Patterns…

I have always been someone who loves patterns.

I notice them. I look for connections. I see relationships between things and often find myself asking,

“What keeps repeating here?”

But I don't think I ever understood just how significant that interest in patterns would become in my life and work with clients.

Today, I was reminded just how much so.

I am currently doing a Bible app plan with a friend through BibleProject called Design by Patterns. The moment I saw it, my ears pricked up because only last night I had submitted an event where I will be doing a workshop exploring patterns in our lives, including the patterns we experience through our felt sensations and how we can find our way back to the pause.

And then I watched the BibleProject video.

I was fascinated by the way it showed the patterns throughout Scripture generation after generation repeating the same human struggles.

The same fear.

The same striving.

The same disobedience.

The same attempts to take control.

The same consequences.

It made me think about how much of our own lives can work this way too.

We are designed for patterns

A pattern is an organised, repeated, relational or predictable arrangement of elements across space or time.

Pattern isn't simply something we observe around us.

It is woven into us.

Developmental biology has an entire field called pattern formation. From the moment a single fertilised cell begins to divide, cells communicate, differentiate, migrate and organise themselves into increasingly complex structures.

The body doesn't simply grow.

It patterns itself.

Our physiology also operates through patterns rhythms, feedback loops, cycles of regulation and response and so does our brain. We learn patterns so that we don't have to consciously think through everything we do.

It's why we can drive a familiar route and suddenly realise we've arrived without consciously remembering every turn.

Our subconscious is constantly recognising what is familiar and drawing on what has happened before.

This is incredibly useful, but it can also mean that we repeat. We can find ourselves responding in the same way, making the same choices or falling into familiar reactions before we have even consciously considered what is happening.

And sometimes the body gives us the first clue.

A tightening.

A change in breathing.

A heaviness.

A flutter.

A sense of wanting to run, shut down, defend or fix.

The felt sensation can be the place where we begin to notice the pattern.

And noticing gives us something incredibly important:

a pause.

But this is where the BibleProject video really challenged me, because it didn't just show us the patterns.

It showed us that the pattern doesn't have to be the ending. When Christ enters the story, we see something different.

Jesus didn't simply operate from automatic reaction.

He withdrew.

He prayed.

He went to His Father.

He listened.

He reflected.

He discerned.

He chose.

Think about Jesus in the garden.

He was deeply distressed, yet He didn't simply run from the experience or react from it.

He went to the Father.

“Not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

There is a pause there.

A surrender.

A relationship.

A choice.

And perhaps that is one of the most powerful patterns Christ left for us, not that we will never experience fear, distress, discomfort or temptation.

But that we don't have to be governed by our first response.

We can pause.

We can turn toward the Father.

We can bring what we are experiencing into relationship with Him.

We can choose.

And ultimately, Christ demonstrated a way of living that broke the cycle of what had come before, offering not simply another pattern to repeat, but a new way of life.

Perhaps this is why patterns matter so much to me.

Because when we begin to recognise the patterns in our bodies, our thoughts, our responses and our lives, we aren't looking for something to judge.

We are looking for something to understand.

The somatic work I do is part of that process. Learning to notice the felt sensation can help us recognise the moment before autopilot takes over, that moment can become our pause.

But the pause isn't the destination.

What we do with the pause matters.

For me, that ultimately brings me back to Christ. To Scripture, to the patterns He has already shown us.

The invitation isn't simply: “Notice your pattern.”

It is:

Notice. Pause. Turn toward God. Discern. Choose.

Patterns are not fixed. They are shapes, shapes can shift, adapt and reposition.

We don't have to keep repeating what has been repeated before us, Christ has shown us another way.

Now perhaps our work is to become familiar with the patterns He has left for us throughout Scripture and to learn how to live them.