Understanding Leads to Transformation
Pattern-Specific Practices That Address the Root Cause of Your Pain
Everyone is unique, but pain often follows distinct patterns that can be understood through seven primary archetypes. These seven primary pain patterns are based on distinct fascial signatures—and it’s likely that one of them is creating your chronic pain right now.
When you can identify your pain pattern clearly—without shame or judgment—transformation becomes possible at the depth where lasting change occurs.
Here's how it works:
Identify Your Primary Pain Pattern
(Free 3-minute quiz)
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Practice 21 Minutes a Day
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After decades of hands-on practice with thousands of clients, I know firsthand that pain isn't random—it becomes predictable when we understand the combination of our beliefs, emotional health, and repetitive lifestyle behaviors. Your fascia holds these emotions and beliefs, creating patterns that gradually develop into physical restriction and pain.
I developed this Pain Pattern system because I believe understanding your pain shouldn't require a medical degree or leave you feeling frustrated by complex language that doesn't resonate with your lived experience.
Take this free quiz to better understand your primary pain pattern. Get a start on lasting relief with complimentary recommendations.
Each of the seven Pain Patterns represents the physical restrictions and mental and emotional adaptations that once served you; understanding them helps you transform survival mechanisms into conscious choices.
I've given these Pain Patterns symbolic names to help people understand their body-mind connection without judgment or shame. This empowering approach makes it easier to recognize how emotional patterns manifest as physical restrictions in your body.
As you read through the patterns, you may recognize yourself in several—many people experience multiple interconnected pain patterns. However, identifying your primary pain pattern is the essential starting point for relief.
When your chest collapses inward in a protective position
Physical Pattern: Restricted ribcage, shallow breathing, collapsed chest
Mental/Emotional Theme: Disconnection from life force and inspiration
Like a shield raised in perpetual defense, the ribcage has learned to contract and protect against a world that feels perpetually threatening. But when a shield never comes down, it becomes a prison. The diaphragm loses its full excursion, the intercostal muscles between the ribs become rigid, and breathing becomes a shallow, anxious affair rather than the deep, nourishing process it was designed to be.
People with the Shield pattern may experience anxiety, fatigue, upper back tension, and a general sense of being disconnected from their own vitality.
When restless energy in your legs and feet lose their connection to solid ground
Physical Pattern: Unstable foundation, collapsed arches, ungrounded stance
Mental/Emotional Theme: Issues with self-sufficiency and independence
The foundation pattern manifests when one’s legs and feet cannot create reliable support for their entire structure. Arches collapse, weight distribution becomes uneven, and ankles lose their spring-like responsiveness. This creates a domino effect up through knees, hips, and into the spine.
Without a stable foundation, every movement becomes effortful, every step uncertain. People with the Foundation Pattern may experience chronic fatigue, knee pain, hip instability, and a persistent feeling of being "off balance" in life as well as body.
When your shoulders rise up toward your ears to take on every challenge
Physical Pattern: Shoulders pulled up/forward, arms disconnected from torso, side body collapse
Mental/Emotional Theme: Difficulty with giving/receiving and making authentic contact
The Pillar pattern develops when one’s shoulders rise toward their ears and arms lose their natural weight and swing. The side body—the lateral line from armpit to hip—becomes shortened and tight, pulling shoulders forward and creating that characteristic "hunched" posture. Arms begin to feel like separate appendages rather than extensions of the heart.
The Pillar pattern restricts the ability to reach out authentically, both physically and emotionally. People with this pattern may experience chronic neck tension, shoulder impingement, and difficulty asking for help or offering support naturally.
When your pelvis becomes a vault and loses stability
Physical Pattern: Pelvic diaphragm tension, inner thigh restriction, sacral immobility
Mental/Emotional Theme: Over-control and inability to surrender appropriately
The Lock pattern emerges in the deep core when the pelvic diaphragm muscles become chronically tight and the inner thighs (adductors) create excessive internal tension. The sacrum loses its ability to move freely, and the pelvis becomes rigid rather than fluid. This is often the result of early control patterns around toilet training that generalize into "holding everything in."
When the pelvis locks, movement becomes mechanical rather than graceful, and one may experience lower back pain, hip restriction, and difficulty with both healthy boundaries and appropriate vulnerability.
When your core becomes a vessel under pressure
Physical Pattern: Rigid abdominal armor, tight psoas, disconnected core, digestive stress
Mental/Emotional Theme: Carrying too much responsibility
The Crucible pattern develops when deep abdominal muscles create a rigid "armor" around the organs rather than providing fluid, responsive support. The psoas—the deepest core muscle connecting spine to legs—becomes chronically tight, pulling lower ribs toward the pelvis and creating a "crunched" torso. The gut loses its ability to process both food and emotions.
The Crucible pattern often accompanies the feeling of "carrying everyone's problems" and manifests as digestive issues, lower back pain, and a disconnection from intuitive knowing.
When your spine becomes steel instead of bamboo
Physical Pattern: Rigid erector spinae, military posture, locked thoracic spine
Mental/Emotional Theme: Holding back power, expression, and authenticity
The Sword pattern manifests when erector spinae muscles—the powerful muscles that run along the spine—become like steel cables, holding the body in a permanent "attention" position. The thoracic spine loses its natural curves, and the back becomes a rigid board rather than a flexible support system. This is the classic "military posture" that never learned to stand down.
When the spine becomes a sword, one loses the ability to bend without breaking. People with the Sword pattern may experience chronic back pain, thoracic outlet syndrome, and difficulty expressing emotions or creativity.
When your brilliant mind refracts in all directions like light through a prism
Physical Pattern: Forward head posture, jaw tension, facial rigidity
Mental/Emotional Theme: Mental over-analysis and disconnection from body wisdom
The Prism pattern emerges when the head juts forward, disconnecting from the vertical line of the spine, and neck muscles work overtime to hold it up. The jaw clamps down like a vise, facial muscles become rigid masks, and the head literally "loses" its proper relationship to the body. Like a prism that scatters light in all directions, this pattern scatters attention and disconnects one from integrated body wisdom.
People with the Prism pattern tend to live entirely "in their head," thinking about thinking, and losing touch with the intelligence of the body. They may experience tension headaches, TMJ, and chronic neck pain.
My hope is that these pain patterns become a valuable language for your healing journey—a way to understand and communicate about your experience with clarity and compassion, both in your inner dialogue and in your daily practice.
When you have words for what you're experiencing, transformation moves from confusion to conscious choice.
Ready to see your pattern clearly?