— UNDERSTANDING CHANGING UNWANTED PATTERNS
Sometimes we understand a pattern perfectly well.
We know what we are doing. We recognise when it happens. We may even understand where it came from — and yet, when the familiar situation arises, we find ourselves responding in exactly the same way.
Perhaps you withdraw when relationships become difficult. You automatically put other people's needs before your own. You avoid situations that make you uncomfortable, become defensive when you feel challenged, struggle to say no, or repeatedly respond to stress in ways that no longer feel helpful.
Recognising Symptoms in the Body
Patterns can appear in many different areas of life. You might recognise:
Avoiding situations even when you want to participate
Difficulty saying no or maintaining boundaries
Automatically putting other people's needs before your own
Becoming defensive or withdrawing during conflict
Procrastinating when something feels challenging
Feeling unable to speak when under pressure
Repeatedly choosing similar relationship dynamics
Becoming overwhelmed by particular situations or people
Disconnecting from your feelings or bodily sensations
Knowing how you would like to respond but finding yourself doing something different
Sometimes the pattern is obvious. At other times, we simply have a recurring sense of "Why do I keep doing this?"
How Somatic Experiencing Helps
Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) brings attention to what happens in the body and nervous system as a pattern begins to emerge.
Rather than focusing only on changing the behaviour itself, we can become curious about what happens immediately before it.
Perhaps your breathing changes. Your shoulders tighten. Your stomach contracts. You feel heat in your chest, an impulse to move away, an urge to speak, or perhaps you suddenly feel very little at all.
These small changes can provide useful information about how your nervous system is responding.
By slowing the process down, we can begin to recognise the sequence between a trigger, bodily response, emotion, impulse and behaviour.
That awareness can create something very important: choice.
You don’t have to work through it alone
If a past event still feels present in your body, your reactions or the way you experience everyday life, Somatic Experiencing may offer a gentle way to begin working with what remains.
We can start with a conversation about what you are experiencing and what you would like to change. You don't need to tell me everything that happened, and there is no expectation to go anywhere you are not ready to go.
Book a consultation and we can explore whether Somatic Experiencing feels right for you.