Meditation practice can bring remarkable clarity. Over time, practitioners often become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, and recurring patterns. But awareness alone does not always translate into change. Many meditators can clearly recognize habits of mind such as anxiety, self-criticism, or people-pleasing and still find themselves repeating the same patterns.
Maybe it is the same relationship dynamic that keeps returning. Or the same inner voice of doubt that appears again and again during practice.
What happens when recognizing a pattern still does not shift it?
So what happens when recognizing a pattern still does not shift it?
Juliana Sloane, a meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, works with practices that explore how deeper, subconscious layers of the mind and nervous system shape our behavior. In this conversation with Mindful, she discusses why understanding our patterns does not always lead to transformation, how imagination and altered states can open new pathways for change, and how mindfulness practitioners might recognize when something arising in practice is asking for deeper attention.
Angela Stubbs: The topic I originally pitched for this conversation was “when insight isn’t enough.” Many people can recognize their patterns or understand why certain behaviors repeat in their lives. But insight alone does not always lead to real change. From your perspective, why is that?
Most of the people who come to work with me already have a great deal of self-awareness. But despite that awareness, they still feel stuck. They cannot stop the anxiety. They cannot stop holding themselves to impossible standards. They keep entering relationships that are not right for them.
Juliana Sloane: There are certainly situations where insight alone can be enough. Someone has an “aha” moment, something shifts internally, and the pattern loosens. But honestly, that is a fairly small percentage of cases I see, especially when it comes to deeply entrenched patterns and habits.
Most of the people who come to work with me already have a great deal of self-awareness. They often have meditation practices, they have been to therapy, and they are interested in personal growth. They can clearly articulate what their patterns are.
But despite that awareness, they still feel stuck. They cannot stop the anxiety. They cannot stop holding themselves to impossible standards. They keep entering relationships that are not right for them.
These kinds of patterns are not just intellectual. They are deeply embedded habits of the mind and nervous system. People have often been repeating them for years, sometimes their entire lives. Over time those repetitions form very strong neural pathways that steer someone back into the same familiar pattern.
Understanding the pattern can be helpful, but we also need ways to work with the deeper conditioning that keeps recreating it.
A very common thing I hear is, “I have done a lot of work on this issue. I understand it intellectually. But something still feels stuck.”
Angela Stubbs: How do people begin to recognize when something might need deeper exploration rather than continued observation or reflection?
Juliana Sloane: Usually, by the time someone comes to see me, they already have a sense that something deeper is going on. A very common thing I hear is, “I have done a lot of work on this issue. I understand it intellectually. But something still feels stuck.”
The feeling that there is ‘something deeper’ to explore is often a good sign someone might benefit from working with these layers of knowing and experience that lie further beneath the surface.
The biggest time someone might not be ready is when they are hoping for a quick fix that doesn’t require their active participation. We’re not waving a magic wand, we’re actively engaging with the mind, body, and nervous system to create the change that’s needed.
The work I do is about helping people develop tools to navigate their own inner worlds and access their own resources, insight, and wisdom. Ultimately, the goal is for people to feel more empowered in their own process and to realize that many of the answers they are looking for are already within them.
Angela Stubbs: If many of these patterns live outside conscious awareness, what is happening beneath the level of the thinking mind?
We tend to think that if we understand something intellectually we should be able to change it. But most of our behaviors and emotional responses are shaped by processes happening beyond the level of conscious thought.
Juliana Sloane: A lot of the patterns people struggle with are operating outside conscious awareness. We tend to think that if we understand something intellectually we should be able to change it. But most of our behaviors and emotional responses are shaped by processes happening beyond the level of conscious thought.
Over time repeated experiences form strong patterns in the mind and nervous system. Those patterns can become automatic, even to the extent that they begin to simply feel like part of who we are. Even when someone understands the pattern, they can still find themselves pulled back into it again and again.
Awareness can help us recognize what is happening, but the deeper conditioning that drives those patterns may still be operating underneath.
In many ways the conscious mind is only a small part of what is shaping our experience. If we are only working at that level, we are leaving a lot of the mind untouched.
Angela Stubbs: You often use the word trance in your work. For readers who may not be familiar with that idea, what do you mean by trance?
Juliana Sloane: When people hear the word trance, they often imagine something unusual or mysterious. And it certainly can feel magical, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible. Trance is actually a very natural state of consciousness that people move in and out of all the time.
People’s ideas about hypnosis typically come from stage shows or older models where someone appears to ‘take control’ of another person’s mind. But that is not really how modern hypnotherapeutic work functions. Hypnosis is much more collaborative and empowering than people often imagine. The person entering trance remains aware and engaged in the process the entire time.
For example, when you are completely absorbed in a movie or a book and lose track of time, that is a kind of trance state. Your attention becomes focused and the usual analytical thinking mind quiets down.
In those moments the mind becomes more open to imagery, emotion, intuition, and deeper layers of experience. In trance-based practices we are intentionally working with that state of focused awareness so people can explore those deeper layers of their own inner experience.
Angela Stubbs: There are a lot of misconceptions about hypnosis. What do people often misunderstand about it?
Juliana Sloane: People’s ideas about hypnosis typically come from stage shows or older models where someone appears to ‘take control’ of another person’s mind.
But that is not really how modern hypnotherapeutic work functions. Hypnosis is much more collaborative and empowering than people often imagine. The person entering trance remains aware and engaged in the process the entire time.
What happens is that the analytical thinking mind begins to relax a little. We start to get out of our own way, which allows deeper layers of the mind and our own awareness to become more available.
Rather than controlling someone, the practitioner is helping create conditions where a person can explore their own inner experience in a different way and become an active agent of change in their own subconscious mind.
In many modern contexts we think of imagination as something childish or unserious. But imagination is actually one of the most potent ways the mind communicates.
Angela Stubbs: You speak about the role of imagination in this work. That can be surprising for people who tend to think of imagination as something unreal.
Juliana Sloane: In many modern contexts we think of imagination as something childish or unserious. But imagination is actually one of the most potent ways the mind communicates.
During a focused meditative or hypnotic process, things like imagery, metaphor, and archetype are often steeped in meaning. They’re not just ‘our imagination’ running wild, rather, they are symbols encoded with our beliefs, experiences, world view, memory, and so much more. In our day to day life, we often gloss over the power this holds. When people go into a hypnotic or trance-like state, those hidden metaphors, somatic experiences, and images naturally emerge for us to actively work with them.
Rather than dismissing those experiences as “just imagination,” we can begin to see them as powerful tools. Sometimes these experiences point us to deeper emotional patterns and allow us to process and integrate our experiences more fully. Sometimes they allow us agency to experience what it’s like to overcome obstacles or respond differently to things that used to trigger anxiety, self-doubt, or fear. For example, professional athletes do this all the time when they mentally rehearse breaking a record or performing at their best. Your brain doesn’t actually discriminate all that much whether you’re shooting the basket or envisioning shooting the basket– it takes that information and it runs with it. So when you’re working with a hypnotherapist, you’re using these tools to help your mind, body, and nervous system explore and integrate new options and ways of being.
Angela Stubbs: How do you see this work relating to mindfulness practice?
Juliana Sloane: I don’t see this work as replacing mindfulness practice. In fact, I think mindfulness creates the foundation for this to be possible in the first place.
Meditation helps people develop awareness of their thoughts, embodied experience, emotions, and patterns. That awareness is incredibly valuable because you cannot work with something if you don’t notice it.
What often happens is that when people develop a meditation practice, they begin to clearly notice patterns in their thinking, reactions, and the way they approach their world. They find they can observe those patterns clearly, but it does not necessarily shift things in their day-to-day life.
Practices that engage deeper layers of the mind can allow people to explore what might be underneath those patterns in a different way. Rather than replacing mindfulness, this kind of work can deepen the process that mindfulness begins.
Practices that engage deeper layers of the mind can allow people to explore what might be underneath those patterns in a different way. Rather than replacing mindfulness, this kind of work can deepen the process that mindfulness begins.
Angela Stubbs: Are there signs that something arising in practice might be inviting deeper exploration?
Juliana Sloane: Often it is when a pattern—for example, anxiety, or self-criticism, or a repeated issue with work, relationships, or life—continues to show up again and again, even when someone is very aware of it.
A person might recognize the pattern in meditation or in therapy. They understand where it comes from and they can see it happening in real time. But despite that awareness, it keeps repeating.
That can sometimes be a signal that the pattern is rooted in deeper layers of the mind or nervous system.
Those moments can become invitations to explore the pattern in a different way and to approach it with curiosity rather than trying to force it to change through understanding alone.
Editor’s note:
In a forthcoming article for Mindful, Juliana Sloane explores how meditation and hypnosis practices can support people living with chronic illness, including ways these approaches may help individuals relate differently to pain, fatigue, and the emotional challenges of long-term health conditions. Keep an eye on our homepage.
