One of my affirmations, "I trust a person's patterns over his actions or words."

James Clear, in his book "Atomic Habits," said that we "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." If you don't have systems, then you fall to what you habitually or subconsciously do. Your patterns.

When I am stressed, I have a very strong tendency to check out (dissociate), and my attention kind of drifts off, and I start running fantasies through my head. It’s a coping mechanism I must have learned in childhood. It was a way to escape bullying from school and abuse from my alcoholic Dad. A terrible way to live life and not live in the present moment.

It nefariously crept forward, taking over more and more of my life. Work, relationships, etc. I didn’t even know I was doing it until my rock bottom about six years ago. The pattern eventually got so loud and so obvious that it was affecting my life, and I finally saw it as something I needed to change.

You know there must be a firewalking hook somewhere, right? Firewalking for me became a line in the sand. Instead of running dissociations, I firewalked and stayed as present as I could. To be honest, I barely remember it, and I did it like four times because I kept looking down at the coals.

Still, I started a new pattern. Instead of being someone who escapes from his problems and stress. I started being a person who stays present. It became something that I could go back to when I felt myself drifting back into old patterns.

I still want to dissociate sometimes, especially when stress is higher than my threshold, but now I see it as a red flag. Ok, let me take a breath, and try to see what is going on. What can I do to resolve what is stressing me out?

Thanks for reading,
Joe