Navigating Other Peoples Patterns | 025

Nicole Lohse: 00:00:00

For those of you that have been watching and listening into this podcast for some time now, you're probably quite familiar with the fact that I am fascinated by the human experience, and my main intention with this podcast is to invite you to deepen your awareness of your own experiences, so that you're more aware of these patterns you find yourself in and when they're rooted in survival, so that you're more aware of the entangled layers that contribute to these patterns you find yourself in, so that you have more of an understanding of what's at the core of these patterns, that often It's the trauma you stuck in that threat response cycle that then impacts these patterns to take shape. Now what's also important to me is for you to see that we are complex human beings, and although we have many patterns we find ourselves in, we also have conflicting experiences because we so badly want to be something different than we are. We're so busy trying to fix ourselves and find the answers and think something's wrong, when really our patterns are there for a reason. They are doing what they think they need to do to keep us alive, and the more we recognize how we feel towards our patterns and where we might have conflict, the more we are actually able to create a space to recognize the many layers at play, the more we're able to pan out and see the bigger picture around our experience, and not only see the many patterns that are at play, but see the many experiences that we have that we can pay attention to when it comes to being human now, the more we tune into that, the more we're able to be an empathic witness for ourselves. We're able to have more compassion and understanding for the ways we navigate life, and we often are then able to move through life with more ease, even when it's really challenging and difficult and we're in chaos, we can see more of what's at play and not get lost in the vortexes of it all. Now the more we're able to do that, the more we have a sense of grace for being human, for doing whatever it is we do to survive through life, and the more we're able to do that, we actually shift out of being stuck always surviving and living in fear, and we find ourselves actually living in more of an expanded state where we have more access to joy, to pleasure, to connection, to really understanding that we are more than just this physical being here trying to survive. Now my intention with this episode is to shift our perspective a little by looking at things slightly differently. We've been spending a lot of time looking at ourselves. Who are we? How are the ways we show up in this world? Right? How do we notice ourselves? Now, what I'd like to do is invite us to notice each other. Now, we are all here doing the best given what we know how to do, we tend to do what's most familiar. And what's most familiar is often rooted in our history, in our culture, in our upbringing, in our lineage. And the more we are able to see the bigger picture and that we all have our own story to tell, the more we can not only have grace and understanding and compassion for ourselves, the more we can have it for each other as well. Now I had a few things happen over the last few days that I wanted to share here that really reflected this back at me, and one of those experience was I was in the water park, which I hadn't been to a water park for a really long time. And I went with my niece, my nephew, or seven and nine, and my sister, and oh my gosh, I need to go to the water park more often. One of the things I'm finding myself drawn to right now is, how do I laugh more How do I have more fun? How do I find more pleasure? How do I find more excitement, so that there's more remembering of what's that, what that's like? Because, you know, I can get a bit old, always looking at ourselves and trying to untangle the many layers that are at play. So I'm at this water park, and my niece, my nephew and my sister were taking a break, and I wanted to go on one of the big slides that I hadn't been on yet. And I was up there on a platform of, ooh, I'm so bad at guessing numbers, but let's say maybe, like 7570 people, maybe a big platform everyone's waiting for these four. Different slides, and I really just observed and was there in awe and in fascination of these human beings. Now I'm often always in awe and in fascination with humans, but something felt different this time. This felt really spacious, like I was really witnessing, almost in slow motion, the stories that were unfolding in front of me. Of course, how these people were presenting in their little friend groups or in their family groups or on their own was how they knew how to present themselves in the public eye, yet I was seeing more of them. Now, something I've always seen is the wholeness of each and every person that's been really accessible for me from the very beginning, sometimes from more of a bypassy perspective, but ultimately, it's been so rich to always see the good before seeing the shit within human beings. So that's a familiar experience to me. But what I really saw was the story of all these different cultures, all these different races, all these different family lineages. I was there in awe and really seeing the almost like the story of each individual being reflected back at me. Now it's a little hard to describe, but hopefully I'm doing somewhat of a good job. Maybe you can even relate. There was this real awe and fascination and appreciation and love for every single person up there. Now I bring this up because I want to invite you to recognize that we are all able to see each other in this way, when we're able to create more space and connect with our sense of wholeness, with our sense of sovereignty, and with our sense of the interconnectedness that we are all a part of. Now I will name as I was standing up there by myself, that I was still awkward with my hands. I still didn't know what to do with my hands, but the rest of me felt safe. The rest of me felt so expansive, and I still had some rigidity and awkwardness in my hands. What the hell do we do with our hands? But it was so profound for me because it really allowed me to see what, to me, feels like the next level of really noticing the interconnectedness between us all, that we are all love, that we all are whole, that we are all connected, and here doing what we know how to do, what's you know, maybe considered the best, but I like to say more doing what's most familiar. Now that experience was one thing, and I want to speak to that first before I speak to being human and how easy it is to be manipulated. But what I want to invite us to consider is what's it like to pause and notice other people in their survival patterns. So obviously, when you're in conflict with someone, this is a lot harder to do, because chances are your survival pattern against survival pattern and your vortex against vortex. And it's a lot more challenging to step back and really see them from their point of view and their perspective, and hold space for that. I mean, that's what we're working towards, but also just naming it sometimes challenging. And what I would like to invite you to do is start just with strangers, start by people watching instead of staring at your phone, and see what it's like to simply pause and notice. How do you sense someone else's nervous system? Can you tell if they're on and alert? Are they hyper vigilant? Are they disconnected? Are they looking quite floaty? Are they rigid and look almost numb and frozen. How is it they move through the world? Obviously, you're making some assumptions, and you'll never know unless you ask. But what's it like to take your eyes and take your senses and really attune to what's going on around you? Now from there, you can also maybe start to recognize people in their survival patterns. Who are the people that are hyper independent, who are the people that are quite anxiously attached and need someone always there, that can't settle on their own, who are the people that tend to. Pretend everything is fine. Maybe take some of your own patterns that you're learning about from previous episodes and see if you can spot others that are similar, that have a way of moving through the world in a similar way that you do. Are a lot of them your friends? Or are you actually attracted to the opposite of what you find yourself living in and as now, the next piece that you get to do after watching and observing people in their states and people in their patterns, is you get to notice how you feel towards them. So this is exactly what I guide you through in the experiential guide when you're doing your own explorations around your own patterns, but what I'm doing here is inviting you to notice how you feel towards other people in their patterns, right? Do you have judgment? Do you find them annoying? Do you feel sorry and pity for them. Do you always want to help them and your patterns come online, right? So how can you notice them and their patterns? And then, how can you notice how you respond to that? How do you feel towards them in the way they're showing up? It could be again, just people watching and you noticing when someone feels uncomfortable or lost. Do you want to get up and help them? If someone is struggling with, you know, their child, they're having some conflict there. Do you want to pipe in and give them advice? You know? Where might you notice that how you feel towards other people actually impacts how you navigate the relational realms. Maybe you're someone who notices people struggling and is like, they'll figure it out on their own. It's fine. They'll be fine, right? How can you really notice your patterns in response to their patterns and how you feel about them in their patterns. Now, I find it really fascinating. The more we really see each other in our patterns, we start to understand that people's actions often are rooted in survival. Now I do want to point out this doesn't justify why people do things that may harm other people, right? Predators, people that do harm to other people, to animals, to this planet, right? There are a lot of edges of what's okay and not okay. And when we do harm, you know that has impact, and this is where experiencing healthy shame is important while being welcomed back into community. This is what's really important around shame. That's a topic for another episode, but it's important to also recognize that these predators are probably acting out of survival. They're acting out of their history, whether it be their lifetime, their lineage, it's often rooted in something, maybe just their trauma. So the more we can see that even if their actions aren't okay, the more we're also able to then pan out and acknowledge, well, yeah, it makes sense, given their history, given that early surgery they had when they were young, and the way that they were raised in this toxic environment that they are now responding to the world in this way, right? How do we pan out and acknowledge I'm still angry, I'm still frustrated. This still isn't okay, and I understand. I see the bigger picture here. Now this might be hard for some people to take in, especially if you've been impacted by a predator, if you have trauma and survival patterns as a result of someone else's actions, and chances are that line of impact is a lot bigger than the two of you. The more we can see this, the more we can hold space for the bigger picture, the more we can tune into more of a collective understanding and supportive experience that holds us in these challenges. The more we're able to pan out, the more we're able to really see that we're all still whole, while we're all navigating life in whatever way that may be in this moment, again, some of you may not really like what I'm saying. Some of you may want to notice how you feel towards people that are perpetrators that are doing serious harm. To humans and this planet and animals, and again, that anger is healthy, that anger is expected, that anger needs to move and be experienced. And how is that also something you can reflect on, on pan out, acknowledge the fact that you have anger, acknowledge the fact that it makes sense that you want to take action and you want to do something, acknowledge the fact that you want there to be change in this planet, this change in this world, right? Can you feel the difference even in how I'm speaking for me when I'm in the anger and the frustration and the annoyance, and this isn't right. I want to fight right. I want to fight and I want to I want to really have an impact that way. And there's something dividing about that. I'm not holding compassion for everyone that exists, or holding empathy for everyone in their wholeness and in their survival patterns in that place. I'm like this, there's a right and a wrong, and I need to do something about this, but when I'm able to pan out, I can still acknowledge the right and the wrong, but I have more space to hold compassion for the history that's impacting people and the actions that they are taking. This is what I want to invite you to get curious about. This is not easy to land on. It's more common for us to be in that layer of how we feel towards other people and their patterns, and we're more in that anger take action, or the opposite end of the spectrum, whatever they can do, whatever I don't care. It doesn't impact me, right? What I'm inviting here is notice the layers at play. And if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, I encourage you to download the experiential guide to explore with your own patterns. Listen to some of my other episodes so you can get a better understanding. But hopefully you can even feel it within me when I pan out, there's this collective connection. I'm tuning into. My breath changes. I soften. My voice becomes slower. There's a more expansive awareness that I have, and I really feel like I'm holding everyone in the awareness that we're connected, we're whole, we're here together, although we may have our differences, and I experienced the same thing that I experienced on the top of that slide. So see how all this lands for you. See if you can relate to what you're I'm saying, or you disagree, if you feel like it's important to be in that other energy, which, of course, it is, and there's still conflict in this place, right? And maybe conflict is what you need, and that's okay. Can I pan out and acknowledge that, of course, like there's going to be times where we we need that conflict, we need to fight, we need to be in our righteousness. We need to be in that protest energy to really find ourselves and find our way into this next experience. So I'll leave that there. And the other thing I wanted to speak to in this fascination of us humans, in this observation of each other, in our patterns, is how influential we are and how manipulative we are, and how easily we can be influenced and how easily we can be manipulated. Now I'll weave in another story here. So I bought myself a new computer recently. I have my old computer I had for seven years, and I went into Best Buy, which is the local store here, I think, in Canada and the US that sells now all things technology. And I was met with some really friendly salespeople. I was met with compassion, with understanding. I was looking for an extension cord that would help my inverter not blow up my computer because I'm having some issues with my inverter and my RV. And I was really met in this way where it's like, oh, cool, you're getting a new computer. What did you get? Oh, you didn't get a new one. Why didn't you get a new one? Right? I was really met in this relational field, in this place where I felt seen, where I felt like they had my best interest at play, and I was observing myself really engaging in conversation with them in a way where we were connecting in on topics that were relatable, right? We were talking about warranties, for example, because, of course, they were trying to up me on buying a warranty and the benefit of the warranty and how they haven't had a. The same computer for more than six months because they accidentally break their computer, and the warranty gives them the credit to buy a new one, right? So there's this real connection happening. There's this real relatable conversation happening, of like, Hey, we got your back. We know what you need. We're here to help. We know all the deals here. Let me throw this in for free, and let me throw this in for free, and let me throw this in for free. And if you upgrade to the new computer, it's on sale, and you're not really paying that much more for a computer that's two years newer, everything, to me, is logical and makes sense. And of course, I'm gonna do it now. As this is happening, I'm watching myself relating to these people, and I'm watching how they're interacting with me. I'm watching them, you know, sweeten the deal and make this seem like it's a no brainer. And yes, partly it is a no brainer, and it still costs me all a lot more money. And you know, they benefit, because I'm now paying a monthly fee for warranty and support and all of that. But, you know, it felt like they had my best interest in hand at hand, whatever the phrase is, now where things got interesting and where I really got to observe the game, let's say was I have a pretty well what some people consider old. I have an iPhone 11. And of course, right now, because iPhone 16 is coming out, there's all these deals on the 15, and I pay month to month, I'm not on a plan, and when they found that out, they wanted to support me in upgrading my phone now, I had a few questions about the phone plans, because I'll be traveling a fair amount, I wanted to make sure my plans would work in the States and Mexico, and they couldn't Find the answer out for me, and as soon as I wasn't getting the answer, I needed to commit to the purchase, the energy totally shifted. What I experienced, or the story I'm creating around this is all of a sudden they backed off a little. They backed off. Their answers became shorter. They didn't feel so drawn to making the sale or helping me out anymore. We were previously really relating to each other about living in an RV and wanting to be down in the south south and not enjoying West Coast winters, and wanting to be in the warmth. And then everything changed. I noticed his mannerism become a little more rigid, and him turn away from me slightly. I noticed that, yeah, his answers were short. He wasn't really helping me do research to see if I could find what phone company provided confirmation that, you know, my cup package, my cell phone package, would be covered in the States and in Mexico, and I could feel myself also, then respond to his rigidity and pull away. I was losing that sense of safety. I was losing that sense of connection. I was losing that sense of, we're relatable. You're here to help me. You know, I don't know about this stuff. This is my realm. It's taken me seven years to buy a computer this. You know, I don't step foot in, foot in Best Buy very often. And it was so fascinating for me to watch my own system, because I started to feel confused, like confused, are they here to help me? What's going on? Maybe I don't want this. Maybe I do, but no, I do. I need a new plan. It would only cost me X amount more money. Like, this is a no brainer. My phone isn't isn't holding its charge very much anymore, right? And so I'm starting to doubt myself. I'm no longer in collaboration. I'm no longer in connection. I'm in confusion and struggling to make a decision, because I'm not getting that same support that I was in the past. Now, in my opinion, this makes a really good salesperson. I don't know if he was doing this on purpose. And what was interesting, it was pretty close to closing. There was probably another seven or eight sales people around watching our interaction, and I was just like, Okay, I had found out he had worked there for eight years, and he's good at what he does. So part of me is like, Is this him just demonstrating the shift and how how to make a sale, or how to not make a sale, or the impact on how when you engage with someone, it really makes a difference. He could have sold me a new phone and he didn't. I could have made the choice on my own that I wanted a new phone, but I didn't feel pressured to make that decision right then and there, and because I didn't feel supported or. Safe in that dynamic anymore. I was like, Well, I'm not making the sale here, even though they don't work off commission. This isn't a commission game. This is simply just sales and human interaction and the impact of that. So I wanted to weave this into this conversation, because I want to invite you to notice the difference of when there's connection, when is there a sense of safety, when is there a sense of collaboration? When is there a sense of really being in an interdependent relationship? And when does it feel like something shifts? When do you feel them move into the pattern that shifts the dynamic in between the two of you, or when do you feel yourself shift to then impact the pattern in between the two of you? The more we can watch that, the more we can pause and check in with our own experiences. What is it we need? Or what is it that would be supportive for us in the moment, and then if we're in a relationship, where we can actually name it even better, right? How cool would it be to be in the relational dynamic, in the relational realms, where when something shifts within our own experience, or when we notice something shift in someone else, we can name it like, hey, something just changed here, right? How cool would it have been if at Best Buy, I said, hey, something feels different here. I feel like there's been a shift in our connection. I don't really feel as excited about making this purchase. I feel like I'm questioning myself. I'm noticing myself back off and kind of be hesitant. Is there something happening here that you're aware of that's impacting my decision on wanting to buy the phone, right? How cool would it be to be able to pause and notice something's changed, to name what we're experiencing, to then get feedback from the other person, to discover like, oh, wait, yeah, actually, I'm over you. You're boring. I know you're not going to buy the phone. I can't guarantee what you need anyways. So you know, I You're right. I did pull back and I can feel myself also disconnecting here. How great would it be to be in conversations like that more often? That's That's my practice. I'll leave you with one more story with that, because I did get to practice. I was out for lunch the other day in a really cute Irish pub, or English pub, on Vancouver Island, and it's a bit hoity toity. They've got these beautiful gardens. It's in the middle of the country, and there's a little roundabout where people, some people, would park that's like, you know the rock star parking you know, if you're like, me and you're cocky and you're like, I'm gonna drive to the front and see if I can get a parking spot, you know, that's where you end up as at this roundabout. So anyways, this guy had ended up at the roundabout looking cockily for a good Rockstar parking spot, and there wasn't one available. So he made himself a spot in the place where you would usually turn around for the roundabout. So what this did is it blocked traffic from being able to go all the way around. And after he got out of his car and went into the restaurant a bunch of cars, then got kind of stuck and had to drive on the grass to get out. I was with a friend, and she was ready to write a mean note and leave it on his windshield. Right? Like, okay, here's this guy and his survival pattern, being all cocky, being like, I can park wherever I want to park, because I'm self righteous and I do what I want, right? And her response to that is, fuck you. You can't do what you want. You're such an idiot. Be more considerate to other people, yada yada yada, right? And of course, I got angry with her, like people are such idiots. He could have moved over a foot and a half, and there would have been enough room for people to get around them. So she starts writing the note, and I'm like, wait, I'm gonna go in and talk to him. And that's what I did. I'm so proud of myself. So I went in, and again, I could have gone in angry in my pattern of like, You're such an idiot, you're so self righteous, you're taking up the whole road. You can't park around the corner, just because, you know, there isn't a rock star parking spot available. But instead, I was able to pan out and, you know, see him in his pattern, and just come up to him and say, Hey, I have a I have a request. I noticed where you parked is blocking the roundabout, and there's been a few people that are challenged to get by, and they're having to drive on the grass, and I noticed that there's enough space where you could move over a foot and a half, and it would need leave enough space. Do you mind coming out and moving your car? Right? I met him just with the facts, and just made the request. Test. I didn't come in in my pattern, which probably would have just sparked his pattern, and we would have had a good little conflict. Instead, I saw him in his wholeness. I showed up in my wholeness and made that request from that neutral place. He came out. It was extremely friendly. I pulled my car out. He ended up pulling into my spot to fully open up that roundabout again, and we went on our way. And for me, that was a massive practice that was really valuable for me to a watch myself get angry with my friend and, like, take her side and then be like, wait, no. Like, there's something that can be done here that doesn't need to be conflicting. So my invitation to you from this episode, hopefully is that you're able to see people in their patterns more, and you are able to then see the benefit of what I'm inviting you to do here, to really become more aware of your human experience other people's human experiences, the way we're in conflict with ourselves and with each other, and then to play with practicing this ongoing practice of panning out, to connecting into the recognition that we're whole, And although we have many patterns that we can acknowledge and are, you know, all understandable that we these patterns exist. The more we can see the layers hold the layers, the more we can treat each other from such a different place. So hopefully this lands, hopefully find some opportunity to practice. If you want to share some stories with me, please feel free. I am newer to telling stories. I'm used to just teaching, and I want to weave in more storytelling into what I am doing here. So if that felt helpful, please let me know. And yeah, here's to being human, here's to all of us being human, and here's to finding love for each other. Because in my opinion, and from what I've heard from many, many advanced practitioners, is Love is the only way.