A wise colleague once shared Portia Nelson’s well-known poem, Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, with me during a difficult time in my own life. Its wisdom has stayed with me ever since, both personally and in my work.
The poem opens with the narrator walking down a street and falling into a hole in the pavement. It then describes a gradual process of recognising the pattern: at first, the hole takes us by surprise; eventually, we recognise that we are repeatedly falling into it; and, over time, we begin to find another way. If you haven’t come across the poem, you can find it here.
It is a simple metaphor, but one that captures something important about psychological therapy: change often begins with recognising a pattern — and recognising that we may have choices about how we respond to it.
Why do we keep falling into the same holes?
Many of the difficulties we experience have a repetitive quality.
We may find ourselves having the same kinds of thoughts, responding to situations in familiar ways, avoiding things that make us uncomfortable, seeking reassurance, becoming increasingly self-critical, or trying to control experiences that cannot ultimately be controlled.
Often, these responses make sense.
They may have developed for good reasons. Perhaps they once helped us feel safer, more in control or less overwhelmed. The difficulty is that what helps us cope in the short term can sometimes keep a problem going in the longer term.
Rather than simply asking, “How do I stop this?”, we can become curious about the pattern itself:
What happens just before we fall into the hole? What do we do when we are there? And what happens afterwards?
Recognition is not the same as blame
There is an important difference between taking responsibility and taking the blame.
When we begin to recognise a longstanding pattern, it can be tempting to look back and ask ourselves: Why did I keep doing this? Why didn't I see it sooner? Why didn't I just do something differently?
These questions can quickly become another form of self-criticism.
But recognising a pattern does not mean blaming ourselves for having it. Most of us develop ways of coping because, at some point, they made sense or felt necessary. We do not usually choose our patterns consciously.
And when we are caught up in anxiety, shame, obsessive thoughts, low mood or other psychological difficulties, our sense of what is possible can become remarkably narrow.
A more helpful question might be:
Now that we can see what is happening, what responsibility do we have for how we respond next?
That is a different stance. It acknowledges that our difficulties are not necessarily our fault, while recognising that we may still have a part to play in what happens next.
Seeing the hole gives us a choice
One of the first steps in therapy is often developing a shared understanding of what keeps a difficulty going.
This is not about looking backwards to find someone or something to blame. Looking at our history can instead help us understand why we may keep falling into the same hole.
As a pattern becomes clearer, we may begin to notice the point at which we usually respond in a familiar way — and experiment with doing something different.
Sometimes that means approaching rather than avoiding something that makes us anxious. Sometimes it means allowing uncertainty rather than seeking reassurance. Sometimes it means responding to ourselves with compassion rather than self-criticism.
The new response can feel unfamiliar at first. Our usual patterns may have been practised many times, sometimes over many years, and can begin to feel almost automatic.
Learning a different way of responding takes practice. It also takes patience.
Change isn't about never falling in the hole again
An important part of therapy is recognising that progress rarely means the old pattern disappears completely.
We may still have the thought.
We may still experience the anxiety.
We may still find ourselves standing at the edge of the familiar hole.
And sometimes, we may still fall in.
The difference may be that we recognise it.
Recognition creates the possibility of choice.
Perhaps we notice what is happening sooner. Perhaps we recover more quickly when we do fall into an old pattern. Perhaps we become less frightened by the experience itself. Or perhaps we begin to trust ourselves to tolerate the discomfort without immediately doing what we have always done.
This is progress.
Therapy is not about learning to walk through life without ever encountering another hole. Life will continue to bring uncertainty, difficult emotions and situations that challenge us.
The aim is not perfection, but greater flexibility: learning to recognise our patterns, understand them without judging ourselves for having them, and develop more choice in how we respond.
Becoming more able to find our own way
One of the aims of therapy is to develop an understanding of our difficulties that we can carry with us beyond the therapy room.
Over time, we can become more confident in recognising our own patterns, understanding what keeps them going and considering how we want to respond when familiar difficulties arise.
In that sense, therapy is not simply about helping us navigate one particular hole in the pavement.
It is about helping us understand how we came to keep falling into it, what keeps drawing us back, and what might be possible now that we can see it more clearly.
There is something hopeful in that distinction.
We do not have to blame ourselves for the hole being there.
We can acknowledge the ways in which we have learnt to cope, understand when those ways are no longer helping us, and gradually discover that we may have other ways of walking.
Sometimes change begins with simply noticing.
Sometimes it means taking a small step in a different direction.
And sometimes, gradually and almost imperceptibly, we discover that we are walking down another street.
