* Are you sick of repeatedly attracting the same type of destructive relationships into your life?
* Would you like to change these patterns but don't know how or where to start?
* Have you come to the point where you feel resigned to never having a satisfying relationship at all?

We are all born into family dynamics that have the effect of leaving deeply ingrained impressions on us. This includes patterns of thinking and behaving that, even though they feel natural to us, due to their familiarity, can be quite destructive in our adult relationships.

We take these patterns into our present, as part of our portfolio and try to find relationships that fit with them. Hence many of us marry our "father or our mother", even though we might have been quite conscious of wanting to get away from them. What a paradox. We prefer familiar patterns of behaving and thinking, even though they may also be quite painful and destructive, rather than going into unfamiliar zones. Perhaps we don't know how to relate in new or different ways. There is a sense of "Better the Devil you know," rather than going into totally unchartered and unfamiliar territory.

However, some of us do know from an early age that we definitely don't want to repeat our family patterns, so do the opposite, in choosing partners that are quite different to them. Both of these paths are sides of the same coin and are essentially unbalanced.

In an ideal situation we will be attracted to someone who we will find both exciting and comforting. The experience may well take us on a voyage of discovery of others and ourselves through the interaction and allow us to broaden our experience of humanity. Relationships allow us to enter each other's worlds and open up different world views. In this, they allow personal growth in encouraging us to grapple with difference and variety, which may to some extent challenge our existing views on life. For some of us this may mean several relationships rather than one through-out our lives.

Good relationships will allow us to grow, as we are drawn into seeing life from others view-points and are encouraged to readjust our standpoint constantly. This may bring up different facets of ourselves showing that our personal growth is definitely alive and well. Relationships should be free flowing entities of experience. However, even the best of relationships will have some disappointments and sadness at times, as well as anger and misunderstandings. They will always be challenging, but they can also be very rewarding.
Staying in the same pattern as our family may well be positive, if the relationship is rewarding and fulfilling. However, if it is not, but you find it hard to change the patterns or your internal thinking, perhaps you need some help.

I am not suggesting that we blame our families for doing us psychological or emotional harm. Rather I am suggesting that once we are aware, we have the power to make changes. Most of our parents did their best for us, even though some of it might have been misguided. Societal attitudes of how to treat children had a big influence on how most of us were brought up. As adults we need to take a look at ourselves and our lives and accept the past and take full responsibility for the way we are now and the way we want to be in the future. It is not our parent's fault, that as adults we may not have "owned up" to the responsibility and challenge of finding out and being who we really are. So if some of our belief patterns or expectations are not working for us now, it is up to us to make the appropriate changes to rectify them.

Counselling can provide a safe and free environment to explore new ways of Being that are more productive and authentic for the adult you. From a more self-assured and fulfilled place, you will give out different messages and attract different types of relationships into your life.

Yildiz Sethi is a Counsellor (Counselling, Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy) living and working in Sydney.

02 94166440