How to Break Repetitive Patterns (and Why Knowing Isn't Always Enough)
- Fionn Leitch
- 10 hours ago
- 9 min read
There is something distinctly annoying about being deeply self-aware and still watching yourself repeat the same pattern.
You’ve done the therapy, read the books, understand your triggers and could probably give a reasonably impressive presentation on why you struggle to say no, overthink decisions or keep pushing yourself long after you’re exhausted.
And then you do it again.
Annoying, but very human.
Understanding yourself is important, and sometimes an insight can shift things. But there can also be a gap between knowing why you respond in a certain way and being able to do something different when the moment actually arrives.
By the time the thinking mind has caught up, the jaw may have already tightened, the breath changed and the yes you didn't mean may have already left your mouth.
When you're thinking about how to break repetitive patterns, understanding what's happening can be an important part of it. But what happens when you already understand the pattern and it keeps happening anyway?
Sometimes you need to do something different, to get a different response.
And that's where working with the body can add something that understanding alone sometimes can't.
A pattern isn't just something you think about
You can become incredibly good at understanding yourself. You know your triggers, recognise your patterns and can often trace exactly where they came from. The frustrating bit is discovering that knowing all of that doesn't necessarily stop the response when it happens.
Perhaps your breathing becomes shallow, your shoulders creep upwards or your stomach feels tight. Maybe you become restless and can't settle, or you go the other way and feel tired, foggy and disconnected.
Patterns can involve thoughts, emotions, behaviours and physical responses, all happening together. Sometimes the physical responses are already underway before you've consciously registered what's happening.
I had a rather spectacular reminder of this recently when I decided to take August off because I was exhausted.
I knew I needed to rest. I understood why I found stopping difficult and knew perfectly well that nothing terrible would happen if I chose to give myself some space.
Apparently, the memo hadn't reached my body.
For the first few days I was like a meerkat who had overdosed on caffeine, constantly finding things I could be doing, creating or sorting something. Nobody was asking anything of me, but I was still asking it of myself.
As the month went on, I slowed down, very slowly, like a caffeinated meerkat on the comedown. I chose to receive support to get out of my head, spent more time outside and during a woman's retreat weekend, I found myself lying in a hammock for an hour and a half watching clouds and listening to chickens gossip nearby.
I hadn't discovered some astonishing new insight about myself. I already knew why I found stopping difficult.
I didn't need another explanation for why I found rest difficult. I could already have given you several. Some came from my own story, some inherited, and years of working in a corporate world that rewarded doing, producing and pushing through had certainly added a few of its own reasons.
What I hadn't had much practice at was actually stopping to rest.
And I think this is where you can sometimes get stuck with patterns. If understanding the pattern hasn't changed how you respond, you may need to move beyond understanding it and begin exploring how it shows up in your body.
Because doing something differently once doesn't necessarily establish a new pattern. Each time you respond differently, you give that new response a little more space to take root. And the more you practise it, the more the way you relate and respond to life begins to change. When you meet life differently, life can begin to meet you differently too.
And that distinction matters.
One afternoon in a hammock wasn't going to undo decades of learning to keep going. Receiving the support I needed helped me get out of my head and slow down. Since then, it has become easier to be more present, to keep choosing a different response and, through that repetition, the new response is taking root.
Am I now spectacularly good at stopping? Absolutely not. I am still very much a work in progress.
So how do you actually break repetitive patterns?
This is where breathwork and somatics come in.
Your breathing often changes with your state of being. You might hold your breath, breathe more shallowly, sigh, brace or sometimes barely notice you're breathing at all.
In fact, notice your breathing now. Don't change it. Just notice it.
Where can you feel your breath moving? Is it easy and spacious, shallow, held, somewhere in between?
Paying attention to your breath can give you another way into what's happening in your body, beyond your thinking mind.
And that's really the starting point: noticing what is happening in your body.
Your body is communicating with you all the time, and the more familiar you become with its language, the easier it can become to recognise when something is shifting before an old response takes over.
I've learned, that I sometimes get a tingling sensation up the right side of my skull, just behind my ear, when I'm becoming emotionally reactive and in danger of responding from an old pattern. I didn't always know what that sensation meant. Now it's enough to make me pay attention to what's actually happening and pause, before I respond or even if I need to respond.
Your signals will be different from mine. It might be a change in your breath pattern, a tightening somewhere in your body, heat, restlessness or something subtle. The point isn't to monitor yourself, but to begin developing a relationship with your body that you can begin to recognise its particular way of getting your attention.
Over time, you can become more familiar with the physical clues that accompany your patterns, which gives you a better chance of recognising them while they're happening, rather than conducting a forensic investigation three hours later into why you said yes when you wanted to say no, pushed through when you were exhausted, or did whatever bloody thing you'd promised yourself you weren't going to do again.
There is a world of difference between understanding an experience and actually having a different one. That's a big part of why I work with breathwork and the body.
Because the earlier you notice the jaw tightening, the breath changing or that familiar response beginning to kick in, the more possibility there is for something different to happen.
You don't always need another explanation for the pattern. Sometimes you need a different experience.
Changing a pattern doesn't mean never doing it again.
I don't think the goal is to become so spectacularly regulated that nothing ever bothers you again. We are messy human beings, after all, and I'm not convinced I'd trust anyone who remained completely serene in the face of a passive-aggressive email.
Changing a pattern doesn't necessarily mean the old response never shows up again. What you can do is begin to change your relationship with the response, and you don't have to change it on your own. Receiving support can help you understand what is actually happening in your body, become more familiar with the way it communicates with you and begin to work with what is there, rather than only trying to think your way through it.
Breathwork and somatic work can offer a space for your body to express and move some of what it has been holding and create more capacity for a different response rather than automatically returning to the familiar one.
They also give you the opportunity to become more familiar with your body's cues, so you can begin to recognise the pattern as it's happening rather than only afterwards.
Over time, you might notice yourself about to say yes and give yourself a moment before answering, catch yourself disappearing down an overthinking rabbit hole and recognise that you already have enough information to make the decision, or realise you're exhausted and stop before your body has to start shouting.
Those moments can look small at first, and perhaps a little scary too, but over time, you will look back and realise that a repetitive pattern you found challenging doesn't quite have the same hold over you anymore.
Not because you've finally understood yourself hard enough, but because you're noticing the pattern as it shows up in your body and beginning to meet it differently while it's actually happening, developing a deeper relationship with your body the more you listen to its cues and the language it speaks.
Want to experience it rather than just read about it?
If you've reached the end of this blog post about getting out of your head, it would be slightly ridiculous of me to give you another 2,000 words to think about.
Instead, try UNWIND: A Gentle Breath Journey Back to the Body on Insight Timer.
Supported by the steady rhythm of the drum, UNWIND invites you to soften the grip of doing for a while and come back to your breath, your body and what you can actually feel.
If you've been overriding tiredness, pushing through or living from the neck up, UNWIND gives you somewhere to stop for a while.
It’s an invitation to unravel some of the noise and hustle, and return to the quiet, grounded wisdom that’s always been there.
Because perhaps the next step isn't to think about your pattern some more. It's to experience what happens when you listen differently.
“I really appreciated stopping and feeling into the beat of the drum and letting my body settle into breath and rhythm. My body is definitely feeling grateful for it.” - Becca Worthington
And if you recognise that frustrating gap between what you already know and what you keep finding yourself doing, that's the territory I work with in my 1:1 sessions.
Because sometimes you don't need another explanation for the pattern. You need the opportunity to experience something different.
I work with breathwork, somatics, drum and shamanic practice in Berkshire and online.
Wild love,
Fionn 🤍
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I keep repeating the same patterns even when I know better?
Because understanding a pattern and being able to respond differently in the moment aren't necessarily the same thing. A pattern can involve thoughts and beliefs, but also emotions, behaviours and physical responses that have become familiar over time.
You might know exactly why you struggle to say no, for example, but still feel your body tense and hear yourself saying yes before you've had a chance to think about it.
Sometimes you need to do something different, to get a different response.
Can conscious connected breathwork help me change repetitive patterns?
Conscious connected breathwork can do more than help you notice a pattern as it’s happening. It can create space for the body to express and release some of what it has been holding, including old emotional and physical responses that may still be shaping how you react now.
Through the breath, you can begin to work with those responses in the body rather than only understanding them in your head. This can create more space and capacity to respond differently, instead of automatically returning to what has become familiar.
And as you become more familiar with your body, you may also begin to recognise its signals earlier, whether that’s holding your breath, tightening your jaw, bracing, becoming restless or starting to shut down.
What is the difference between somatic work and talking about a pattern?
Talking can help us understand our experiences, make connections and recognise why certain patterns developed. Somatic work brings attention to how those experiences are showing up in the body now.
Rather than only asking “Why do I do this?”, we might also become curious about what happens in your breathing, muscles, sensations and impulses when the pattern appears.
Can conscious connected breathwork help if I overthink everything?
It can be a useful way of moving out of the constant analysis of what’s happening and into the experience of what is actually happening in your body. Conscious connected breathwork gives the thinking mind something else to do while creating space for what sits underneath all that thinking to emerge, be felt and expressed.
And you don't need to launch yourself into an enormous breathwork session every time your brain decides to hold a three-day committee meeting about a text message. 😂 Sometimes simply noticing your breath, feeling where it is moving and allowing your exhale to soften can be enough to bring you back into your body and out of the endless loop of trying to think your way to an answer.
Do I need any previous experience with breathwork?
No. You don't need to know how to breathe “properly”, have experience with somatic practices or be particularly good at switching your brain off.
Thankfully, being good at relaxing is not an entry requirement for breathwork.
If you're new to breathwork, my UNWIND practice on Insight Timer is a gentle introduction to working with your breath and body, before exploring conscious connected breathwork or deeper 1:1 work.
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