From Pattern to Presence: How Early States Shape What We’re Drawn To
What we are repeatedly drawn toward is often less about content and more about the internal state it evokes.
In therapy, patterns that initially appear puzzling often make more sense when viewed through the lens of emotional state rather than meaning or morality.
This article explores how early states become linked to later patterns, and how understanding that process can reduce urgency and increase choice.
Early experiences of safety and closeness are often felt in the body long before they are understood in words.
Why this conversation matters
Many people arrive in therapy describing something that keeps returning:
A recurring interest
A repeated pull
A familiar image, habit, or theme
Questions often include:
Why this?
What does it say about me?
Should I be worried?
A helpful shift is to move away from analysing the content itself and to ask instead what experience the pattern creates internally.
What is a “state”?
A state refers to the overall configuration of experience in a moment. It includes:
Bodily tone
Emotional atmosphere
Level of arousal
Attentional focus
Sense of safety or threat
States are formed early, often before language develops. They are felt long before they are understood conceptually, and the nervous system tends to encode them as familiar reference points.
How states become patterns
1. Early experience establishes familiarity with a state
In childhood, certain states become associated with safety, anticipation, or aliveness. These are primarily felt experiences rather than conscious memories.
2. Later life introduces “carriers”
As we develop, the mind often finds external carriers that evoke those familiar states:
Images
Situations
Behaviours
Relational dynamics
These carriers do not create the state; they help the nervous system re-access it.
3. Repetition under stress
During periods of stress, exhaustion, or emotional narrowing, the system may return to familiar carriers as a form of regulation.
This may appear repetitive or compulsive, but it often functions to restore a tolerable internal state when other resources feel unavailable.
Why patterns soften with understanding
When a state becomes:
Recognisable
Emotionally tolerable
Reflective rather than automatic
The urgency surrounding it tends to reduce.
Energy gradually disengages from repetition and becomes available elsewhere. This can initially feel unfamiliar or flat, but it often reflects increasing integration rather than loss.
Integration does not mean absence
A common misunderstanding is that healing means a pattern disappears entirely. More often, integration means:
The experience can still register
It may still be enjoyable or meaningful
But it no longer dictates behaviour
There is room to notice the pull without needing to follow it.
Reflective questions
If you notice a recurring pull in your own life, it may help to ask:
What state does this bring me into?
When might I first have known this state?
What was happening around me at that time?
Do I still need this pattern to regulate me, or can I simply notice it?
These questions allow curiosity without judgement.
A brief clinical vignette (anonymised)
A client entered therapy concerned about a recurring attraction to a particular kind of image. They felt embarrassed and unsure why it continued to matter.
Rather than focusing on content, we explored when the pull appeared. It became clear that it emerged during periods of fatigue or emotional narrowing.
As sessions slowed, the client described the state it evoked:
Calm mixed with anticipation
A softening in the body
A sense of familiarity and safety
Eventually, connections to early experiences of quiet security became clearer. The pattern itself did not disappear, but its urgency faded. The client could notice it without escalation or emptiness afterwards.
The function changed more than the content. The state had become recognisable and tolerable without needing to be enacted.
In therapy
Much therapeutic work involves:
Making states more tolerable
Restoring choice where repetition once dominated
Allowing emotional energy to return to wider areas of life
When this occurs, patterns often quieten naturally rather than through effort or suppression.
Closing reflection
What we are drawn toward is rarely a flaw. More often, it is a trace of something once necessary.
Understanding the state beneath the pattern allows it to become part of experience rather than something that controls it.
A Note for Therapists
I developed these ideas further in a clinical guide available here:
From Repetition to Integration: A state-based clinical guide for therapists who work with depth
If this reflection resonated, you might explore:
Explore more in depth
Client Companion: When Something Keeps Catching Your Attention
If something repeatedly draws your attention, it may be linked to an earlier emotional state rather than a problem to eliminate.
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Many people come to therapy worried about a recurring pull:
A type of image
A habit
A fantasy
A situation they keep drifting toward.
They often ask:
“Why do I keep going back to this?”
“Does this mean something is wrong with me?”Usually, the answer is no.
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Instead of asking what the thing is, try asking:
What does it do to me?
When you slow it down, you might notice:
Your body softens or wakes up,
Your breathing changes,
Your attention narrows or steadies,
A familiar feeling appears.
That feeling is what we call a state.
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A state is the overall way you feel in a moment:
How safe or tense your body feels
Whether you feel calm, curious, alert, or soothed
How focused or scattered your attention is
We learn states very early in life, often before we have words for them. Our nervous system remembers them even if we don’t.
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As we grow, we often find things that can bring us back into a familiar state:
A look
A sound
A routine
A way of being with someone
These things aren’t important because of what they are. They matter because they recreate a feeling the body already knows.
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During stressful or depleted times, we may lean on these familiar routes more heavily. The pattern can start to feel automatic:
Brief relief
Followed by flatness or emptiness
Then the question: “Why did I even do that?”
This doesn’t mean you lack willpower.
It usually means your system is trying to regulate itself the only way it knows how. -
When you begin to recognise the state underneath the pattern:
Urgency often drops
Shame eases
Choice returns
You might still notice the pull, but it no longer runs you.
You can think:
“Oh, that’s familiar.”
and then carry on with your day.This is what we call integration :)
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If you would like to explore this on your own, try asking:
When does this pull show up most often?
What’s usually happening in my life at those times?
What feeling does it bring, even briefly?
Is that feeling something I could learn to recognise without acting on it?
There is really no “right” answer, and curiosity is enough.
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Therapy is never about taking things away from you.
It’s about helping you:
Recognise your internal states
Tolerate them safely
Regain choice over how you respond
When that happens, patterns often subside on their own.
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If something has stayed with you over time, it’s usually because it once helped in some way.
Understanding what it’s been holding for you is often what finally allows it to rest.
If you’re curious about this kind of work, therapy can offer a space to explore it slowly, without judgment, and at your own pace.
Written by Rick Cox, MBACP (Accred)
Psychodynamic Psychotherapist, UK & Online
