Rising Rooted

---

Come sit with me for a moment.

There’s something hard to face that I think many of us carry quietly—especially those of us who come to therapy, spirituality, or self-development with real hope in our hearts.

The idea that there is an insight that will unlock everything.

And I don’t want to dismiss that hope. I’ve had moments in my life where something clicked—where a realization landed and genuinely shifted how I related to myself or the world. Those moments are real. They matter.

But they are not the whole story.

For most people—and certainly for me—lasting change didn’t arrive as a lightning bolt. It arrived slowly. Unevenly. Through repetition, relationship, and a long, sometimes frustrating friendship with the mundane.

Where the myth comes from

The magic pill myth is everywhere.

In therapy culture, where breakthroughs are sometimes sold as outcomes.

In coaching and spiritual spaces, where transformation is marketed as fast and decisive.

On social media, where we see the “after,” but not the years it took to get there.

In stories—novels, movies, memoirs—where a single chapter stands in for a lifetime of becoming.

And I think this myth comes from something tender, not foolish: hope.

Hope that change is possible. Hope that suffering isn’t permanent. Hope that meaning can be found.

But the problem is that we often confuse recognition with arrival.

Looking back, we name a moment as “the turning point.” But in the moment itself, it rarely felt clean or cinematic. More often, it felt like a pull. A quiet knowing. A discomfort we couldn’t ignore anymore.

The insight wasn’t the ending.

It was the beginning.

The quiet cost of waiting for the big shift

When people believe healing should happen all at once, something painful happens when it doesn’t… They turn on themselves.

I see this often in therapy:

“I know what I need to do—why isn’t it changing anything?”

“I understand it intellectually—what’s wrong with me?”

The missing piece is almost always embodiment.

Insight is only one part of the puzzle. For it to take root, it has to be lived—again and again—in the very ordinary moments that make up a life. And that takes time.

The magic pill myth can quietly pull us away from those moments. It keeps us searching instead of inhabiting. Consuming instead of practicing. Waiting instead of tending.

And it fits beautifully with consumer culture: there’s always one more book, one more program, one more modality that promises to finally make it stick.

But healing doesn’t happen out there.

It happens here. In this moment. And the next one.

What actually changed me

I’ll be honest—this truth took a while for me to accept.

I’m someone who loves the grand arc. The romance of transformation. The story where everything suddenly makes sense. And I’m also someone who struggles with repetition (especially when it is framed as routine). The idea that healing might depend on doing small things over and over again was… humbling.

But when I look back at what changed me durably, the answer is clear.

Self-acceptance.

A slow, stubborn practice of speaking to myself more kindly.

Tiny moments of catching the inner critic and choosing a different voice.

Simple rituals that brought me back to myself when I drifted.

Not perfection.

Not consistency without breaks.

But remembering—and returning.

Again. And again.

The turtle, and the long way home

For this season, the turtle feels like the right guide.

The turtle doesn’t rush. It doesn’t abandon itself to reach a destination faster. Its home moves with it. Refuge is built into the journey.

In early spring—when the ground is thawing but still heavy, when nothing is quite ready—the turtle teaches persistence without urgency. Movement without frenzy. Devotion without drama.

Let yourself be stubborn in this way.

Keep coming back to what matters, even when progress feels invisible.

This is not failure.

This is the path.

A pause in the thaw

I want to invite you to stop reading for a moment.

Feel the weight of your body.

Notice the heaviness—or softness—of this season in you.

March carries a strange density. The thaw is happening, but it’s muddy. Unstable. Things are loosening, but not yet blooming.

You can’t rush this phase.

And neither can your healing.

Let yourself settle into that truth for one breath.

An eco-somatic ritual for March

This week, step outside—once a day if you can, or whenever it’s available to you.

Notice what is thawing.

Notice what isn’t.

The frozen ground doesn’t ask permission to move at its own pace. Neither do you.

Each time you’re outside, give yourself one quiet question:

“What is slowly changing in me, even if I can’t see the results yet?”

No answers required. Let the question work on you over time.

This is a ritual of patience.

A release of the fantasy that change must be fast to be real.

Ordinary things that matter more than we think

Some of the most powerful things in my own healing felt almost too small to count:

• One-word mantras — slow, love, here. Holding a single word in the body and letting it shape the moment.
• Turning chores into mindful rituals — cooking, washing dishes, caring for the body with intention instead of resentment.
• Brief self-massage — oil on the hands, warmth in the shoulders, gratitude offered directly to the body that carries you.
• Returning, not perfecting — forgetting, remembering, and coming back again without shame.

Nothing here is impressive.

That’s the point.

Healing lives in the things that are always available.

If you’re feeling behind, I want to ask—behind what?

Behind a story that was never written for real human lives?

Behind a fantasy that leaves no room for tenderness, repetition, or rest?

There may be grief in letting go of the magic pill. Grief for the story where everything changed all at once. That grief deserves care.

But there is also relief.

Because what replaces the fantasy is something sturdier: a life built through small, faithful acts. A relationship with yourself that deepens over time. A patience that doesn’t abandon you when things get messy.

Spring will come.

But first, we walk through the mud.

And that, too, is part of the magic.

---

If this spoke to something in you, there are a few paths you can follow from here:

Each door leads somewhere different. It is my hope that all of them lead back to you.

<3 Rachel