Who Would You Be Without Your Patterns?

What if the patterns keeping you stuck aren't even yours to begin with? From our earliest moments, our minds absorb everything around us like wet cement—every word, every glance, every reaction forming the foundation of how we see ourselves and the world.

The most profound revelation in understanding our patterns is recognizing that many weren't chosen but inherited. Your parents passed down what they knew, having received the same from their parents, creating an unbroken chain stretching back generations. Nobody consciously hands down their wounds, yet we find ourselves living out scripts written long before we could write our names. These invisible patterns show up everywhere—in relationships that keep ending the same way, in money behaviors that sabotage stability, in the masks we wear believing they're our true identity.

Breaking free begins with awareness. That relationship dynamic that feels so familiar? It's mirroring what you learned about love as a child. That self-sabotage that keeps happening? It's an old protection strategy that's outlived its usefulness. The transformation happens when you turn toward what you've been avoiding—your shadows, your inner child, your authentic self beneath the programming. Through reparenting, you can give yourself what you always needed but never received. And the miracle is that when you heal yourself, you don't just change your life—you break patterns that might otherwise continue for generations.

Ready to pick up the pen and rewrite your story? Listen now to discover how to recognize the patterns running your life and finally break free. Subscribe for weekly insights that will transform how you see yourself and your potential.

Chapters

• 0:00 Childhood Programming: The Wet Cement Years
• 6:10 Inherited Patterns Across Generations
• 9:40 Relationships Mirror Early Life Lessons
• 12:00 Breaking Free From Automatic Cycles
• 15:40 Healing Through Reparenting
• 19:10 Final Thoughts: Rewriting Your Story

Transcript

Corey Berrier: 1:00

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier, and today we're going to be talking about breaking the patterns. So, from birth to seven years old, our minds are like wet cement. Every word, every glance, every weird look from our parents or a positive look leaves an imprint, and so it's like so. Just like wet cement, you don't get to choose what gets poured in. If your dad was angry, we absorb fear. If your mom was anxious, we absorb worry. If love felt conditional, we absorbed performance. And once that cement hardened, it became the foundation of how we see the world and how we see ourselves, world and how we see ourselves. I wonder, if you pause right now and look back, what memory comes up first, that memory that still echoes inside of you. It's not random. That's your internal programming.

Corey Berrier: 2:49

Children live in a brain state called theta. It's close to hypnosis. It's like if you think about when you're about to fall asleep and you're in that almost asleep stage, but you're still kind of awake. It's relaxed, almost asleep stage, but you're still kind of awake. It's relaxed. Uh, you're relaxed, you kind of uh, you're about to fade out. That's theta, and that's why kids can pretend that a cardboard box is a spaceship. Their brains don't filter, they absorb. And when parent yells, the child doesn't say like, let's just say it's your dad. If your dad yells, the child doesn't say hmm, daddy's stressed at work, the child says there's something wrong. Or when your mom cries, the child doesn't say she's anxious about the bills that are coming in. The child says the world's not safe. And all those silent conclusions, those downloads, become scripts, scripts that run unconsciously, often for decades.

Corey Berrier: 4:12

So ask yourself, what scripts might you still be living that were written before you could write your name? That's a tough question. Every home has an atmosphere. Some are heavy with silence, some are anxious, some are chaotic. And as kids, we don't just notice the atmosphere around us, we become it. We carry in our nervous system, our choices, our relationships. So picture walking back into your childhood home. Notice the walls, the smells, the tone of voice. Now pay attention to your body. Do you tense up or do you relax? The reaction is the atmosphere still alive in you today.

Corey Berrier: 5:10

And here's the hardest part Most of these lessons are invisible. You don't remember the exact moment you decided I'm not enough. You don't remember the day you learned love has to be earned. But those scripts are still running. They show up when you self-sabotage, when you choose the wrong partners, when you choose success. That never feels satisfied. And here's the hope. You didn't write those scripts. They're written for you. But now you can pick up the pen and rewrite those scripts. What's one invisible script? You've been living and what would it feel like if you stopped letting it run your life?

Corey Berrier: 6:13

Patterns don't just start with us. They're inherited. Your parents passed down what they knew, their parents passed down what they knew, and so on and so forth, stretching all the way back to God knows when. And nobody sat down and said I want to hand you my fears, my shame, my wounds, but that's what happened. Trauma echoes through generations until someone. You decide to break that chain Right.

Corey Berrier: 6:48

So pause a moment and imagine your mother as a little girl, imagine your father as a little boy, see them absorbing what their parents modeled and then notice how much of what you carry never even started with you. I mean, parenting is the hardest job in the world and the only one that comes with no training. We do the best we can, but the truth is most of us parent blindly. I did. Looking back, I realized I had no framework, no roadmap. I was repeating or rebelling against what I saw. And that's the paradox Even when we swear I'll never be like my mom or I'll never be like my dad, we often find ourselves sounding exactly like them, because unconscious programming always runs the show until we bring it in to the light. Programming always runs the show until we bring it in to the light. You know, adulthood is just like childhood, except for being played out in a bigger body.

Corey Berrier: 7:59

Our relationships aren't random. They mirror what we learned early on. If love felt conditional, we choose partners who make us prove ourselves. If we were abandoned, we cling to that partner tightly or run for someone that can leave us. If anger was normal, we recreate it or we run from conflict like it's fire. Think about your own relationships. Do you see the echoes, do you see the child in you? Choosing partners, friends, even bosses, that feel just like home, whether that home was safe or not.

Corey Berrier: 8:50

You know money carries generational weight as well. If you grew up in scarcity, you might live with constant fear, even when you have enough. If your parents tried, if your parents tied worth or success to worth, to success, you may grind yourself into burnout. If money was never talked about, you may avoid it completely, sabotaging your own stability. And then there's the mask of personality. We say that's just who I am. But often who we think we are is really a survival strategy, a tough guy mask, a perfectionist mask, a people pleaser mask. Those masks protected us as kids, but as adults they keep us from authenticity. So ask yourself who are you really? Not the mask, not the program, not the inherited patterns. Who are you beneath it all you know, one of the most dangerous phrases in adulthood is that's just who I am. I'm angry that's just me. I'm bad with money that's just me. I can't commit that's just me. But what if that's not who you are? What if that's who you were taught to be?

Corey Berrier: 10:39

Being unaware of these things keeps us repeating the same cycles in relationships that break up the same way, jobs that end the same way, habits that hurt the same way, jobs that end the same way, habits that hurt the same way. And every time you repeat the cycle, the chain gets heavier until one day you realize you're not living free, you're living on autopilot. You know, addiction is the illusion of control. We drink to control anxiety in the present. We use drugs to control the pain in the past. We gamble, binge or scroll to continue our fears about the future or to control our fears about the future. But here's the irony the more we try to control our pain through addiction, the more control the addiction has over us. So ask yourself what pain are you trying to control? Is it the sting of childhood, the ache of loneliness, the fear of what's ahead? Because until you name it, you'll keep reaching for something to numb it.

Corey Berrier: 11:56

There comes a moment when the weight of that cycle is too heavy. For some that means rock bottom and for others that means quiet emptiness. You know, the wake-up call says you can't keep living like this. It's painful, it's terrifying, but it's also sacred, because the wake-up call is proof you're ready, proof that somewhere inside your true self is saying it's time to break free. So picture yourself 10 years from now if nothing changes. You're exhausted, you're numb. Now picture yourself, if you can, 10 years from from now, being free and present and alive. Which one of those visions feels more like what you're meant for? And this is really where the transformation begins, in the cave you've been avoiding. You know.

Corey Berrier: 13:19

Shadow work means turning toward the parts of yourself you've denied the anger, the shame, the fear. Inner child work means going back to that little boy or little girl you abandoned a long time ago, closing your eyes, seeing their face, feeling their need and saying to them I see you, I love you, I will protect you. Now, when you face the shadow, it loses its grip. When you care for that inner child, you stop running from yourself. Child, you stop running from yourself, and that's when the real you begins to emerge. So transformation is not about looking back. It's about choosing how you show up. Today.

Corey Berrier: 14:11

Reparenting means becoming the parent you always needed. If you needed safety, you create boundaries. If you needed encouragement, you celebrate small wins. If you need love, practice compassion for yourself. Picture yourself sitting across from that younger version of you and see their eyes, see their need, and now imagine saying you've got this, I'll protect you, I'll give you what you never had. That's reparenting the healing you know. That's healing that inner child while freeing the current adult.

Corey Berrier: 14:52

And when you heal yourself, you don't just heal you, you heal generations. Children don't learn by what you say. They learn by who you are. They watch how you handle anger, they watch how you treat yourself, they watch how you love or don't love. And the moment you start living in awareness, they inherit something different freedom. So ask yourself, what legacy am I handing down my wounds or my healing? You know, healing isn't about becoming someone now. It's about becoming who you always were, before the mask, before the patterns, before the pain.

Corey Berrier: 15:46

Integration means living awake, catching the old scripts before they run you. It means authenticity, showing up with one face, one story, one truth. When you stop hiding relationships deepen when you stop story one truth. When you stop hiding relationships deepen when you stop pretending peace arrives. When you stop lying to yourself, you finally feel whole. So imagine yourself stepping into every room as the same person no masks, no fear, just you. That's the freedom of authenticity. And it's scary like it's really scary, to think you just show up like you and people are going to like you. But it's freedom. Just be you.

Corey Berrier: 16:29

You know this entire journey childhood, generations, uh, the transformation leads to one question what story will you choose from here? Patterns are powerful. They are not permanent. They shaped you, but they don't define you. The moment you choose awareness, you start to change. The moment you choose responsibility, you reclaim your power. The moment you choose responsibility, you reclaim your power. The moment you choose authenticity, you walk free. So see yourself standing at the edge of that old story and behind you generations of patterns, ahead of you generations of possibility, and in your hand is the pen to rewrite that story. It stops here, it stops with you, it stops with me, because the moment you break the pattern is the moment you start to live free.

Corey Berrier: 17:35

So I know this is a little bit deep today, but go back and re-listen to this podcast, because I'm telling you this is the things that you're scared of today, the things that you fear today, the reasons you don't have great relationships and friendships, the reason that you struggle at work is because the patterns that you've been playing out your whole life. Really think about that. What areas in your life are you struggling with? And maybe you don't know what those are. So maybe take a few minutes in silence and reflect on the things that I've talked about here, because it could change the direction of your life. So I want to thank you guys for listening. Please subscribe if you haven't already, please leave a five-star review and we'll see you next Friday.