Pattern Recognition
In bodies, news, technocrats, and cover-ups.
Well hi.
Pattern Recognition
Most of what I do professionally is pattern recognition. I’ve heard (and can understand) that it often looks like witchcraft. (It’s not.) When I learned to speak the language of bodies, I learned to spot where things are tight and how to make them not-so; where things are unstable and make them so.
And because not everyone speaks the language of bodies, it sometimes seems like witchcraft. But really, I’ve just become adept at recognizing patterns within the body’s language, so I know that if I press here, it’ll be tender—even if you didn’t know that yourself.
Side note: LLMs use pattern recognition, and we’ll talk about AI in my next newsletter.
You could almost call me an “expert” at pattern recognition (though I cringe at the term “expert” since the term “forever student” lands better and am only using it here for its opposing perspective that I’ll reveal in the subsequent paragraphs).
My husband noticed a pattern with me. I’m honestly a bit embarrassed that I didn’t notice it myself, since I work in pattern recognition of others and even more so because I’ve been intentionally moving and living with my cycle since 2018 and it’s now 2025. That’s a lot of data, which ideally lends itself to easy pattern recognition. But I missed a big pattern.
I was standing in the kitchen, having just told my husband that I should probably retire because I was exhausted from the constant challenges of running my practice, especially the challenges that have been piling up and expounding since my Back Office Manager, Mary, was murdered in 2022.
I was mostly just bitching with no real purpose other than to clear my mind of the millions of thoughts swirling through it, but he’s a good listener and was hearing me out.
After I finished, he asked if I’d be open to a reflection. (When I said he’s a good listener, I meant it. He was practicing Nonviolent Communication before ever reading the book. He heard me and then asked if I wanted any sort of feedback rather than just spouting off whatever came up as soon as I was done talking.) I said I’d love one.
“Right before you start your period or just after it starts, you generally bring up something to the effect of selling your practice, retirement, or in other ways stopping everything you do currently,” he said with a very knowing but not patronizing smirk on his face.
“Wait, really?” I was aghast. My mouth may have actually fallen open when I realized that I had just started bleeding the day before and that the last time we’d had a similar conversation was approximately one lunar cycle prior.
I’d noticed that the stress of running a practice had its ups and downs, I just didn’t realize that the “downs” tended to match up with my cycle so well.
But now, over three months later, it’s a pattern that even my kids have picked up on.
Several weeks ago, we’d run into one of my husband’s former students at the Flea Market. After we walked away, my husband announced to us the student (now a 26-year-old adult)’s name. Our eldest joked that he must be getting old if he couldn’t remember people’s names.
My husband didn’t reject the jibe, but instead responded with some simple math of 21 years of teaching approximately 25-30 students, three classes per day, two semesters per year.
The sheer number of names he had to potentially sift through really brought home the point, making the feat of remembering someone’s name (whom he hadn’t seen or interacted with in eight years) within 2 minutes quite impressive.
I digress. Maybe I’m just bragging about my husband because he’s the best.
But as soon as he shared the math, I thought aloud, “Have you really been teaching for 21 years? When do you think you’ll retire?”
Our youngest responded: “Mom, are you on your period?”
We all laughed and I said no. And then I started my period (three days early) the next day.
So now, apparently, I don’t think about my own retirement with my cycle; I also think about my husband’s.
What does that mean? Well that’s when we go from pattern recognition to attaching meaning (which is what AI doesn’t (yet) do). And I’ll be honest: I don’t yet know. I just can now see the pattern.
Vinay Prasad shared some patterns in reporting a few months ago and they definitely are quite helpful. The patterns I’ve noticed from reporting in general have been problem-reaction-solution (mostly from governments or governing bodies of some sort) and an abundance of things that are awful and fear-inducing.
Having a steady stream of fear feeding your nervous system helps no one.
In relation to health and science coverage though, this is a quick read.
From Dr. Prasad’s article above:
Step 5: Anyone who uses the word “misinformation” is an idiot. Scientific arguments exist on a spectrum from high to low confidence. And even some weak arguments contain a kernel of truth. For instance, COVID vaccines did harm one group on average— for mRNA young men btw the ages of 18-24, high confidence, and 12-40, slightly lower confidence. Misinformation is a word used by weak thinkers who don’t understand the nuance of claims. It is poorly defined and has been overused to the point of meaningless. Often they mean to say: I just disagree.
I appreciate the poignancy of the final line of the above quote.
Dr. Mike Yeadon shared the patterns he’s noticed in a recent long-form interview with Oracle Films.
I encourage you to watch it. And if you disagree with some of his more compelling arguments, remember the line from Dr. Prasad rather than throwing out his interview as “misinformation.”
There are plenty of people who have already called me crazy for sharing some of what he says in this video. But it’s worth watching even if you think he and I are both crazy because he’s picked up on some patterns that are worth noticing.
One final pattern before I pop off. (I’ve got almost an entire email already drafted of other things I’d planned to talk about, but this pattern thing took on a pattern of its own, so I’m going with it.)
I’ve been skeptical of all things related to Jeffrey Epstein since first hearing about the wealthy man who was seducing young girls when I was a teenager myself. His death raised countless red flags for me. But now, we’ve got the whole story.
Or, like every other “whole story” regarding Epstein, there’s something a bit off:
Click the video to see the post from WIRED magazine, wherein the “raw” footage from the night Epstein “killed himself” was doctored before being released to the public.
Somehow the pattern with all of the huge releases leads to more of the same: no accountability for heinous crimes and cover-ups left and right. Looks like a pattern to me.
I won’t leave you on that cheery note.
Instead, I leave you with a spot of good news: I’ve hired a Practice Manager and am soooo excited to hopefully decrease the retirement talk each month because I’ll have help I can count on for running my practice. I’m celebrating this nearly three year challenge coming to a close.
And I also leave you with this short, powerful message from my friend Megan at Yes God Wellness:
You are not here to be ruled by chaos or shaped entirely by circumstance.
You are here to remember that your thoughts are powerful. Your presence is sacred. Your choices, when made from a place of clarity and love, ripple far beyond your individual life.
Amen!
Talk soon,
L