Look back at the last argument you had, the last time you self-sabotaged something good, or the last time you swore 'this time will be different.' Chances are, if you're honest, you've been here before. Not the exact situation, but the shape of it. That's not a coincidence. That's a cycle, and cycles run on autopilot until someone in the loop decides to actually look at them.
If you want to understand cycles, talk to an addict. For fifteen years of my life, my entire existence was one massive, vicious, unbroken cycle. It went like this: I’d feel a little bit of stress or emotional pain, my brain would immediately scream for opiates, I’d tell myself 'just one last time to take the edge off,' I’d use, the high would wear off, and then I’d be flooded with such intense shame and self-loathing that the only way to escape it was to get high again. Round and round and round I went. Every single time I managed to get clean for a few weeks, I’d swear on my life that this time was different. I’d make promises to my family, to myself, to God. And then, a month later, I’d be right back in that same dark room, holding the same pills, wondering how the hell I got there again.
I used to think it was fate. I’d tell myself, 'Well, Wes, you’re just a junkie. It’s in your blood. You’re designed to ruin everything.' That lie is the fuel that keeps cycles running. It makes you feel like a passive passenger in your own life. But what I eventually learned — the hard, painful way — is that a cycle isn't destiny. It's just an automated program running in the dark. It survives because you refuse to look it in the eye.
Cycles feel inevitable because they run below conscious awareness. You don't choose to repeat the pattern — you just find yourself, again, reacting the same way to the same kind of trigger, getting the same kind of result, and calling it 'just how things go' or 'just how I am.' But a pattern you've never examined isn't fate. It's just a habit wearing a disguise.
Even after I survived my addiction and my stroke, I found that the mental cycles didn't magically disappear. I’d find myself getting into the exact same arguments with my partner. I’d feel misunderstood, my throat would tighten, I’d make a sarcastic comment to protect myself, they would react, and suddenly we’re screaming at each other about something that happened five years ago. Afterward, I’d sit in my chair, half-paralyzed and completely exhausted, thinking, 'How did we end up here again?'
The way out isn't willpower, and it isn't waiting for circumstances to change. It's naming the loop. What actually happens right before you fall into it? What's the story you tell yourself in that exact moment that makes the old response feel justified? Most cycles survive because they're invisible — the second you can describe one out loud, in plain language, you've already loosened its grip on you.
To break a cycle, you have to become a scientist of your own bad behavior. You have to watch yourself. What is the exact trigger? For me, it’s often a feeling of being useless or helpless — a trigger that got a thousand times worse after my stroke. When I feel helpless, my old program says, 'Lash out so you feel in control.' The second I catch that feeling rising up, I have to name it. I have to say, out loud or in my head, 'Wes, you are lashing out right now because you feel physically weak today and you’re scared you don’t matter anymore.'
This applies to relationships, money, health, everything. The people who seem to keep 'getting lucky' breaking old patterns aren't lucky — they did the unglamorous work of watching themselves closely enough to catch the moment of choice that used to feel automatic.
Nothing is destined to repeat forever. It repeats until it's witnessed. It’s going to feel uncomfortable as hell to choose a different path, but that discomfort is the feeling of you actually waking up.
Go love somebody that you don't like. I love y'all. 🙏
0 comments