You’ve just come back from a date feeling as though you’re in a time warp. Does it all seem a little too familiar? You may be dating ‘repeats.’

It could be the tense guy who’s always critical, the charismatic guy that’s charmingly sexual before he bolts, or the confused guy that’s not sure what he wants after 6 months of dating.

Regardless of the type of man that rolls into your sphere, you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve already played this scene before. Moreover, you know the ending of the story. Why? You’ve already lived it.

There’re times in dating when we’ll get repeats. We’re seeing our past played out in the present, once again. This doesn’t necessarily mean we’re stuck in replay mode. And it doesn’t mean that all of our applied work toward inner advancement is failing.

Repeats aren’t punitive:

The concept of “lessons” has always seemed harshly judgmental to me. We aren’t bad students of Life in need of punishment. We’re here learning and making improved choices with each new experience.

Life offers us an ongoing series of selections. We gain mastery over this process with each new choice we make. It’s a skillset that can only be refined after we’ve walked through an experience, not before. Living with the outcome of our choices enables us to make wise assessments based on the insights that emerged from that transit.

The purpose of repeats is beneficial:

Repeats are here to jog our awareness. They jump-start the process of moving away from our past by replaying it in our present day lives.

Repeats force us to ask a pivotal question, “Am I done with this scenario?” If the answer is yes, our cycle of repetition is altered or eliminated. Identifying our patterns allows us to amend our relationship design to reflect our current needs and desires.

Repeats clarify our need for improved partner selection:

Correct partner selection is vital to a rewarding relationship. Repeats serve as a form of “check in.” They show up to clarify if the type of partner we wanted in the past is the type of partner we want for our future.

We learn to recognize character traits that no longer serve us. Identifying unwanted behaviors and attitudes enables us to move away from these situations with ease. There’s no reason to berate our selves, or our date. We’ve come to a magical place of awareness. We now have a better template for love.

Repeats prompt us to re-calibrate upward:

Re-calibration is the tuning of our exact desire, to its exact form. Each time we tune-up to where we want to go with greater precision, we’re in the act of moving toward the goal we want to attain. Each time we amend a former choice, we send out the signal that we’re ready for a new reality to take place.

The world has an incentive to work with us, if we allow it. Life is here to ask us what we want (and don’t want), through our experiences. Rather than imagine we’re stalled, we can look at these events as conclusive proof that we’re in the process of moving forward. We can see that our history is helping us to create a better future.