About Tamra Smith-Vanderkam

 Founder of The Pattern Lab | Writer of Threshold Stories | Narrative Consultant


My work begins here: with the belief that the stories we live are not fixed, but forming. They can be questioned, revised, and re-authored. Not to escape who we are, but to return more truthfully to it.

For years, I searched for the right language to describe what I do. Not just as a writer or consultant—but as someone drawn to the hidden structures that shape how we live, speak, and become.

The Pattern Lab emerged from this search. Not as a product or brand, but as a practice of reorientation.

I work with people in transition—people who are shifting how they work, who they are, or how they understand the story they’ve been living. What I offer is not advice, but a kind of listening. Together we trace the language you’ve inherited, the metaphors you’ve unconsciously inhabited, and the patterns that may have once protected you—but now feel too small.

My background blends writing, philosophy, narrative consulting, and deep inner work. But what underpins all of it is a quiet commitment:

To help restore story as a space of participation.

Not something we consume. Not something we’re trapped inside. But something we can re-enter—with care, clarity, and imagination.

This work is for those on the edge of becoming.


It’s for the moments when language falters, and something deeper wants to speak.


It’s for those who sense that alignment isn’t just personal—it’s relational, spiritual, and deeply creative.

Welcome.