Breaking Cycles, Writing New Stories: How Therapy Helps You Respond Differently
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “Why does this keep happening?” or “I thought I’d moved past this, but here I am again,” you’re not alone. Maybe you look back on your life and realize you’ve been in the same difficult situation multiple times. Many people come to counseling feeling stuck in the same patterns: familiar relationship conflicts, emotional reactions that feel hard to control, or burnout that keeps returning despite their best efforts.
The good news? These patterns aren’t fixed. And they’re not a sign of failure. Often, they’re learned responses and strategies shaped by your childhood, trauma, and/or unrecognized needs. Once you understand them, you can begin to shift them.
What Does It Mean to “Break a Cycle”?
Cycles can look different for everyone. Some examples could be repeatedly finding yourself in financial trouble, facing overwhelm or burnout at work, or having the same fights in your relationships. When we zoom in, we can see behaviors that help trigger these same cycles: people-pleasing, self-doubt, overcommitting or overpromising, shutting down during conflict. These aren’t just habits—they’re protective responses, often tied to unmet needs or long-standing coping mechanisms as a result of trauma.
Breaking a cycle means developing more awareness, self-compassion, and choice. Things may have happened to you in the past, but now it’s your choice to decide how you’ll move forward. You can use your agency and determination to shift from auto-pilot into intentional living when certain triggers come up. You’ll start to ask: “what is my knee-jerk response to this situation? What could I try instead?” Breaking a cycle is interrupting your default response to the same stimuli.
Discovering Neurodivergence Can Shift Everything
For many people, especially women and marginalized folks, learning they’re neurodivergent later in life can be a profound turning point in this process.
If you’ve been masking for years—working hard to “fit in,” suppress your natural responses, or meet standards that don’t work for your brain—it can be both heartbreaking and liberating to realize: Oh. There was never anything wrong with me. I just didn’t know how my brain worked.
Understanding ADHD, autism, sensory sensitivity, or other forms of neurodivergence can bring context to the “why” behind so many repeated struggles: emotional regulation, executive functioning, relationships, burnout, even identity.
This kind of clarity can help you break cycles—not by forcing yourself to be different—but by honoring how you naturally function, and adapting life to work with your brain instead of against it.
Therapy Helps You Respond Instead of React
So, how do you gain insight to your typical responses, and help workshop new, more healthy ones? How do you use your neurodivergence in your favor? Teaming up with a supportive and affirming counselor like Ashlee can make all the difference.
In therapy, you get to slow down and explore your patterns with care. Over time, this work can help you:
Understand where your responses come from
Unlearn internalized shame or perfectionism
Build tools that actually fit your nervous system and neurotype
Practice responding instead of reacting
Reconnect with your values and agency
As you do, you create space to respond in ways that feel more aligned, more grounded, and more you.
Writing a New Story—With Support
This isn’t about pretending your past didn’t happen. It’s about choosing your future. Therapy gives you the space and support to name your story, rewrite the patterns that no longer serve you, and imagine new ways of being.
At AIM Counseling, Ashlee partners with clients in a collaborative, affirming way—especially those navigating trauma, identity, or late-in-life neurodivergence. She brings deep respect for your lived experience and helps you find tools that honor your unique brain, body, and story.
Together, you’ll find the insight to build strategies that actually work for you.
Ready to step out of old patterns and into something new? Reach out to schedule a free consultation. Your next chapter awaits!
