Patterns
Looking for the thing that is different.
NOTE: Much of what I am writing about here comes from my work as a somatic experiencing practitioner and psychotherapist, as well as my own lived experience on the receiving end of these modalities. I am not an educator, so any misrepresentation is all my own. If you want to do personal work in these areas, I suggest finding a practitioner to accompany you in the process.
Somatic Patterns
Often in somatic work, if a pattern or sequence keeps showing up and feels familiar (this always leads to that), then we might start to wonder – is there an over-coupling happening? What that means is that certain responses may have gotten wired together possibly because they fired together out of trauma response, a survival adaption, self-protection. So, our systems have developed a strong and protective habit – when I notice this sensation/feeling/experience, it goes right to this other sensation/feeling/experience. For example, when I notice something like anger/heat start to rise, my muscles in my jaw begin to tense around that experience. Usually, these over-coupled responses move very quickly and undetected unless we are doing the work of paying attention.
When we start to unwind that process and get curious about it, firstly there can be a suspicion from the system itself. After all, it’s this over-coupled response that has ostensibly kept the person safe in some way, even if it causes other kinds of struggle, stress and pain. When we start to slowly untangle that pattern, it can release trauma physiology that was bound in there (anger, fear, etc…), which in itself can take time to work through, allowing space for the movement and expression of things that never got a chance to be expressed.
Ultimately and hopefully, after working through this experience, we may feel our own aliveness returned to us in a way that we aren’t used to. We may feel less exhaustion from all the “protecting” that our system has been doing. We may feel more access to emotions we haven’t before. I am saying all of this in a simple direct way to describe it, but in no way does that mean the journey of it is simple and direct. It can take a long time and it’s natural to move away from and towards the process many times. And we may even decide not to untangle certain things, and that’s okay, too.
What I have been attending to lately in this work, is keeping a look out for the thing that is different. If these protective patterns are familiar and habitual, we can learn to be attentive when something different shows up – a new sensation, emotion, perspective. When we notice something we haven’t seen before, we can take a moment to explore it; it could be something that has been off the radar (under-coupled) and in fact potentially helpful and resourceful. In the example above, if we can tolerate a bit more of the anger/heat before our jaw muscles tense around it, we may find that we are able to put words on that sensation, like “No” or “I don’t like that.”It can feel scary to look for what is different. Our brains usually perceive different as threatening on some level, so again it takes time and doing the work in small pieces to develop enough safety to allow for the different thing.
Inter-generational Patterns
If we take a wider view and look at how it shows up not just in our bodies, but in our lives, I think of inter-generational patterns. When we find ourselves saying “this is just how I am,” or “this is what my family does,” we might be seeing some of those familiar survival adaptation patterns showing up as our personalities or how our families relate to each other. The somatic abolitionist Resmaa Menakem says “trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality… in a family looks like family traits… in a people looks like culture.” When trauma isn’t recognized or seen for what it is, or supported in healing, it can start to be misperceived over time from within and without.
It doesn’t mean it’s all bad or that we need to throw everything out. In fact, there are likely great resources and resilience in those adaptions that are important and useful to have, a strength. For example, when we are threatened, we want our body to protect us; when we are in a new place, we want to have a sense of keen awareness and boundaries. It’s just that when those survival mechanisms are kicking in all the time, whether they need to or not, that there may be room for other choices and possibilities. The purpose of those adaptations may no longer be present in the same way. Nervous system work is really about flexibility, choice and capacity in our systems, not about throwing one thing out to cling to another.
Creative Patterns
This is a long and winding way to say that when we notice something different from our usual patterns and habits, it may be worth exploring. We don’t need to be working with trauma in order to do that, that’s just my way of exploring these concepts in my work. They can show up in our creative processes as well. When I dance, I may find myself in the same patterns and movements – going in the same direction, making the same gestures.
When I am writing, I may notice I use the same phrases, words or form. If I can look for the surprise, when I can catch myself off guard, when I am disinhibited enough to allow something new to emerge, that may be worth paying attention to.
What familiar and habitual patterns do you feel curious about in your own life and creativity?
Is there anything different that you noticed today, no matter how small or subtle? A sensation you weren’t aware of before, a sound in the nature around you, the way you handled a difficult situation, or a word you used in a poem that you’ve never used before?
References:
Somatic Experiencing: www.traumahealing.org, www.somaticexperiencing.com
Resmaa Menakem: My Grandmother’s Hands, www.resmaa.com
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