Why do some people experience rapid transformation while others spend years untangling their survival patterns?

The truth is, our developmental experiences and family systems shape us in vastly different ways. The way we carry and process undigested life experiences varies from person to person.

Comparing our journey to someone else's only reinforces a false sense of brokenness. Real change happens when we stop forcing ourselves to be different and instead embrace acceptance because it’s unconditional radical acceptance that allows us to release stuck energy and integrate our past.

It helps to think of our patterns as part of a root system, driving our reactions, behaviors and outcomes. This system is deep, complex and interconnected. Each root has its own origin—some reaching back to early childhood, others formed through relationships, experiences or societal conditioning.

Over time, these roots reinforce one another and become the foundation of our self-identity.

In mind-body health coaching, we work to understand these roots, not to eradicate them, but to develop compassion for them. This is the path to integration and wholeness.

The Four Roots of Our Patterns:

Core Fears

Some patterns function like armor, protecting us from a worst-case scenario we’ve internalized. Brene Brown speaks extensively about this in the context of vulnerability. If we believe that dropping our guard will expose us to harm, we cling to our defenses. True courage isn’t about eliminating fear—it’s about stepping into life with resilience, knowing that showing up fully is a strength, not a weakness.

The Primal Need for Love, Safety, and Belonging

Many of our patterns are rooted in unmet needs. Trauma isn’t just about what happened—it’s also about what didn’t. Our nervous system is wired to see the absence of love, safety, or belonging as a life-or-death threat, leading us to develop extreme, self-preserving behaviors. When we understand this, we can begin to release the grip of patterns that were once necessary for survival but are no longer serving us.

Experiential Avoidance

When emotions feel overwhelming, our nervous system redirects our attention, keeping us from sitting with discomfort. Our culture reinforces this by offering endless distractions—work, screens, substances, social scrolling—all designed to numb and buffer us from feeling. Many addictions are simply a substitute for being with our pain. Healing comes when we expand our capacity to hold the full spectrum of our experience—the good, the hard, and everything in between—so that we can meet ourselves more fully.

Core Implicit Beliefs

These are the unexamined rules we internalized about ourselves, others, and the world. Often, they were absorbed through subtle (or not-so-subtle) messaging as we learned how to navigate life. Though they shape our responses, most of these beliefs are neither true nor useful. Yet we rarely stop to question them. When we finally do, it can feel like a loss of identity—because if this belief isn’t real, then who am I without it? The work is not just in seeing the falsehood but in allowing ourselves to step beyond it.

We each come to embodied insight and integration in our own time.
No two root systems are the same, and neither are the paths we take to untangle them.

There’s no “fixed” version of you waiting on the other side of healing.

This is a lifelong process—one of deepening, evolving and coming into a more honest relationship with yourself.

So please, don’t rush your work.
Trust your timeline.
The gift isn’t just arriving somewhere new.
It’s in the becoming.