From Pattern to Presence: How Early States Shape What We’re Drawn To
What we’re repeatedly drawn to is rarely about the actual thing itself. More often, it’s about a state we learned early on and later try to revisit.
Early experiences of safety and closeness are often felt in the body long before they are understood in words.
Why this article exists
Many people come into therapy worried about a pattern:
A recurring interest
A repeated pull
An image, habit, or theme they keep returning to
They often ask:
“Why this?”
“What does it say about me?”
“Should I be worried?”
The mistake is usually to start with content.
A more useful place to start is state.
What do we mean by “state”?
A state is the total configuration of experience in a moment:
Bodily tone
Emotional colour
Level of arousal
Quality of attention
Sense of safety or threat
States are learned before language, and we feel them long before we can explain them.
Once learned, the nervous system encodes them.
How states become patterns
1. Early experience teaches the nervous system
In childhood, certain states become familiar:
Calm
Anticipation
Safety-with-edge
Aliveness-with-bounds
These are very much felt conditions.
2. Later, the mind looks for carriers
As we grow, the psyche looks for ways to re-enter those states.
It finds carriers:
Images
Situations
Behaviours
Relational dynamics
It is important to note that these carriers don’t create the state. They evoke it.
This is why and how something ordinary can feel strangely compelling.
3. Under stress, repetition appears
When life becomes constricted, through stress, loss, exhaustion, or disconnection, the system may:
Return to familiar carriers
Repeat them procedurally
Feel brief relief, then emptiness
This is often labelled “compulsion,” but functionally it’s an attempt at regulation: an attempt to re-enter a tolerable state when other routes aren’t available.
Why repetition often fades when understanding grows
When a state becomes:
Recognisable
Tolerable
Thinkable
It no longer needs to be acted out.
The pull softens, urgency drops and energy returns to other areas of life.
This can feel strange at first, sometimes even “flat” or “watered down.” But what’s really happening is decathexis: where your energy disengages from the loop and redistributes.
Nothing is lost, and capacity is gained.
Integration doesn’t mean disappearance
A common misconception is:
“If I’ve worked this through, it shouldn’t affect me anymore.”
That’s not how integration works.
Integrated experience:
Can still register
Can still be enjoyed
But doesn’t organise behaviour, such as pulling you back into repetition!
You notice, you feel, and you move on.
This is health.
Questions for you to consider…
If you notice a recurring pull in your own life, try asking, not why the thing, but:
What state does this bring me into?
When did I first learn this state?
What was happening in my life when it became important?
Do I need this to regulate me now, or can I recognise it and let it pass?
These questions open understanding without judgment.
In therapy
Much therapeutic work is not about removing patterns, but about:
Making states tolerable
Restoring choice
Returning energy to the wider life
When that happens, repetition often quietens on its own.
Closing thought
What we’re drawn to is never a flaw. It’s usually a trace of something once needed.
Understanding the state beneath the pattern is often what finally allows it to rest.
A brief clinical vignette (anonymised)
A client comes to therapy worried about a long-standing pattern. They describe a recurring pull toward a particular kind of image and say they feel “silly” or “ashamed” that it still catches their attention. They’re quick to add that it doesn’t dominate their life, but they’re unsettled by why it’s there at all.
Early sessions focus less on the image and more on when the pull appears. Over time, a pattern becomes clear: it tends to show up during periods of fatigue, transition, or emotional narrowing.
When we slow the work down, the client begins to describe the state the image evokes:
A sense of calm mixed with anticipation
A softening in the body
A feeling of being held in a familiar atmosphere
As this state becomes thinkable, its history emerges. Long before the image existed, the client had known a similar state in early life, one associated with safety, predictability, and quiet aliveness.
With this recognition, something shifts. The client reports that the pull hasn’t disappeared, but it no longer demands anything. They can notice it, feel a brief echo of familiarity, and carry on with their day. There is no escalation, no repetition, and no sense of emptiness afterwards.
What changed wasn’t the content, but the function.
The image stopped regulating the state because the state itself had become tolerable, recognisable, and integrated.
The Takeaway
When a pattern is approached through state rather than content, urgency often dissolves without force. The work is not to remove the pull, but to understand what it has been holding, and to help to hold it consciously instead.
If this reflection resonated, you might explore:
The Therapy FAD? Rethinking our Feelings, Anxiety and Defences Across Modalities
Why Feelings Don’t Make Us Ill, and What Actually Does
Therapy When Emotions Feel Overwhelming
Explore more in Depth
Client Companion: When Something Keeps Catching Your Attention
If something keeps drawing your attention, it’s often pointing to a feeling-state you learned earlier in life, not a problem you need to get rid of, and it’s really not about the actual ‘thing’
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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.
