24 You Are Not Broken, You Are Just Patterned

Description: 
In today’s episode, we talk about one foundational truth:

You’re not broken. You’re patterned. And patterns can be reshaped.

If you’ve ever wondered why you keep doing things you don’t want to do—or why change feels slow even when your heart is in the right place—this episode will bring clarity and relief.

We explore:

• what a “pattern” really is
• why repeating old reactions doesn’t mean you’re failing
• how Scripture speaks to formation and transformation
• what it means to be “renewed in your mind” (Romans 12:2)
• why compassion and awareness—not shame—open the door to real change

This episode is the doorway into understanding why your inner world feels the way it does, and how God begins reshaping it from the inside out.

If today’s episode resonates and you want more gentle, Spirit-led conversations like this, you’re invited to join me inside Willow — my private community for women who want to grow, heal, and be formed in God’s presence.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/willowbylisa

Transcript

Lisa Meador 0:42

Welcome back to Outside the Pulpit. We got a great topic today. You're not broken. You are patterned. I want you to buckle up and hang with me. I'm going to ask you some questions and then we are going to jump right into it. Have you ever wondered why do I keep doing the things that I don't want to do? Or why do I react the same way even when I know better? And boy, this one gets me sometimes. Why does change feel so slow or so hard? Then what I'm about to share may give you more understanding about yourself, maybe a little more clarity than anything you've heard either in a long time, or maybe you've never even heard it before. But here's the heart of it. See, you are not broken. You are patterned. And patterns can be reshaped. So you're saying, Lisa, I don't get it. What are you saying here? All right, here we go. Most of us carry an invisible story that sounds maybe something like this something must be wrong with me. And this is when it shows up. We repeat emotional cycles, right? We fall back into old habits. We say we won't do something, and then we do it anyway. How about when we get overwhelmed? Or then sometimes we collapse inward or we just feel stuck and can't explain why. So it's a really subtle thing sometimes, but boy, I can tell you from experience, it's mighty heavy. And this is where honestly I see many believers start feeling shame. I experienced it my own self. And that shame comes from this, because if I love God and I know the truth, why am I still like this? What a loop to be stuck in. I'm telling you, it's painful, and that shame is not serving any purpose. No helpful purpose. Oh, it's serving a purpose, but not a helpful one, and certainly not one that's going to move you forward in your relationship with God. So let's bring scripture into this because the Bible gives us language for exactly what we're talking about. You know, the word of God is just so fascinating to me. You can take one scripture and you can put it in so many different directions and angles in your life. So I'm going to give you a scripture. Y'all have heard me say it so many times, Malay, bring a little different approach to it today. So this is Romans 12, 2, and it says, Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So now we're going to look at it in this light. Conformed, okay? That means shaped, patterned, molded by something outside you. Transformed means reshaped, renewed, rewired. So God doesn't say, do better, fix yourself, try harder. What he says is be transformed. And transformation assumes this truth. Your current patterns were formed, and your future patterns can be reformed. So you're not broken, you're just formed. And the Spirit of God within you knows how to reshape what life originally shaped. So a pattern is simply something your mind and body learned to do in order to feel safe, in order to feel accepted, and in order to feel in control. So patterns can form in a lot of different ways. They can come from how we're raised, oh, maybe how our uh how conflict was handled around us, the roles that we took on in our families. Oh, maybe it comes from uh what we needed to survive emotionally. Maybe there was trauma or instability. How about expectations that were placed on us, either, you know, in spoken implicitly or implied, right? Um environments that shaped us long, long before we had any awareness. So patterns aren't conscious choices, they are learned responses, learned behavior. Here's the beautiful part, you guys. If something was learned, it can be unlearned. And if something was shaped, it can be reshaped. And this is where hope begins. Let's sit in something honest for just a moment or two. You know that feeling. You do, because I do. I know better. So why don't I do better? Scripture, one more time, captures this exact experience. And this is Romans 7, 15. For I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. So Paul's not describing rebellion here. He was describing the tension of being human. Y'all know I keep trying to tell you you're human. We are. We are human and we live in a human body. We've got the Spirit of God living in us, but we still live in this human body and we are going to until the day we die. And that's just a truth that we have somewhere got to incorporate into our daily understanding of life, you guys. So the tension of having an awakened spirit living inside of an unrenewed mind. The tension of living between already and then not yet. So your spirit is new. It's just your patterns are not, at least not yet. So when you repeat something you wish you didn't, this is not a moral failure. It's just a patterned response. And patterned responses, they feel automatic because they are automatic until they are transformed. And that is what the Spirit of God within you can do. Let's come back to Romans 12 for just a second. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So transformation is not, hear me, this is what it's not. It's not instant, it's not linear or in a straight line. It's certainly not performance-based and it's not willpower-driven, spiritual or spiritual perfectionism. Transformation is a renewing, an ongoing, spirit-led reshaping of truth inside your inner world. And it always begins with awareness. Awareness says, Oh, hey, wait a second. This is a pattern. So that's your inner mirror, if you will, saying, hey, I recognize something here. And then there's compassion. And compassion says, that means I'm not broken. So that combination of awareness plus compassion creates a brand new opening for actual change. So not shame, not striving, not self-condemnation, but awareness, recognizing what's happening, and then that compassion on yourself to come to the Lord and let him help you with this. And that's where God really begins his deepest work, because ooh, we, this is this is some of the deepest work the Spirit of God will ever do within you. It's going to get to the root of a whole lot of things in your life. Yeah, I know it sure has mine. So today, for today, this was just the front door on this topic. As we go forward, we'll try to explore and we'll begin to explore how patterns form and why they repeat. Not from a place of blame or digging into old wounds, but from a place of clarity or understanding and curiosity. No, curiosity is an amazing attribute to have. It causes you to pursue so many things in God and then within yourself. And then, of course, hope. Because when you understand where patterns come from, you stop fighting yourself and you start cooperating or yielding, if you prefer that word, with the spirit of God's work within you. But for today, I just want you to hear this. You are not fighting your own identity. You are meeting and hearing your patterns, and the spirit knows exactly how to reshape them. So you're not broken, you're just patterned, and patterns can and will be renewed. Until next time.