I have often wondered why we repeat the same experiences in life. There are moments in my life that feel almost identical, only with different people, as if the universe is showing me the same lesson with a new face. It is as if reality is a mirror that keeps reflecting the same image until we finally recognize it, until we stop running from the discomfort and instead decide to look at it directly. The situations that repeat themselves most intensely are usually the ones that carry difficulty, pain, or emotional tension. I began to understand that those moments are not random. They are invitations—subtle calls from our inner world asking to be seen. If we never looked at them, we would not move. Our nervous system naturally tends toward energy conservation, toward comfort, toward the familiar. Yet the soul, in its deepest wisdom, keeps presenting us with the same pattern until we finally pay attention.
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” — Lao Tzu
One of the most important lessons I have learned—and try to apply every day—is to stop blaming others for my situation. When I blame someone else, I hand over my power to external agents. I surrender my life to circumstances, to people, to chance, as if I were only a passive observer of my own story. The moment I accepted my role as an active participant in my own healing was one of the greatest gifts I ever gave myself. I began to look closely at the situations that repeatedly made me uncomfortable, and I asked myself: what is this situation trying to show me? Why is this feeling returning in a similar context? Why do I keep experiencing the same emotional pattern?
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” — Buddha
I must admit that I had to curse fate many times before I broke my ego and asked that question. Many of these patterns were born in childhood, at a time when I was not even aware of what was happening. Yet the body remembers. The soul remembers. And I remember the moment of surrender as if it were yesterday. I tried to change my country, my environment, even my entire social circle. But one experience repeated itself again, and again, in a new place, with different faces. That is when I understood that it does not matter where you travel on Earth. If something needs to be transcended, it will appear again. And the state of your inner world is always the most powerful force.
“Happiness is the absence of the struggle for happiness.” — Zhuangzi
The spiral of life: returning to the same lessons
In the East, life is often seen as a spiral, not a straight line. We are not moving forward in a linear way; we are circling around the same center, returning to the same emotional territory until we finally integrate what was missing. In Taoist wisdom, the universe flows like water—always moving, always returning, never resisting its own nature. When we resist, we create tension; when we allow, we align with the rhythm of existence. So the repetition of the same pattern is not a punishment. It is the Tao’s way of showing us where we are resisting, where we are still attached, where we are still trying to control what cannot be controlled.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu
The mirror of the mind: what we repeat is what we need to heal
But there is another layer to this: the external world is a mirror of the inner world. The experiences we repeat are reflections of the mind. When we do not heal the wound, the universe reflects it back to us in different shapes. And this is why the journey of healing is not only psychological; it is spiritual. The same lesson keeps returning until the mind finally recognizes its own nature. The ego continues to create stories, identities, and emotional dramas, and the soul keeps asking us to wake up.
“You are what you believe yourself to be.” — Ramana Maharshi
“The world is a mirror of your own consciousness.” — Shankara
This is why the spiritual path is not about escaping suffering. It is about transforming it. It is about taking responsibility for our own inner world and recognizing that we are not victims of circumstances. We are the creators of our experience. And when we realize this, we can finally choose differently. The moment we stop identifying with the pain and begin to see it as a teacher, we begin to feel a deeper freedom. We begin to realize that we are not our wounds; we are the awareness that witnesses them.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung
The invitation to choose differently
After all this time, after having renounced everything I had, I know I still have myself. I know who I am. And with that awareness, I know that even if I lose everything again, I will still have my inner compass. I am not saying that you have to make great changes in your life. Not at all. My own journey helped me realize that it is not the exterior that needs to change first. If I am not willing to open my inner world, the same lesson will return again and again. It will return until we prove that we can choose differently.
“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.” — Pema Chödrön
So the next time you find yourself in a situation that feels familiar, I invite you to pause. Do not rush to fix it. Do not rush to blame. Instead, ask yourself:
What is this experience trying to teach me? What part of me is still resisting?
Because the truth is that the lesson is not outside. It is inside. And the moment we face it, we free ourselves.