Why Understanding Your Patterns Isn't the Same as Changing Them

If you've been on any kind of healing journey at any point in your life, you've probably hit this moment… You can explain your patterns. You can talk about your history. You can trace your reactions all the way back to specific experiences.

And you still find yourself reacting the same way — tense, braced, on guard, shut down, or overwhelmed in moments that don't seem like they should feel like that much.

I've been there. Sitting in therapy, having all the insight, understanding exactly why I do what I do… and then going home and clenching my jaw through dinner and doomscrolling anyway.

It's confusing. It can feel frustrating. And honestly, it can make you wonder if something's wrong with you.

So I want to say this gently but in a way that you’ll really hear it: you're not broken.

And this gap between understanding and felt change? It tells us something important about how the nervous system actually works.

Insight helps us understand. But it doesn't always change automatic responses.

Insight lives in the thinking brain. It helps us name what's happened, make sense of our reactions, and finally put words to things we've lived through without language for them. Having words for our experiences is powerful. And it’s important.

But insight isn't the part of us that runs our automatic survival responses.

Here's something that helped me make sense of this: the vagus nerve — the information superhighway between the body and brain — sends far more information up than it receives down. Roughly 80% of that communication flows from body to brain. Only about 20% goes the other way.

What that means in everyday terms is this: your body is constantly telling your brain what feels safe, what feels like too much, and what feels okay — long before your conscious mind gets a chance to weigh in.

So you can know something with your mind. But your body might still be holding onto an old expectation of threat… because at some point, that was the safest thing to do.

The nervous system learns through patterning, not explanation.

Understanding where a pattern came from is important.

But patterns don't dissolve just because we understand them.

The nervous system is shaped by repetition. It learns what to expect based on what the body has experienced over time. If your system learned that staying vigilant helped you get through, or that shutting down was the only way to survive, it doesn't just forget that because you now have a better story about it.

I still notice this in my own body. For the longest time, whenever I'd talk about something stressful — in therapy, with a friend, even at my chiropractor's office — I'd feel my left shoulder start to creep up toward my ear. The muscle would get tighter and tighter until it felt like it was burning.

It took a while to understand that this trapezius muscle was an external indicator of an internal nervous system state. My body wasn't broken. It was still protecting me from something it learned was unsafe — even when the conversation was just a question someone asked.

I also notice it in my breath. In tense seasons, I'll catch myself bracing — holding my breath without realizing it. I have to remind myself to breathe.

Change in the nervous system isn't created by insight alone. It's created by new experience.

Not dramatic. Not sudden. Not poetic.

Just moments where your body feels slightly less braced.

Instances of safety that register in your system as okay.

Experiences that gently teach your nervous system: You can relax. You're allowed to stay.

This is why knowing something intellectually doesn't always feel like enough.

What actually supports change: safety in the here and now

There's a common belief that healing means going deep into the past — that if we just replay the stories enough times or dig into our history deeply enough, the body will finally catch up.

But nervous systems don't heal by lassoing the past. They reorganize through felt shifts in the present.

The work — the real, slow kind that actually changes how you respond — happens when the body steadily learns:

I'm not in danger right now.

I can breathe in this moment.

It's okay to notice sensation without needing to shut down or push through.

This isn't about ignoring the past. It's about tending to the felt present moment in ways the nervous system can actually take in.

And that's why sometimes people can intellect their way into understanding but still feel stuck — not because they lack insight, but because insight alone didn't give the body new experience.

Insight matters. But the body has its own language.

If you've ever looked at your patterns and thought, "I get it — I really do — why isn't anything different?"

That doesn't mean you're missing something.

It means wisdom doesn't live in just one part of you.

Understanding your patterns is important. But changing how your nervous system responds comes from giving the body new information — not new explanations.

It's in the slow accumulation of safety.

In small moments of noticing.

And in practices that invite the nervous system to learn something different than what it's been living with for years.

If you want to try this with me right now: notice if there's anywhere in your body that feels tight, braced, or holding.

You don't have to fix it. Just pause. Acknowledge it. You might even think: thank you for protecting me.

Then take one slow breath.

That's it. That's a moment of giving the body new experience.

If you want support translating understanding into felt change, that's exactly the kind of work I do — with curiosity, pace, and compassion.

Or just reach out to say hi at hello@somalabkc.com. I love hearing what’s landing for you, what questions arise, or figuring out how I can help support your nervous system.