The Five Personality Patterns

Through this journey, a few frameworks have been useful to me. One of them is the Five Personality Patterns. The full book is here and definitely worth a read; my intention here is more to share the pieces of it that have come up for me since reading it than to share a full summary. There is an incredible amount of the framework covered in the book that I haven’t shared here.

A note on healing frameworks

There can be a beauty in finding a framework that explains the inexplicable, that gives you words to communicate an experience that was previously inaccessible. This is what the Five Personality Patterns did for me.

There can also be a danger in using a framework for this; it’s tempting to overindex on the patterns, using them to describe experiences that are just as sturdily explained via direct experience. Overreliance on them, for me, can mean I feel less curious about my own experience and less in touch with my own intuition and internal experience – all of which I hold as deeply important aspects of my journey. 

And on this framework in particular: the first time I read this book, I immediately self-identified a few of the patterns. The ones I picked out in that first readthrough are almost completely different from the patterns I tend to think about my life through now. So, though I think this is a hugely useful framework, I’d also invite you to hold your interpretation of it lightly. Let it be impermanent.

How our personality patterns form

As children, we all faced moments of overwhelm. Maybe we experienced moments of trauma, or were frequently left with our needs unmet. Maybe the environment around us was too highly charged for our nervous systems to handle.

In the ideal scenario, when a child experiences overwhelm, they’re able to find a safe place to process and discharge the sense of overwhelm before returning to a well-regulated baseline.

However, sometimes that safety and discharge is unavailable — this could happen, for example, in an environment where crying is shamed or punished, or where caregivers aren’t present to help coregulate. When the child is unable to come down from their feelings of overwhelm, they develop strategies for managing their overwhelm instead of processing it. Over time, they will continue trying out different strategies in these overwhelming situations and repeat the successful ones, until those successful strategies become habits. Those strategies we used to respond to overwhelm in childhood become our personality patterns.

What does it mean to “run” a personality pattern?

Personality patterns are not like Meyers Briggs or Enneagram in that they don’t claim to speak to who you are; they speak more to what blocks you from who you are. There’s an explicit linguistic choice to speak about which patterns someone runs rather than which patterns someone is. 

The book says that every person runs a primary pattern, likely a secondary pattern, and perhaps a tertiary pattern. My own experience of it is a bit more nebulous; I do feel that two or three of the patterns have shaped my worldview and day-to-day experience most deeply, but I also feel able to dip into the other patterns, and find certain specific situations trigger them. When given a framework that allows me to categorize myself, my temptation is always to find the perfect fit, but I’ve found with Five Personality Patterns it’s most useful to stay open to learning something from each pattern.

Gifts & gratitude for personality patterns

We all tend to direct our attention in the world based on the patterns we run. Because of this repeated pattern of attention, each pattern is also associated with a set of gifts. These gifts are unique strengths resulting from the ways we’ve learned to exist in the world based on the patterns it’s common for us to run.

These patterns are all well-adapted, intelligent responses to whatever overwhelming challenges were encountered in childhood. The patterns were survival strategies — our best attempts at handling situations that, as children, were too distressing to fully feel. I’ve learned it feels much better to treat my patterns with gratitude and love than to beat myself up for running them. Thank god I run them – they’re what got me through.

Healing our patterns

Our freedom lies in our ability to pause between trigger and reaction. By default, we respond to triggers using the patterns we learned in childhood — but now, as adults, we’re better equipped to meet those challenges. The invitation this book presents is to begin to heal whatever patterns we run, opening up space for more mature, grounded & aligned reactions even in the midst of high intensity and difficulty.

In doing this work, my own patterns have lost some of their grip on me; it takes stronger triggers for them to come up, and I’m more able to respond when they do arise. I’m less likely to snap during an argument, or to dissociate when I don’t feel safe. I’m more able to channel high energy without directing it at people. My creativity and ability to set boundaries have grown. When I’m triggered, lashing out, or in a state of fear or shame, I can usually name now what pattern I’m running and what my needs are in order to feel present and at-will again.

The path to healing each pattern is laid out in the book. The healing each pattern needs is available by more or less completing whatever developmental challenge was never completed in childhood (more on that below).

Each pattern also has a unique set of energetic basics that are particularly helpful in healing that pattern. This is part of why I do my energetic basics practice every day – and I’ve adapted the specific way I practice energetic basics to address the specific challenges I have developed from my own patterning.

The patterns

Leaving pattern

This pattern generally develops in utero to 6 months old, when a baby feels that the physical world and/or their body is unsafe. One way this could happen is if they suffer acute physical trauma during that time, which threatens their sense of safety in their body.

Later in life, people who run this pattern tend to respond to overwhelm by leaving – meaning both dissociating and leaving spaces physically.

People who run Leaving tend to be very spiritually connected and creative. They tend to find it easy to play, and are very energetically perceptive.

Healing the Leaving pattern involves developing all four energetic basic skills. The book goes into much more detail on what else is required for healing Leaving pattern. 

Merging pattern

The merging pattern generally develops when a child is nursing, around 6 months to 2.5 years. Merging develops when a child consistently feels a sense of deprivation or needs left unmet. One example of this could be feeding a child on a schedule, rather than when they’re hungry, leading to a consistent feeling of hunger going unaddressed.

Later in life, this pattern can feel like nothing will ever be enough. I’m too much. Running merging can feel like tunnel vision focused only on relationships; any relationship difficulties can feel devastating and must be fixed in order to feel okay. There’s often a deep feeling of shame, and from my own conversations with people, a feeling of self-hatred when deep needs arise seems common as well. The first section of this essay describes my own experience running Merging.

People who run merging tend to be very attuned to relationships and the connections between people. The gifts of the merging pattern include easeful access to love, abundance, and generosity. 

Healing the merging pattern involves developing all four energetic basics, and the Five Personality Patterns book goes into much deeper detail on the anger work, self-care, and other steps needed to heal the merging pattern.

Compensated merging

Compensated merging is a variant of the merging pattern that develops under the same circumstances as the merging pattern. However, in this case, the baby gives up on trying to get its needs met (ie stops crying), often because the pain of not having what it needs is too great. It becomes less painful to disown the fact that they have needs at all. Compensated Merging can also develop as a response to growing up in an environment that rewards giving and sees receiving as shameful.

Later in life, this pattern can look similar to the merging pattern except with the unmet needs projected onto other people. People running this pattern will often serve others, giving other people what they themselves are craving without realizing that their own needs are going unmet. This lack of attunement to their own needs can lead to burnout or giving too much without adequate self-care to support it.

The gifts of this pattern and the process needed to heal it are similar to those of the merging pattern.

Enduring pattern

This pattern generally develops around ages 1.5-3, when a child is learning how to say no and assert their own space. It often develops when a child is not given their own space or their no’s are repeatedly overridden. 

Later in life, running this pattern can feel like stuckness, stubbornness, or stonewalling. When someone is running Enduring, there’s a deep, immovable, you can’t make me – which gets applied to every movement asked of them, even when the action was their own idea in the first place. They find it easy to withstand things and difficult to take action. They tend to self-sabotage potential successes, and when they’re in pattern it is incredibly difficult to get them to do anything on someone else’s timeline.

People who run Enduring also tend to be deeply grounded and very loyal. They have a strong stamina and quiet strength, and are excellent at mediating disputes. 

Healing the Enduring pattern involves developing edge and me/not me, as well as relaxing their relationship with the ground. It also requires learning how to move and take up space – many more details on that in the book.

Aggressive pattern

This pattern generally develops around ages 2.5-4. It often develops in a few environments: either the child is deeply betrayed by someone they trust, or their parents or caregivers are unable to wield power in a loving way and the child experiences either no boundaries or source of power, or they experience their caregivers as powerful but not loving. It can also develop in response to having used their willpower to survive a deep fear that they would die sometime in childhood.

Later in life, people who run this pattern tend to see the world as dog-eat-dog; cutthroat. When someone is running Aggressive, there’s often a feeling of fundamental aloneness, and an undercurrent of fear. The worst thing someone can be is weak. They tend to orient towards truth (as opposed to ie seeing the world through connection and relationships). Safety can be found by being in positions of authority.

People who run this pattern tend to be able to channel large amounts of energy. They’re doers, able to make things happen in the world. They have a strong sense of self and are independent.

Healing this pattern usually involves developing ground and edge, as well as learning to relax while in core, and other healing processes described in the book.

Rigid pattern

This pattern usually develops between 3.5-5 years old. It often develops when a child is praised for their achievements and performance, rather than themselves. 

Later in life, this looks like a rigidity around rules. The rules themselves can be anything – any side of the political spectrum; any set of values. The important thing is that when someone is running Rigid there is a right and a wrong way to do things, and doing things wrong is bad. Following the rules is more important than listening to their inner experience.

People who run this pattern tend to be skilled in systems-level thinking; they can easily see how things are connected and hold many moving parts in their minds. They see patterns easily. They are logical and rational, with very strong concentration and attention.

Healing the rigid pattern involves developing core and ground, as well as reorienting toward inner experience as a source of wisdom. Much more detail on that in the book.

Learning more about the Five Personality Patterns

The book goes into an incredible amount of detail on each pattern. They all have associated body types; relationships with anger; romantic relationship patterns; relationships with their inner critics. There is also guide to communicating with someone running each pattern, which I use often in my relationships in times of high stress or conflict; noticing when someone I’m interacting with is in pattern gives me a foothold into communicating in a way that will actually land and reduce the intensity of the situation.

Five Personality Patterns in a greater context

Though it’s complete on its own, this framework is not isolated. The official website with more information on each pattern is here. I learned about this framework, along with a lot of the other healing modalities I use now, at Sleepawake Camp last summer (applications are open for another week or two for this summer if you’re interested!).