How Healing Grows Part 1: When Growth Happens Without Roots

Patria Rector, Founder of The Broken & Beautiful Collective

Some trees grow tall quickly because they are staked, supported, and shaped from the outside. They look strong from a distance—upright, symmetrical, impressive. But their roots stay shallow, never learning how to reach for water on their own. When the wind comes, it isn’t the storm that fails them. It’s the lack of depth.

Much of our internal work begins this way. We learn the language of healing before we learn how to trust ourselves. We follow the rules of growth, insight, and obedience without yet having the internal authority to discern what is actually nourishing us. And so, without meaning to, we reenact the same story—only now with better tools and more acceptable soil.

Trees are not meant to grow alone, but neither are they meant to be held upright forever. Early supports matter. Stakes protect saplings while their roots are tender, helping them withstand winds they are not yet strong enough to face. But if those supports remain too long, the tree never learns how to anchor itself. Its strength becomes dependent rather than integrated. What once offered protection slowly becomes interference.

This is often what happens when we begin internal work before internal authority has had time to form. We rely heavily on external guidance—frameworks, leaders, rules, spiritual language—to tell us how to grow and who we are becoming. None of this is wrong in itself. Guidance is not the enemy of growth. But guidance without discernment can quietly replace trust. Healing becomes something we perform well rather than something we inhabit honestly.

Roots take time. They grow in darkness, beneath the surface, unseen and uncelebrated. There is nothing efficient about this process. A tree cannot be rushed into depth without compromising its future stability. In the same way, internal authority cannot be bypassed by insight alone. Knowing about ourselves is not the same as being rooted within ourselves.

As a child, I seemed to know this instinctively. I loved being outside—rain or shine—wandering with ease, catching lightning bugs, playing in the dirt without concern. The world felt trustworthy then. The soil welcomed curiosity. My attention moved naturally toward wonder rather than control.

But there came a point, early on, when the ground subtly shifted. The reasons matter less than the result: what once felt safe became uncertain, and depth was no longer something I could grow into slowly. It became something I had to produce. The posture of my roots changed—not because I wanted to grow faster, but because the soil no longer promised to hold me.

From that moment on, depth came through effort rather than rest.

When roots remain shallow, they often grow outward instead of downward, circling familiar soil.

This is how reenactment begins. Reenactment is not failure; it is familiarity. It is the nervous system reaching again for what once kept us alive, even if that soil is thin or depleted. We repeat patterns not because we lack wisdom, but because our roots have not yet learned where deeper water can be found.

Get in Touch with The Broken and Beautiful

At a spiritual level, many of us were formed with a fractured sense of listening. Even in Eden, the rupture is not simply about disobedience, but about order—listening outward before listening from communion. Trust was interrupted. The soil no longer

felt reliable, and discernment was outsourced in a moment of fear.

Psychologically, this same fracture often takes shape through our earliest experiences of authority. When the figures meant to mirror safety, strength, or guidance are inconsistent or unavailable, the developing self adapts. The inner world grows quickly, but without reflection. Depth forms, but alone. The child learns to listen outward for cues while quietly learning not to rely on the ground beneath them.

This is not a failure of character. It is an act of survival.

When roots grow without support, they do not stop growing—they simply adapt. They reach deeper, faster, often at the expense of connection. This is how reenactment becomes embodied rather than merely understood. Roots return again and again to soil they recognize, even when it cannot sustain them.

For me, this adaptation took the form of creativity. Little girls who need depth but must find it alone often become extraordinarily creative. I did. Creativity became my way of making meaning in the dark—of surviving without warmth, mirroring, or rest. It saved me.

But creativity without light is a different kind of growth. It happens in silence. It carries no assurance that water will come. My roots grew strong, but they grew isolated. Survival depended on self-scrutiny, on assuming that if something was wrong, it must be me.

The cost of this kind of depth is subtle. From the outside, it can look like maturity or insight. From the inside, it feels like standing alone beneath a wide canopy, with no shared ground beneath your feet.

This is why internal work, when undertaken too early or without sturdy support, can quietly reinforce the very patterns we long to heal. Without internal authority, even growth can become another form of obedience—another way of proving we can stand alone.

Yet we are not designed to grow this way.

We are designed to listen from the inside out. To listen inwardly—to our bodies, our limits, our longings—and to God in a way that is relational rather than performative. From that rooted place of communion, we are then able to listen outwardly to wisdom, guidance, and community without losing ourselves. The order matters. Roots first. Then branches.

Over time, this kind of listening begins to form a language—one that belongs to the self rather than being imposed upon it. We start to recognize when obedience brings life and when it quietly diminishes us. We learn to pause before complying, to notice what tightens or softens inside, to discern when saying no is not rebellion but care.

In this way, growth begins to carry light into places that once had to survive in the dark. The roots do not disappear; they are illuminated. What once adapted in isolation is slowly brought into relationship. The tree does not abandon its history—it grows differently because of it.

Healthy support honors this kind of becoming. It does not rush the process or demand visible results. It trusts that when roots are given time, warmth, and trustworthy soil, they will find their way to water.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes with realizing we did not receive the soil we needed early on. Naming this is not about blame; it is about truth. Without good soil, roots adapt as best they can. They cling, they spread, they endure. Survival itself is evidence of wisdom. But survival is not the same as flourishing.

The invitation here is not to uproot ourselves or to force change before we are ready. It is to stay long enough for the roots to go deeper—to allow time to become a collaborator rather than an obstacle, and to trust that growth, when supported but not controlled, knows what it is doing.

The work beneath the surface matters more than we have been taught to believe.

And it is never wasted.

---

Connect with Patria