Is Your Imagination Working Against You? Pattern Recognition in Action

Stop Rehearsing the Life You Fear

Have you ever opened an email and felt your whole day change?

One minute, you are fine. The next, your mind has written a courtroom drama. There are accusations. There is rejection. There is a terrible ending. Somehow, you are already living in it.

All of this happens before you read the email a second time.

I know that moment well. In 2007, an email sent my imagination racing toward a future I feared. Today, that experience helps explain the heart of my work with human patterns under pressure.

Because sometimes, the pattern we need to observe is the story we are telling ourselves.

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The Email That Became a Whole Story

I was working as a personal trainer at a gym. I loved my work. I loved my clients. I was the only female trainer there, and I usually arrived full of energy, ready for the day.

Then I stepped into the locker room and checked my phone.

There was an email from my children’s stepmother.

I cannot tell you exactly what that email said. I can tell you what my mind said:

You are abandoning your children.

You are a bad mother.

You will never get custody of your kids.

Those thoughts became a whole world. I walked out crying and told the other trainers I had to leave. They were startled. They were used to seeing a very different Kathie.

I got in my car. As I drove, a freeway I had traveled for years suddenly felt unfamiliar. I was having a full-blown panic attack.

When I look back, I can see the gap between receiving an email and deciding what it meant about my motherhood, my children, and my future.

My imagination filled that gap with fear.

I have compassion for that woman in the gym. She was scared. She had been through a lot. The awareness I have today took time to develop.

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When Recognizing Patterns Becomes Certainty

I have noticed patterns for as long as I can remember.

As a child, I became aware of my mother’s anxiety. I learned to notice shifts in her behavior. Recognizing what might come next helped me feel prepared.

Over time, noticing patterns became a familiar way of moving through life.

Maybe you recognize this in yourself. You hear a certain tone. You see a look. Someone goes quiet. Your mind says, “I know what this means.”

Sometimes, your experience gives you useful information. But there is a moment worth watching: the moment a possibility becomes a certainty.

This happened before. I know how it ends.

That is where I learned to pause.

I can notice something and still leave room to understand it more fully. I can observe a familiar pattern without rehearsing every painful ending I associate with it.

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Romans 12:2 and Renewing Your Mind

One of my favorite scriptures is Romans 12:2:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

I return to this verse when I notice myself slipping into a familiar story.

My personal application begins with a question: What am I allowing to shape the way I see this moment?

Am I looking at what is here? Or am I looking through a story I have repeated so often that it feels like the only possible truth?

For me, meditation creates space to bring that story to God. I sit with what I have noticed. I observe where my imagination has gone. I become open to seeing differently.

That is what renewing my mind looks like in daily life.

It might begin with an email. It might happen after a hard conversation. It might happen when I catch myself preparing a defense for an argument that has not even happened.

The pause brings me back to now. Here, I can ask what needs my attention and what kind of response I want to give.

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Where Is Your Imagination Taking You?

Through my study of Neville Goddard, I have spent years exploring the spiritual idea that imagination creates reality.

Here is a simple way to begin exploring it in your own life: notice how the scenes you imagine influence the way you enter the next moment.

Imagine an argument all morning. By lunchtime, you may have a speech ready. The other person walks in, and you are already braced for a fight.

Now picture yourself listening, speaking clearly, and staying steady. That gives you a different response to practice.

In my own life, imagination has become a place to return to what I want to experience: peace, loving relationships, kindness, and room to breathe.

When an old story appears, I ask:

“Where is my imagination taking me—and is that where I want to go?”

That question opens a door. I can stop adding scenes to a future I fear and begin imagining how I want to participate in this moment.

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The Drive Home That Changed

A client once told me he wanted to feel better when he got home from work. He wanted to enjoy his children and his family. Yet he kept arriving in a bad mood.

So I asked about his drive home.

Traffic. He hated the traffic.

As he described it, the frustration showed up right there in our conversation. He was telling me about the drive and getting angry all over again.

We had found a pattern worth observing.

I invited him to try using that time differently. What else could hold his attention? A podcast? A pleasant thought? Something he wanted to enjoy with his children?

The first day felt awkward. The second day was easier. By the third day, he noticed something.

He had started thinking about a story his children had told him. He became interested in it. When he got home, he picked up that story with them, and it grew into a shared moment.

The road was still the road. But he had something different to bring through the front door.

That is an everyday example of why I pay attention to the stories we repeat.

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Pause, Observe, and Choose

My work often comes back to three words:

Pause → Awareness → Choice.

The pause gives me room to notice what I am doing with the moment.

If I could sit beside my younger self in that gym, I would help her slow down enough to ask:

• What does the email actually say?

• What meaning am I adding?

• What am I imagining happens next?

• What do I want to bring to my response?

Then we could make room for another thought:

I love my children. I can read this carefully. I can take one step at a time.

That is a thought she could stand on. From there, she could decide what to do next.

You can try this with a smaller moment, too. A delayed reply. A frustrating meeting. A change of plans.

Notice the story. Return to what you know. Picture the way you want to respond. Give yourself a chance to practice it.

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Three Principles That Help Me Return

Non-attachment, radical responsibility, and courage guide this practice.

Non-attachment helps me loosen my grip on my first interpretation. “I know exactly what this means” can become “Let me observe this a little longer.”

Radical responsibility brings my attention to the thoughts I keep rehearsing and the words I choose. I can take responsibility for my response while treating myself with care.

Courage helps me stay present when uncertainty feels uncomfortable. It takes courage to stop rehearsing a familiar fear and try a different way of seeing.

And when I slip back into the old story? I practice forgiveness. Then I return. That return is part of renewing the mind.

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A Little Humor Can Help

In Reality Transurfing, the idea of a “pendulum” offers a metaphor for patterns that keep pulling at our attention.

I use it to notice the moment I am hooked. Suddenly, I am replaying the conversation, arguing in my head, or telling the same frustrating story again.

Sometimes, gentle humor helps me see what I am doing.

Well, look at that. My mind has written a whole sequel, and I have not finished reading the first email.

I am laughing at the extra production my imagination has created. That small moment of lightness can help me step back and choose where to put my attention next.

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What I Bring Into the Room

When I say, “You want me in the room when pressure hits,” this is part of what I mean.

I help people observe the stories that appear under pressure. We look at what they notice, what they assume, and where their imagination is taking them.

My work as a private consultant draws on 25 years of self-employment, a degree in psychology, and years of studying and observing human behavior. It also grows from practicing these ideas in my own life.

I know how convincing a frightened story can feel. I also know the value of putting space around it.

That space makes room for a question, a different interpretation, and a more thoughtful decision.

The next time pressure arrives, begin by noticing the story you are entering.

Then ask yourself: What would I like to practice imagining now?

If this episode brought someone to mind, share it with them. And if you would like support observing your own human patterns under pressure.

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Read More Articles From Kathie

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Transcript

 Human patterns under pressure. When pressure hits, you want me in the room, and here's why. I have observed patterns all of my life. I understand psychological patterns and human patterns under pressure. And today, we're gonna talk about where that came from, what does that mean, and actually how to get out of the spiral of anxiety that can be caused by just knowing for certain that that pattern is exactly what I'm seeing, and how to understand your imagination is creating that reality. My name is Kathie Owen. I am a coach, consultant, and observer of human patterns under pressure. What does that mean, Kathie? And today's episode is going to tell you what it's like to work with me. Where did that come from? Well, it started as a child. I was raised in a home that was a beautiful, great childhood, right? And everything was usually fantastic. However, my mom suffered with chronic anxiety, probably handed down to her from generation to generation, and I became very aware of her patterns and her behavior. In fact, I became so aware that I realized I had a superpower, actually, unconsciously, if that makes sense. What I mean by that is I could observe what was coming next, and that taught me that, "Okay, Kathie, when you can see this pattern coming, you are gonna be safe." My reticular activating system, my awareness had caught it, and that's where my attention would go. And this is important to pay attention to because where your attention goes, your energy flows. So in 2007, I was the only female personal trainer in this gym, and I loved my job. I'm, I was just like, come in all bubbly, great personality, couldn't wait to work with my clients, had a great day going on. And one day, I went into the locker room and checked my email on my phone, and I got an email from the stepmom, and this email triggered me. Pay attention to that word right there, the trigger. And I walked out of the locker room. I told the guys I had to leave, I had to leave. They were like freaking out looking at me 'cause I was crying, and they hadn't seen me like that, and I just walked out of the gym. And I got in my car and started driving. And as I drove away, all of a sudden I didn't realize where I was. Mind you, I had driven this freeway for the last 10 years, but I all of a sudden didn't know where I was. I was having a full-blown panic attack. Now let's break this down because as someone who observes human patterns under pressure, let's observe me in this situation and let's observe what really happened. Because that's where your awareness kicks in, and awareness is God, the universe, infinite intelligence, whatever you call it. But awareness doesn't see things as good or bad. Our brains start making stories about it, and when you can recognize patterns, you think you know exactly what's going on. So let's go back to that email. I don't even remember what the email said, but my brain had made a story about that email. My brain had said, "Oh my gosh, you're abandoning your children. You're such a bad mother. There's no way you're ever gonna get custody of your kids." J- I mean, it went off into the deep end, obviously, because I had a full-blown panic attack, and none of that was true. In fact, why am I making an email out to be the truth of the situation, of the matter? Oh, here is the component that we want to look at. So your imagination creates your reality. That's a known fact. That's something I study from Neville Goddard. Your imagination creates your reality. So as a pattern recognizer, my imagination would create my reality to be so certain that it would, it would cripple me. And it could actually go the other direction, because your imagination is so powerful. You could imagine something totally different, and it wouldn't even affect you, and it does affect your reality. And this is where my work comes in. This is where now, today ... Okay, so that was in 2006. That, that was 20 years ago. And today, I have reversed all of this, and I'm gonna give you some really concrete examples of what I did to reverse this. In 2006, I was clinically diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder because my pattern recognition and my imagination had created stories that crippled me, that caused me to have anxiety, and those stories were my imagination. So one of my favorite scriptures, and I talk about this a lot on my channel, is Romans 12:2. It says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will." So do not conform to the pattern of this world. I was conforming to the pattern of this world. But you can transform it by the renewing of your mind, and then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good and pleasing will. So here is a simple, easy example of a client of mine who transformed his thoughts about something. And this is simple, and we all probably could relate to this. So this client of mine hired me because he had a lot of pressure in his work, and we started breaking things down, and I started talking to him, and he goes, "You know, when I get home from work every day, I'm just in such a bad mood, and I wanna be in a better mood for my kids and my family, and I want to feel more relaxed 'cause everything is going good, but for some reason when I get home, it's not." And I said, "Well, what happens when you drive home?" Or, "What happens on your way home?" He goes, "Drive. I hate traffic. You would not believe how bad the traffic is on my drive home every day." And I go, "Oh, okay. Well, what happens in traffic?" And he was telling me stories, note stories, of what happened in traffic, and he was getting very mad. That is a pattern. And this is what I spot in people when I'm observing their conversations, their stories. And their stories will, display the patterns that they are conforming to. So with this client, we had already been working together for a while, and, uh, what I did was I helped him see, okay, let's use our imagination and create a different story about traffic. Maybe you aren't stuck in traffic. Maybe you're listening to a podcast. Somehow or another, go in your imagination. For me personally, what I like to do, and I tell my clients this, is I like to imagine something really elaborate. Like, I start looking around and I start seeing gold on the roads, or beautiful clouds of cotton in the sky, or the birds flying by and nature talking to me. I mean, I go really, like, in depth in my imagination, because your imagination is that powerful, and in that moment, it creates a different reality. You're not conforming to the pattern of the world. So he did this for three days. I told him, I said, "Just give me three days maybe a week and try this." And he, he said On the first day it wasn't so easy. On the second day it got easier. The third day he had a aha moment. He said, "Oh, wow, I realized something that I, I could sit there and pay attention to, um, something that my kids had told me, or a story that my kids had told me, and I went into depth on it." And then he went home and he was, like, working with his kids on this same story and it just expanded. He expanded his reality by doing that. And that's just a simple example. So here's something I have on my refrigerator that I refer to often. Watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Watch your words, for they become your actions. Watch your actions, for they become your habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. Notice how your thoughts become your words. And the words that you use project onto your reality. So let's go back to that email, that I'm a bad mom. That's where my mind went. But if I did not conform to the pattern of this world, and instead watched where my thoughts were going, watched where my words were going, my destiny would've been different. And my now moment is different because I don't look at it that way anymore. I don't look at the limiting beliefs. What I do with the limiting beliefs, because you will always have them, is I transmute them with the renewing of my mind. So back to your imagination creates your reality. I've transformed relationships with this of my own, very difficult, complex relationships. Even with my, um, my children's father. With him, I've transmuted that relationship in my mind. It's ideal, it's perfect, it's kind, it's friendly, it's loving, and when I picture him that way, it, it changes inside of me. My ego doesn't have to go, "Oh, no, wait a second, Kathie. That's not the way it is. It's not like this. It's not like this. He's like this, and this is what's happening." No, not in my imagination it's not, and when that happens, the people in your world change. Your people in your situation change. And when you can transmute the pattern, do not conform to the pattern that you're seeing in your ego, which you're edging God out. You can see the pattern differently. And how do we do that? We get in touch with awareness. Awareness creates choice, and awareness is just the God inside of you who is seeing what's going on, and it doesn't judge things as good or bad. Your ego only does that. And when you can sit with that and create your-- in, in your imagination another reality, it transmutes it. It transmutes the relationship. You can picture that person perfectly, and subconsciously they will pick up on it, especially if you believe it. That's the most important thing. You've gotta believe it. But I've done it enough times that I just believe it, and it just happens. And it happens with everything, with relationships, with health, with, abundance. And it just happens. And you just have to sit there and sometimes you may have to brainwash yourself because sometimes our brains are so prone to those negativity bias that we have to rewire it. And if you think it's hard, it's gonna be hard, but it's really not hard. It's very, very easy. And in fact, it's a lot easier than having a full-blown panic attack because of email that didn't even say what you thought it said. Happens. And you can transmute it to even something better because your imagination creates your reality. So this ties into my three principles. We've got non-attachment. Non-attachment here means don't be attached to what your ego is saying it should be. Should is a dirty word, first of all. Second of all, you're limiting yourself when you say it should be this way because you don't know what's really possible. You don't know until you imagine differently and you put your awareness on the whole thing on God's perfect and pleasing will Second of all, there's radical responsibility. So go back to watch your thoughts. Because eventually Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny. It's up to you That's your responsibility to watch those things. And let me add this too. Forgive yourself when you step out of it, because you will, and just forgive yourself. I practice Ho'oponopono, and it's instantly forgiven. You're gonna have to forgive yourself when you step back into your human pattern. Don't conform to the pattern of this world. And then courage, because it's gonna take courage to face this, to go, "Oh, this is not my ego." 'Cause your ego will fight back. It thinks it's gotta be right. So here's where I wanna talk about pendulums and Reality Transurfing, because Reality Transurfing is a book by Russian quantum physicist Vadim Zeland, and I talk about it often on my channel. And pendulums, I talk about them a lot, too. And here's what I wanna say about pendulums. In the book it says, "Lack of fulfillment and dissatisfaction are the pendulum's favorite dish." A pendulum is just a thought structure that wants your energy, and if you want to stop the pendulum's sway, you quit giving it your energy. And so any time you feel lack of fulfillment or dissatisfaction, you are caught with the pendulum's hook. And the best way to stop it is to just observe it, become aware of it. "Oh, it's trying to hook my attention." Take the guy in traffic. The pendulum there was trying to prod him. That was his trigger, that he was in a hurry and he had needed to get somewhere right then and there. But he just observed it. And in fact, observing it with humor is even better, because when you can do that, it's going to really go away. Pendulums hate laughter. They hate being laughed at. And if you can laugh at 'em, you, you just stop the pendulum's sway. You stopped it from hooking you. Laughter is one of the best emotions you can use. It's one of the most healing emotions you can use, and it will stop the pendulum from prodding you. Take my email example. If I had laughed at it and said, "Ha ha ha, what, she, who does she think she is? Whatever. Do you know, she's not in charge of my motherhood." It, you know, if I just laughed at it and put it, my phone down and gone about my day, it wouldn't have, it wouldn't have affected me. And now in my... Whenever I'm triggered, I do that. I, I look at it and I go, "Oh, I'm, I'm either dissatisfied or I have lack of fulfillment." And it does radically change this. Let me give you a, a, a very Solid example that's happening in my life right now. I'm in a relationship with somebody that I've been with for many, many years, and this relationship has a, um, disconnect that's happened over the last two years, and it's been very... I- if my ego was to tell you, it'd be like, "This is very painful. This hurts. This is cruel. This is not good." However, I have stopped that pendulum prod from going, "I'm, I'm not dissatisfied. I, I'm not lack of fulfillment. I, I see this person as ideal. I see them kind and loving and funny and generous," and anything other than that has appeared to disappear. And even if it's still there, it just doesn't bother me. I'm not dissatisfied by that. I'm not lack of fulfilled by that because that doesn't determine who, who I am. That's not the pattern I'm gonna conform to. And it's a pattern. That's one thing about pattern recognition is if you're really, really good at pattern recognition, which I expect you are if you're listening to this episode, then you know that y- you can be certain of these patterns. Like, uh, if... Take this person, for example. I've been with them for many, many years, and I know their patterns, but I'm not 100% certain, and My imagination can create a different reality, which is very liberating, especially as a pattern recognizer because I'm like, "Oh, no, my imagination isn't picturing that pattern. I'm picturing another one," and it will come to be. Whatever pattern you're recognizing will come to be. That's why my pattern recognition could be very powerful for you because when you hire me and I'm observing these patterns, I show you this is the pattern that you're recognizing. Now observe it. Now observe that pattern. You come up with the solution. You use your imagination for your ideal reality. I don't tell you. As a co- coach and consultant, I don't give people a list of things to do or here's your practice for, here's your homework assignment. Your homework assignment is to start observing your patterns under pressure. My work is helping you observe where your patterns are falling into hurting you. Because that's one thing I have learned in my lifetime is I've learned how my pattern recognition had hurt me And instead I just observe it. I put space in there, I put that pause in there. I give it awareness, and awareness creates choice, and my choice is to observe another reality, create another reality that is more empowering and does not conform to the pattern of this world. Woo. All right. With that, I'm gonna leave it here That's my episode for today. I trust that you found it helpful, and if you know somebody who could benefit from this, please share it with them, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Kathie Owen Perspective podcast.