Running Back To What We Ran Away From

"We split up." "Oh, we're back together again." "I don't work there anymore." "I did quit, but I went back!" "We did get a divorce, but we remarried." In every situation of our life where a separation is possible, a reunion is probable. Why do we keep running back to what we ran away from?

What is the catalyst that propels us right back to what we left; the very same emotions that led us there in the beginning! Human emotions are powerful and leave very strong memory imprints on the mind. What is the imprint? The good feelings we experienced.

Just as a mother endures the terrible pain of childbirth and forgets it all when she sees her child; memorable pleasures or feelings prompt the same instinctive response, to forgive the pain and forget if possible. Or, most all of us agree to certainly try again. Everyone is entitled to a mistake, aren't they? Are they? It depends on the magnitude of the mistake.

This same instinctive response to quit and try again is many times responsible for the pay raise you wanted and did not have the courage to demand. Leaving the job opens the door for a new negotiation. In this instance, it would have been less unsettling to simply ask for the raise, but when it feels impossible to do so, leaving is plan B.

Children run away from home, usually to a good friend's house. They have encountered an issue they don't have the coping ability to resolve and in a subconscious manner, have brought in a negotiator. Would it have been easier to simply work through it at home? Possibly; we have a tendency not to really listen to children, or accept that they know what they need. This may have been the only viable solution.

Good friends suddenly are on the outs, usually over something hidden or being judgmental; oddly enough, deceit in some fashion frequently visits good friendships. While running back may bring a resolution, the relationship may never be the same. Friends remember betrayal almost as much as lovers do.

We bolt from new relationships in fear that we are becoming entangled in something we don't understand or a loss of freedom seems unacceptable. And then, after thinking it through we return or leave the relationship completely. Was it the right response? It was the human response - fight or flight rose up to do battle and flight won.

Many people actually get a divorce and then remarry. Have their differences been resolved or did they decide their relationship was more important than the issues? Maybe some of both; they probably learned to compromise and choose wisely.

The most baffling of the syndrome of running back to what you ran away from happens in abuse situations. Children and adults who have been horrifically abused both emotionally and physically comprise the greatest number of those who run back.

Children cling to parents who have very nearly killed them, hoping and praying they will love them again. Spouses and partners frequently require a court order that many ignore, to separate them and allow them so see the reality of what has happened without emotional filters. 

The goal is for the victims to find the courage to leave for good. But many do not.

This is the one instance when running back is absolutely the wrong response; one that may cost you your life. It most assuredly will cost you a personal recognition of deserving good things in your life and of a sense of self-worth; your self-esteem. How important are these attributes? They are the defining factor in whether you will experience the same results with another person, a cycle that seems unending.

What could possibly propel us to run back? It's those deeply embedded memory imprints of the good feelings, the good times. Because the mind keeps replaying what the heart can't forget.