In the community, our members have shared inner reflections around stepping back into familiar patterns, grief, the release of old ways and the perspective shifts of the heart to step forward onto a new path. 

So today, this is an exploration of our patterns. Why we form them, how we release them and to honour the very valid pain and exhaustion we feel when we notice ourselves repeating patterns of the past. 

I feel the most prominent question that arises sometimes is - If we know the pattern isn’t serving us, why do we keep returning to it?

It is a question that can carry a heavy amount of judgment for an internal challenge that is much more complex and deserves a little grace. 

Take a moment to reflect on a familiar pattern that you seem to repeat, maybe it is the language you use towards yourself, the way you relate to the others, the relationships or life dynamics that seem to replay a similar thread and story.

Our patterns are often grounded in what feels familiar, something that, because of this familiarity, feels safe to us. We know the terrain, we know what to expect, therefore we know how to survive it. To change this pattern, or to act in an alternative way, would unsteady the world around us, our perspective and what we have known to be true for some time. 

To continue to live out old patterns is uncomfortable but in a comfortable way. To step out of all we have known and to work on forging new patterns or ways of being is like tearing a page out from the life manual we have built and leaving us stranded in an empty forest with no map of clear directions for where to go next and how to get home. 

Suddenly we are left to survive without knowing which fruits are safe to eat, which paths are safe to venture and how to deal with what arises on the journey. 

The familiar is easier to venture, we know what to expect, even if it is painful in the long-term. 

The unknown however, well this is a risk, the unknown terrain, that we may be unsure of how to handle, for our nervous system it screams ‘unsafe’ and any time we may try to break old patterns, the body speaks up, or slows us down, asking us to stay safe. We begin to learn what this way of safety means from our responses and reactions. 

But our heart and our intuition. This is the part of us that often calls out, the part that sees beyond the trees of the forest we are surrounded within and tries to encourage us out of the familiar into a space that serves our greater potential. 

This is often where the conflict resides and there is a great difference between being able to observe and intellectually understanding a pattern - verses being ready to release it in pursuit of carving a new way forward. 

Understanding creates awareness but release requires safety, capacity and readiness. We have to feel safe enough to let go, to have the emotional resources to handle what comes next and to be ready to tolerate the discomfort of change. Sometimes we understand our patterns for years before we are actually ready to release them. 

Our patterns are often protecting something and the most important part of change can be taking the time to truly recognise and honour this. 

Often we can feel shame around repeated patterns, berate ourselves for stepping back into past ways and each time we fuel the shame and push it down further, hiding it away from the world and ingraining it deeper within ourselves. 

To just stop doing it, doesn’t work, because our patterns are rooted deeply in our adaptive strategies that we have built over time for safety and survival, formed from our life experiences. 

With this in heart, we may first begin by working to build compassion with the parts of us that are simply trying to survive in the way we have learnt how to. This can bring deep grief and I invite us to each welcome that grief, this is us allowing ourselves to feel the pain of what we have carried for so long. Instead of pushing it down through shame, we are allowing it to be acknowledged, to be seen and to be heard. 

Breaking patterns can be harsh in language, if we try to force something too quickly, it is likely that we will unsettle ourselves without the supportive structure and safety around us to navigate through it. 

There is a difference between breaking a pattern and gently outgrowing it. Our patterns start to loosen as we understand them more deeply and they begin to change as we create the safety for them and for ourselves to do so. Over time, we may recognise the pattern more quickly and we begin to respond a little differently with more awareness. The more that this new response is repeated, the pattern gently, with time, begins to shift. 

The process is about developing new ways of meeting our needs that make the old patterns unnecessary, we start to grow beyond the need for them. We build new and more fulfilling ways to truly feel safe, internally within ourselves and also externally within the world and with others. 

Old patterns are likely to arise when we feel stressed, when the nervous system seeks comfort and safety. The return and regression is expected, it is part of the process and it is what allows us to grow and loosen the pattern each time, by learning something new about ourselves and how we choose to respond. 

We cannot remove something that is trying to keep us safe without replacing it with something else. Until we believe and feel our new response to be safe, we will keep defaulting to the old, which means, this often requires us to keep practicing new behaviours of safety before we fully believe in them. 

This is the process of gently loosening the old and re-building the new. We find new ways of meeting our needs, so the old patterns become outgrown, we find our safety in new ground. 

Pattern change is about learning what truly works for us, instead of forcing change and creating dis-regulation. 

We may try one new response to our familiar patterns over time as we build a new foundation of being. Small experiments compound into significant shifts and when we are not fighting ourselves to change faster, we change naturally, with a little more ease in the process. 

And when it comes to forming new safety, often the greatest foundation is found internally, as we build our ability not to form certainty about the outcome but to build faith in our capacity to cope with uncertainty. 

Our trust is built by gently, overtime, experiencing our own resilience, not just believing it. 

If change requires building new ground before we let go of the old, may I invite you to consider what new ways of meeting your needs may want to emerge?

May I invite you to consider what and who you could begin to grow into overtime, that would make old pattens unnecessary? 

Could you consider what new forms of supportive safety would look like for you? 

It isn’t easy to let go of old patterns but it is possible as we build new terrain to land on. 

And this possibility is what I would encourage us each to hold onto as we work on gently forming new patterns within ourselves and within our lives to emerge.

Sounds, words and inspiration to nourish what's unfolding within you.

Music Recommendation
Simon Glöde ~ Everything in it’s Time

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