Step into Your Brighter Future by Learning to Identify and Release Your Paradox Pattern

A paradox is a statement that, despite sounding reasonable, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless or self-contradictory. A pattern is a repetitive graphic technique used in design to increase visual excitement by creating surface-level interest and enhancing the user experience.

Put the two together, and what do you get? Your Paradox Pattern. 

Your Paradox Pattern is a series of repeated neural pathways formed by stories you hold as true. These stories have been on repeat for decades, creating thoughts, feelings, and actions that are hardwired into your brain. As a result, your Paradox Pattern is preventing you from changing, growing, and, at the end of the day, limiting what’s possible for you.

A seemingly never-ending Ferris wheel, your Paradox Pattern keeps you stuck in your circumstances, beholden to external validation, and too busy to go within your thoughts to uncover and reveal the most vibrant self inside of you. The embedded beliefs are limiting, to say the least, because you will only go as far as the Ferris wheel’s circumference, never stretching beyond what is currently possible.

You’re stuck in the Ferris wheel’s infinite loop, trying not to throw up, thinking the cabin door is locked. But, if you look closer, it’s not. The latch is hanging open. You are locked in a paradox of your own making, and it’s time to stand up and step out.

Meet Your Paradox Pattern

As uncomfortable as it may be, unless you learn to identify your Paradox Pattern, you will stay stuck. Without exploring your shadow side, you’ll never uncover the brilliant, vibrant you that is sparkling just below the surface, waiting to be seen.

Societal, generational, and cultural expectations have crafted an identity of who you think you should be, and over time you’ve collected the thoughts, beliefs, and ideas of who you think you are. These thoughts and beliefs are your Ego.

To expand your energy and trust yourself as you begin your journey out of your Paradox Pattern and into your bright future, you have to build the self-awareness of what triggers your unconscious thoughts, opinions, and viewpoints. Otherwise, you will continue to believe they are true.

Your Paradox Pattern and Ego show up as victim energy, rescuer energy, or abuser energy, screaming and poking you with their claws to torture you. Let’s explore each type of energy in a bit more detail, so you can identify how your pattern shows up—and start to release it.

#1: Victim Energy

The first overarching pattern is victim energy. The victim’s primary fear is that they are unlovable and not enough, which expresses itself in different ways. When the victim feels wronged, they see life through a lens of constant defeat and lack of control.

The underlying refrain of victim energy is: “Poor me, there’s nothing I can do about this because these things always happen to me.”

Be careful playing the victim, because your story of “never being able to catch a break” will manifest itself through subpar opportunities, proving to yourself that you are a victim. The victim will apply for jobs they don’t want and don’t receive calls back for, justifying they never get what they want.

The victim role takes it a step further and armors itself with layers of self-protection to avoid getting hurt. Inside this layer, the victim becomes the Warring Self. The victim begins to use their voice for jealousy, gossip, and to block those who don’t align with their thoughts. This helps them stay stuck in “these things always happen to me” and to recruit others into the story. “See? I told you—these things always happen to me. Did you hear what so-and-so said about me?”

It’s a self-fulfilling inner battle of distrust, disconnection, and a game plan to avoid potential pain. What’s missing for the victim and the Warring Self is any sense of connection to themselves or others.

#2: Rescuer Energy

The next Paradox Pattern is rescuer energy. The Rescuer always has time for others, helping everyone around them, but not themselves. The “office mom” is an example of this energy. For all you people pleasers out there doing other people favors, gosh, that’s very sweet of you, but does it leave you depleted with little to no energy for yourself? What are you avoiding in yourself by helping others all the time?

A constant martyr or a sacrificial lamb, Rescuers leave no room for themselves. They are stuck in a tight loop of serving others, and any feeling of creativity, love, or joy for themselves is seen as selfish. They are riddled with shame, guilt, and remorse for not doing more. 

Women have been pinged as the caretaker and shamed if they do not live up to society’s standards of what it means to take care of everyone. It’s no wonder this energy runs strong and deep into our collective psyche of what a woman should and should not be doing. 

What’s missing for the Rescuer is self-love and acceptance that you are valuable outside of helping others.

#3: Abuser Energy

Finally, we come to the bully of the group: the abuser who is never wrong and is always overcompensating to prove to others that they are always right. The abuse can show up as misogyny, sexism, and racism, or in subtle microaggressions and gaslighting. 

The worst abuser of them all is the one in your head bullying you to believe that only your logic is logical: “It’s us against them!”

Taken to extremes, abuser energy becomes the Righteous Self. The abuser has become so binary in its thinking and doing that life has become black and white. It’s impossible to connect to others or themselves because they spend all of their energy convincing others and themselves that they are right. 

Their inner world is filled with disdain, which leaves feelings of grief and defeat. What’s missing is calm, peace, and any space for understanding.

Unhook from These Anchors

So how do you unhook from these energetic patterns? Especially when we love a juicy drama-filled reality show? Especially when it’s easier to blame others rather than trust ourselves?

The answer is simple: inner trust. Inner trust is practiced in the white space between your default paradoxical reaction and a new choice. It takes vulnerability and faith in yourself that you’ve got this.

When you begin to develop inner trust, your Paradox will go wild. Surrendering to inner trust is not in alignment with taking action from a place of any of these energies. 

It’s worth pausing for a moment here and acknowledging that “surrender” is a triggering word for many. What about you? What came to mind when I said the word “surrender”? What about grace? Weakness, or vulnerability? That means you aren’t perfect, right? That you probably messed up, right? 

Notice what type of energy you are plugged into when you feel like you have to surrender the sacrificing, warring, or righteous energy. What’s that energy covering up for you? Look right underneath your default energy to see what emotion is underneath.

You desire peace over conflict, but your Warring Self won’t hear of it.

You desire grace over perfection, but your Righteous Self won’t allow it.

You desire to trust yourself, but your Sacrificing Self won’t open up enough to let it in.

Welcome to the Other Side

Here’s the catch. Your Paradox is looking for ways to keep you doing what you are good at to prove it’s true. Your Paradox is perfectly happy being known for your current title or current business model. But your heart and soul desire more.

You can’t reinvent your life by doing. Reinvention comes from who you are being. I get it. You’re just too damn busy organizing, controlling, and taking responsibility for everything. What are you so busy doing that’s worth you missing out on who you want to become?

What if you are simply done? Done being a mirror for society’s fantasy. Done being a reflection of the judgments of what I should or should not be. Done being too much of anything. Too much sugar, spice, and everything nice. 

Your future is filled with a funky fresh fire—with a flaming source of energy that runs through your core, shining down from the heavens, rooted into the earth, with a knowing that is deep, bold, daring, flamboyant, and strong. Welcome to the other side of your Paradox. Welcome to your brighter future. 

The above is adapted from Find Your Clear Vision: A New Mindset to Create a Vibrant Personal or Professional Brand with Purpose (Lioncrest Publishing; April 5, 2023) by Lisa Guillot. For more advice on how to identify and release your Paradox Pattern, you can find Find Your Clear Vision on Amazon.

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