If you want to know how to stop repeating relationship patterns, you’ve probably already spent a lot of time trying to understand why you do what you do. I know so many people who spend hours researching but still feel unable to move forward any differently. You may know where your patterns came from, and recognize when you’re people-pleasing, overthinking, avoiding conflict, looking for reassurance, or shutting down. You might even be able to catch yourself doing it while it’s happening.
And yet, you still do it.
This is one of the most frustrating parts of personal growth. You can have an incredible amount of self-awareness and still find yourself responding in the same ways when you’re triggered.
Awareness gives you information about your patterns. Changing them requires you to practice a different response.
That’s especially difficult in relationships because the moment you’re triggered is usually the exact moment when it’s hardest to access everything you know. Fear takes over, your nervous system becomes activated, and the response you’ve practiced for years feels much more natural than the new response you’re trying to learn.
This is why I created the CHANGE Method. It’s a framework for helping you slow down what happens inside your Disconnection Loop, understand what’s actually happening, reconnect with yourself, and choose what you want to do next.
Why You Keep Repeating Patterns You Already Understand
Most of our relationship patterns have been practiced for a long time. These patterns can feel helpful or hurtful. Typically, if it’s a pattern that feels unhealthy, it was created through relationship wounds that can begin forming very early in life.
If you’ve spent years keeping the peace when someone is upset, you have a lot of practice in people-pleasing; and if you’ve learned to anticipate rejection, you have a lot of practice looking for signs that someone is pulling away. If conflict has felt threatening throughout your life, you have a lot of practice avoiding it.
Knowing where those responses came from gives you valuable insight, but your old response is still the one you’ve practiced the most. So when you’re triggered, you tend to return to what’s familiar.
This is where change requires courage. You have to create enough space between what you’re feeling and what you do next to give yourself another option.
Sometimes that space is only a few seconds. You notice the urge to send another text asking if everything is okay, but you pause instead. Or, you feel yourself preparing to say yes when you want to say no, and you give yourself time before answering. You notice yourself shutting down during a difficult conversation, and you do your best to stay present a little longer.
These moments may feel small, but they’re where you begin changing the pattern.
How the CHANGE Method Helps You Interrupt the Pattern
After 20+ years of working with people who were also wondering how to stop repeating relationship patterns, I created a method that really works. The CHANGE Method gives you a way to work with your patterns as they’re happening. Instead of moving automatically from a trigger into the same response you’ve used before, you begin slowing down the process and reconnecting with yourself along the way.
CHANGE stands for:
- C: Create Space
- H: Have Curiosity
- A: Allow Awareness
- N: Nurture Self-Compassion
- G: Ground in Truth
- E: Engage in Action
You don’t have to move through these steps perfectly. The goal is to begin creating a different experience when your Disconnection Loop gets activated.
Create Space
When you’re triggered, there’s often an urge to do something immediately. Fix it. Get reassurance. Explain yourself. Make the other person understand. Shut down. Leave. Make the uncomfortable feeling go away.
Creating space means giving yourself room before automatically following that urge.
You might take a few breaths, step away from your phone, ask for a little time before continuing a conversation, or sit with what you’re feeling before deciding what to do.
That space gives you an opportunity to listen to yourself before fear decides what happens next.
Have Curiosity
Once you’ve created some space, get curious about what’s happening without judging yourself for it. Curiosity is where you get to gather the important information that you need.
- What triggered you?
- What are you afraid of?
- What story are you telling yourself about what this means?
- What are you feeling pulled to do?
Curiosity helps you gather information about your experience instead of immediately reacting to it or going into self-judgment and self-doubt.
You may realize that your partner being quiet activated your fear of rejection. Or that someone’s disappointment brought up the belief that you’re responsible for keeping everyone happy. Once you understand what has been activated, you have more information to work with.
Allow Awareness
Awareness asks you to stay present long enough to notice what is actually happening inside of you. Pay attention to your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, beliefs, fears, and urges. Notice what belongs to the current situation and what may be connected to something you’ve experienced before.
This can be uncomfortable. Most of the behaviors in your Disconnection Loop developed because they helped you move away from discomfort. Staying present with your experience gives you a chance to understand it before deciding how you want to respond.
Allowing yourself to have awareness goes hand in hand with curiosity. Dig into what’s happening for you without beating yourself up for it.
Nurture Self-Compassion
For people wanting to know how to stop repeating relationship patterns, self-compassion is key. This is where the way you talk to yourself matters. When you recognize that you’re repeating an old pattern, it’s easy to become frustrated with yourself. You might think, I should know better by now. Why am I doing this again? What’s wrong with me?
Self-judgment adds another layer of pain to an already difficult situation.
Self-compassion allows you to understand why this reaction makes sense based on what you’ve experienced while still taking responsibility for what you do next.
You can acknowledge that you’re scared, try to understand why you’re activated, and give yourself some grace while you practice responding differently.
Ground in Truth
Fear has a way of making the stories in our heads feel like truth.
Your partner is quiet, so your mind tells you they’re upset with you. Someone doesn’t respond to your message, so you decide they’re pulling away. You make a mistake and immediately believe you’ve disappointed everyone.
Grounding in truth means separating what you know from what you’re afraid might be true. It also has two parts. First, ground your nervous system in the present through grounding techniques so you have a chance to use your wise mind.
Then, ask yourself:
- What % of what I am believing is actually true?
- What do I actually know right now? What am I assuming?
- What story is fear telling me?
- Is there another explanation I haven’t considered?
- What would it be like to respond from a place of logic and emotion together?
Coming back to what you know helps you respond to the person and situation in front of you instead of responding only to what your fear predicts will happen.
Engage in Action
This is where you do the action work of beginning to build a new pattern.
Once you’ve created space, gathered information, allowed yourself to feel what is happening, responded with compassion, and grounded yourself in what you know, you decide how you want to move forward differently.
Sometimes the brave action is speaking honestly about what you need. Sometimes it’s setting a boundary, tolerating someone’s disappointment, asking a direct question instead of assuming, staying present during a difficult conversation, or choosing not to seek reassurance when you already have the information you need.
Every time you respond in a way that is more aligned with who you want to be, you’re practicing something new and building self-trust.
My favorite question to ask in this area is “What do I want instead?” because this gives your brain a new frame of reference around the issue. How do I want to react instead? You give yourself new options rather than keeping the focus only on what you don’t want. Give yourself the option of what you DO want.
Changing Relationship Patterns Takes Practice
One of the biggest barriers to change is believing you have to do this perfectly. You won’t because you’re human. That’s the point.
There will be times when you recognize your Disconnection Loop early and choose a different response. There will also be times when you’re halfway through the Loop before you realize what is happening. Sometimes you’ll recognize it afterward. But remember, all of those moments give you the information you need.
Over time, you will start noticing your patterns earlier. You create more space before reacting, and you become more willing to tolerate discomfort. You practice saying what you actually think and feel, and you learn that you can stay connected to yourself even when someone else is unhappy, when you don’t know what will happen next, or when a relationship feels uncomfortable.
That’s how new patterns are built: through small, brave actions practiced again and again.
Watch: How to Actually Change the Patterns Keeping You Stuck
In Episode 3 of The Courage to Reconnect, I walk through the CHANGE Method and how you can begin using it to interrupt your Disconnection Loop and practice new ways of responding.
Start With One Pattern
If you’re ready to stop repeating relationship patterns, don’t try to change everything at once.
Choose one pattern you recognize in yourself. Maybe you overthink when someone becomes distant. Maybe you agree to things you don’t want to do because you’re afraid of disappointing people. Maybe you shut down during conflict.
The next time you notice that pattern beginning, practice CHANGE.
Create some space. Get curious about what is happening. Allow yourself to become aware of what you’re feeling and what you’re afraid of. Meet yourself with compassion. Ground yourself in what you know. Then decide what action feels aligned with the person you want to be.
You may still feel uncomfortable. That’s okay. You’re practicing staying connected to yourself while doing something different.
If you want help identifying your patterns and working through each stage of this process, The Disconnection Loop Workbook will guide you through your own Disconnection Loop and the CHANGE Method.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I keep repeating the same relationship patterns?
Relationship patterns become familiar responses to situations that activate fear, uncertainty, or old beliefs. Even after you understand where a pattern came from, changing it requires practicing new responses when those same feelings are activated.
How do I stop repeating unhealthy relationship patterns?
Start by learning to recognize the pattern as it’s happening. Creating space before reacting gives you time to understand what you’re feeling, question the meaning you’re assigning to the situation, and choose a response that better reflects what you actually want and need.
Why isn’t self-awareness enough to change my patterns?
Self-awareness helps you recognize and understand your patterns. Lasting change develops as you use that awareness to practice different responses. Each new response gives you another experience of handling fear, conflict, uncertainty, or discomfort without automatically returning to the behavior you’ve relied on before.
How long does it take to change relationship patterns?
There isn’t one timeline for changing a relationship pattern. These responses often developed and were reinforced over many years. Focus on recognizing your patterns earlier, creating more choice in how you respond, and practicing new behaviors consistently rather than expecting yourself to change all at once.
Ready to Reconnect?
Sarah Monares is a licensed professional counselor, coach, author, and host of The Courage to Reconnect podcast. With more than 20 years of experience, she helps individuals and partners understand the patterns that keep them stuck, reconnect with themselves, and create healthier, more authentic relationships.
Sarah offers counseling, coaching for individuals and partners, groups, and retreats in Portugal. You can also explore The Disconnection Loop Workbook or listen to The Courage to Reconnect podcast for more ways to continue this work.