you.
As we talked, a pattern began to emerge.
Whenever a relationship became emotionally close, this person would begin pulling away.
Not dramatically.
Not consciously.
Just enough.
They would stop returning calls as quickly.
Become more critical.
Start looking for reasons the relationship wouldn’t work.
Eventually, the relationship would end.
Every time.
They thought they had terrible luck with relationships.
The pattern told a different story.
Years earlier, they had learned that closeness eventually leads to pain.
The behavior wasn’t random.
It was protective.
The pattern made perfect sense.
That doesn’t mean it was healthy.
It means it was understandable.
Those are two very different things.
One of the biggest mistakes we make is believing that understanding excuses behavior.
It doesn’t.
Understanding explains behavior.
And once something makes sense, we finally know where to begin.
Think about your own life for a moment.
Do you keep ending up in the same kind of relationships?
Do you find yourself apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?
Do you procrastinate until the pressure becomes unbearable?
Do you start strong and then quietly sabotage yourself just before success?
Do you constantly worry about disappointing people?
Do you avoid difficult conversations until they become impossible conversations?
Do you reach for food, alcohol, social media, work, or busyness every time life becomes overwhelming?
Those aren’t isolated moments.
They’re clues.
Patterns leave footprints.
The problem is that we’re usually standing so close to them that we can’t see them.
That’s why it’s so difficult to recognize our own patterns.
They’re normal to us.
A fish doesn’t notice water.
It has never known anything else.
Many people have lived inside the same emotional pattern for so long that they mistake it for their personality.
“I’m just an anxious person.”
“I’m a people pleaser.”
“I’ve always had a temper.”
“I’ve never had confidence.”
“I’ve always been this way.”
Have you?
Or have you always lived according to the same pattern?
There’s a difference.
One becomes your identity.
The other becomes something you can change.
One of my favorite moments with a client isn’t when they suddenly feel better.
It’s when they suddenly see.
They’ll stop in the middle of a sentence.
Their eyes widen.
Then they usually say something like…
“I’ve never noticed that before.”
That’s the moment everything begins to shift.
Not because the problem disappeared.
Because they finally recognized the pattern.
You can’t change what you can’t see.
Recognition isn’t weakness.
It’s awareness.
And awareness is where freedom begins.
Years ago, I believed my job was helping people stop doing unhealthy things.
Today, I think my job is helping people see what they’ve been unable to see.
Because once the pattern becomes visible, the behavior starts making sense.
The smoker isn’t simply addicted to nicotine.
The cigarette may have become a moment of peace in a life that never felt safe.
The person who can’t say no isn’t simply “too nice.”
They may have learned long ago that love had to be earned by meeting everyone else’s needs.
The angry husband isn’t necessarily an angry man.
He may be terrified of feeling powerless again.
The perfectionist isn’t trying to impress everyone.
They’re trying to avoid the shame of believing they are never enough.
Different behaviors.
The same question.
What pattern keeps showing up?
The goal isn’t to shame yourself for having one.
Every human being has patterns.
Some help us.
Some hurt us.
The goal is simply to become curious.
Curiosity is much kinder than condemnation.
Instead of asking…
“What’s wrong with me?”
Try asking…
“What keeps happening?”
“When did I first learn this?”
“What is this pattern trying to protect me from?”
“What purpose has it been serving?”
Those questions don’t magically solve your problems.
But they do something just as important.
They point you toward the real problem.
The pattern beneath the behavior.
That is why the first step of RECLAIM isn’t “change.”
It isn’t “try harder.”
It isn’t “be more disciplined.”
It begins with one simple word.
Recognize.
Because once you recognize the pattern…
You stop fighting yourself.
You stop believing you’re broken.
You stop chasing symptoms.
You begin understanding your story.
And understanding changes everything.
You cannot reclaim what you refuse to recognize.
But the moment you do…
The journey has already begun.