Instagram story viewer> @patterns_and_insights> Posts

Nervous System & Attachment | Pattern Awareness

@patterns_and_insights

709

followers

470

following

Exploring relationships, overwhelm & emotional pain 🌿
DBT, IFS & Life-informed |
English & Español
RTT sessions soon 🧠
Authentic & Relatable 🤍

POSTS STORIES REELS

Healing isn’t about becoming someone completely different.

Sometimes it’s simply learning to notice the patterns that no longer feel safe…
and choosing yourself a little earlier each time.

Adding ‘Acceptance’ stage to the above (AAA acronym which I use regularly with clients):
Awareness + Acceptance opens up the choices (Actions) available to us 🤍 #coregulation #nervoussystemregulation #relationshippatterns #healingpatterns #mentalhealth by @patterns_and_insights

5 signs your nervous system needs support right now 🌿

When we are overwhelmed, we often look for the reason in our circumstances — our workload, our relationships, our to-do list.

But sometimes the body is sending a quieter signal. One that says: I need support.

Swipe through to see if any of these resonate with you. These are not character flaws. They are physiological responses — and they can change.

💚 If this resonates, I have created a FREE guide: 5 DBT Skills for Immediate Overwhelm Relief. It is practical, evidence-based, and NHS-friendly. Download it via the link in my bio.

#NervousSystemRegulation #DBTSkills #MentalHealthAwareness #TraumaInformed #AttachmentHealing #PatternAwareness #EmotionalRegulation #MentalHealthNurse #HealingJourney #SomaticHealing #IFSTherapy #MindfulnessUK #WellnessEducation #NervousSystemHealing #SelfRegulation by @patterns_and_insights

Hi, I’m Celia 🤍

I’m a Registered Mental Health Nurse, fully accredited DBT therapist, and RTT practitioner in training, working within clinical services.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, stuck in overthinking, or like a burden in relationships — you’re not alone.

This space is about understanding those patterns and learning practical ways to respond differently.

My future coaching / RTT will also include offer in Spanish 🤍 by @patterns_and_insights

24 hours. One global DBT community. Very full hearts—and a few tired brains.
I joined the overnight World DBT Summit from Therapy Lounge Collective (TLC) in Leicester, surrounded by wonderful colleagues and friends. Learning, laughter and some welcome sofa time. DBT and chill? Quite literally.
Hearing Geraldine “Geri” Rodriguez, Marsha Linehan’s daughter, brought me back to the purpose: helping people find a way through emotional suffering and towards a life worth living.
Developed by Marsha Linehan, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy brings acceptance AND change together. Not choosing one over the other, but making room for both:
I can accept that my feelings make sense AND practise responding without acting on every urge.
I can understand why a coping pattern developed AND learn a different response when it no longer helps me.
I can care about someone AND say no to behaviour that hurts me.
I can acknowledge what I cannot change AND take one small step towards what I can influence.
I can be doing the best I can AND need new skills and support.
Acceptance isn’t approval of everything that happens. It means recognising what is here, so we can choose our next step.
Mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and relationship skills make this practical. For me, mindfulness also felt like reconnecting with a deeper, wiser sense of self—not escaping my feelings, but noticing them with more compassion.
Hearing about South American and Spanish-speaking DBT communities reminded me how much becomes possible when therapists work together to widen access. A world tribe with a shared purpose.
Jenny and Rima, thank you for a TLC space that felt safe, welcoming and full of possibility @therapyloungecollective 🤍
I left tired AND inspired. Proud of this therapy, this community and the hope we can build together.
Which acceptance-and-change “AND” do you need today?
#WorldDBTSummit #DBT #DialecticalBehaviourTherapy #Mindfulness #therapyloungecollective by @patterns_and_insights

First we unlearn…then we learn 🤍#relationships #healthypatterns #safeconnection #consistencyoverintensity by @patterns_and_insights

Some ways of incorporating movement into your life…
*Free-form dancing: Choose one song and let your body move without worrying about appearance or technique 🕺💃
*Rhythmic movement: Gently sway, step from side to side or march to a steady beat. Repetition can feel containing and predictable. 👣 🎶
*“Shake it out”: Lightly shake the hands, arms and legs for 30–60 seconds, then pause and notice any change. Strength or boundary movement: Press your hands against a wall, stamp gently or practise extending your arms while saying “stop” or “I need space.”
* Bilateral movement: Slowly alternate tapping or moving the left and right sides of your body while remaining aware of your surroundings.
* Walking meditation: Notice the contact between your feet and the ground, your pace and what you can see around you.
* Yoga, tai chi or qigong: Slow, structured movement can support body awareness and regulation.
* Orienting: Slowly look around and name five neutral or comforting things that show you where you are now.
* Longer-exhale breathing: Breathe naturally, then gently allow the exhale to become slightly longer—without forcing a deep breath.
* Body check-in: Ask, “What sensations do I notice, and what would give me 5% more comfort right now?”
* Containment: Wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a cushion or place your feet firmly against the floor. Remember this for the next time your mind feels overwhelmed but words don’t feel enough. by @patterns_and_insights

Further therapist training has taught me more than new approaches—it has helped me understand the conditions in which I learn, contribute and feel most like myself.
I often move slowly. I need time to process, connect ideas and make decisions. But that slower pace can produce depth, pattern awareness and perspectives I might miss if I forced myself to move more quickly.
My ADHD gives me one evidence-based framework for understanding parts of this. Human Design’s “Projector” description is different: I use it as a reflective lens, not a diagnosis, scientific fact or instruction manual.
Neither makes me fundamentally better or worse than anyone else. They simply help me ask better questions about my capacity, values and preferred way of contributing. This understanding is shaping how I bring together the approaches I use and am still learning.
DBT asks: What skill could support me right now? It offers practical tools for mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance and relationships when life feels intense.
An IFS-informed perspective asks: What might this part of me be feeling, fearing or protecting? It helps me meet my inner world with curiosity rather than shame.
My RTT and hypnotherapy training explores how focused attention, imagery and suggestion may help us consider meanings and beliefs linked to repeated patterns.
After a necessary pause, I am returning with greater respect for my limits. I am learning that a slower pace can still create meaningful work—often with greater depth, pattern awareness and integration. What might change for you if you stopped measuring your growth by somebody else’s pace—and began listening to the part of you asking to be understood rather than hurried? ✨🤍 by @patterns_and_insights

We spend so much energy trying to smooth out our contradictions—wondering why we can be deeply serious and academic one moment, and wonderfully goofy or romantic the next. In Internal Family Systems work, we learn that we don’t have to get rid of our parts to heal. Every single version of you—the student, the fun-loving adventurer, the deep thinker, the protector—developed for a reason. They are all trying to help you navigate life. True healing isn’t about becoming a rigid, polished version of yourself. It’s about learning to welcome, understand, and love all the different parts that make you whole so they can continue to exist without the burdens they currently carry 🤍✨ If you are learning to meet every part of yourself with more curiosity and less judgement—the tender parts, protective parts, critical parts and hopeful parts that’s the work IFS teaches us right there. And realising: None of our parts need to be exiled for us to grow. 💛#InternalFamilySystems #SelfLove #EmbraceYourself #PartsWork by @patterns_and_insights

Being sat at the Spanish Steps in Rome felt strangely symbolic. It reminded me how wide life is, how much meaning can exist beyond the stories we hold about ourselves, and how sacred it is to experience the world alongside my youngest daughter who joined me. For so long, I carried the belief (as many of us do) that I was somehow unworthy - not good enough, not valued enough, not quite enough to take up space without earning it first. I searched outside myself for reassurance, belonging and permission to trust my own path. But healing is not about becoming worthy. Perhaps it really is the gradual shedding of everything that ever convinced us we weren’t. Sitting there, connected to my Spanish roots while surrounded by the history and spirit of Rome, I felt the weight of all the past - and the responsibility not to continue carrying what was never mine. I am learning that sovereignty does not mean standing alone because nobody stayed. It means standing firmly within myself, knowing that my worth cannot be granted, withdrawn or negotiated by anyone else. Life is brief, beautiful and far bigger than our fear. We are not here to prove that we are enough.
We are here to live as though we finally know that we are 🤍 #worthiness #lifestories #therapistreflections #identityandpurpose #sheddingmentalbarriers by @patterns_and_insights

Sometimes we realise that we are not reacting or feeling a desired way when coming across situations that may “trigger” or “remind” us of an old pattern - I find historical buildings such as the colossium can help us understand this and be more accepting and compassionate to ourselves in these moments. Being able to anchor yourself in the moment and catch yourself before that inner critic starts up is key to helping you process this - I regularly use humming and deep inhale and sighs / extended exhales to get me back and remind myself that the history can coexist with the present moment but doesn’t need to dictate it 🤍 (no gladiators popped up during my colossium visit 😅!) by @patterns_and_insights

Can’t end a relationship that you know deep down isn’t healthy for you? 💔
You’re not weak for going back. You’re human.
Codependency doesn’t announce itself. It disguises itself as devotion. As loyalty. As “I just love hard.” But underneath there’s a nervous system that has learned to confuse intensity with safety, and anxiety with connection.
The pattern doesn’t break with willpower. It breaks with awareness. With becoming curious about why the pull exists, recognising what keeps the cycle going, and gradually learning that choosing yourself doesn’t mean you didn’t love someone. You don’t need to earn love. You never did.
Follow for more on emotional clarity, nervous system regulation, and relationship patterns. This is an area I care deeply about - professionally, academically and through the wisdom that comes from being human too. 🤍
#codependency #unhealthydynamics #attachmentstyle #emotionalregulation #nervoussystem by @patterns_and_insights

I used to think healing would mean I stopped getting triggered. But it hasn’t. What has changed is what I’m able to do between the trigger and the response. To be able to notice the urge to chase reassurance without always chasing it. Or to feel guilty about setting a boundary without automatically removing the boundary. This has helped to recognise when something feels intensely familiar and still ask whether it’s actually healthy for me. And also to notice myself slipping into an old pattern without turning that awareness into another reason to criticise myself in order to tolerate the discomfort of making a different choice. Many of our responses developed for understandable reasons, so changing them isn’t a matter of just knowing better. It takes awareness, practice and repetition. These are principles I’ve encountered professionally and academically, but they’re also practices I use in my own life. Because understanding something doesn’t exempt you from being human. So if you’re noticing the pattern but still sometimes repeating it, don’t underestimate that first step. We can’t consciously change a pattern we haven’t learned to recognise 🤍
Psychoeducation only. #nervoussystemregulation #patternawareness #selfacceptance❤️ by @patterns_and_insights