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We respond with our Limiting Patterns especially when we are under pressure.
We can look at limiting patterns also from a neuro–scientific perspective:
Perception is highly influenced by memory. E.g. there are patients with a lesion in a specific area of the
brain who, when looking into a mirror see a perfect picture of themselves, but do not recognise that what
they see is their own image. This means that without a memory function we do not recognise what we see.
In other words, activities of our sense organs require memory. Therefore our understanding of what we
perceive is based on memory - which means on our past experiences:
What we perceive in the present is
conditioned by our past.
In this light, limiting patterns can be seen as responses and attitudes based on an “historical map” that
have become unhelpful or even destructive to our needs and intentions of the present. (They limit our ability
to find new solutions).
We can also develop Limiting Patterns later in life as a way of coping with painful situations in response to
which you developed a habitual protective stance. (Such as bullying, death of a best friend).
Iron Boxes
When we have to deal with situations later in life, which are way beyond the scope of normal human
experience (trauma, concentration camps, atrocities), we can develop what we call an “iron box”. We lock
away painful experiences by disconnecting from “traumatic” emotions. We survive at the cost of losing
access to our full experience base.
Iron boxes tend to begin to leak when we get older.
When a parent with an Iron box has raised us, we can develop Limiting Patterns as a way of dealing with
being on the receiving end of an imbalanced and limited emotional vocabulary.