Have you found yourself in repetitive patterns that bring you to your knees again and again?  Do you swear that next time it will be different only to find yourself back in the same old mess yet again?  The reason for this is not because you are a glutton for punishment, nor is it because you lack intelligence.  It is because your psyche is trying to resolve old unresolved issues. 

The psyche always leans toward wholeness.  And so we are attracted to and by circumstances, people and problems that present us with the issues that need to be resolved.  The only problem is that because WE are still the same, we don't do anything different this time than we did the last, or if we do, it isn’t enough to resolve the issue. 

Typically, the reason we are still the same is that we are still wearing the same mask and costume we put on in order to cope with that original issue. These masks and costumes were put on, as unconsciously assigned by powerful family dynamics, in order to survive that family and its dynamics.  Even in the most functional families there is often some aspect of masking, because we are meant to fit into a certain culture a certain way, and we do not wish to be rejected by that culture or family by being “different.”  And while these masks and costumes and their accompanying roles helped us through childhood, they were never meant to become our adult identity.  Problems and crises are here to remind us of that fact.  The psyche is trying to use these crises to bring us home to ourselves.  But we don’t usually see it that way.  In fact, we see these crises as a threat to the identity which is but a mask/costume or role.   Ultimately this means that the issues we have are not with other people and circumstance, but rather with ourselves.  But this doesn't mean that we are to buck up, and just deal.  Nor does it mean that we are to go to battle with ourselves, beating ourselves up for not doing it “right.” 

What it means is that we need to become aware of who we really are, behind the masks and costumes.  The video below will tell you just a bit more.