We all have them.
Those familiar, automatic behaviours we reach for when we feel uncertain, overwhelmed, or under threat. Saying yes when we mean no. Overachieving to prove our worth. Shrinking to keep the peace. Staying busy to avoid being still.
These are our protective patterns — and while they once helped us stay safe, they can quietly keep us stuck.
But here’s the truth:
Protective doesn’t always mean powerful.
If you’re reading this, you’re likely ready for something more. More visibility. More truth. More trust in yourself.
That begins by turning protective patterns into empowered practices — meeting the parts of you that protected, performed, or pleased, and gently rewriting your response from a place of self-trust.
What Are Protective Patterns?
Protective patterns (or protective strategies) are the behaviours we develop to avoid pain, discomfort, or vulnerability. They often form in childhood or early life experiences where we felt we had to be good, quiet, perfect, helpful, or invisible to belong.
You might recognise yours as:
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People-pleasing
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Overfunctioning or overworking
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Perfectionism
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Avoidance
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Control
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Performing
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Numbing
None of these make you bad or broken. They make you human — and they once served a purpose. But in adulthood, they can block connection, visibility, and growth.
So, what’s the first step?
Awareness.
To support this, I created a free Protective Strategies Quiz.
It helps you identify your dominant pattern and begin reflecting on how it might be showing up in your life, leadership, relationships, or creativity.
The quiz isn’t about labelling — it’s about seeing yourself clearly, without shame, and opening the door to a different way forward.
From Protection to Power: Enter SHINE
Once we’ve named the pattern, we can begin the real work:
Turning it into a practice of self-trust, truth-telling, and choice.
That’s where my SHINE framework comes in.
Each letter represents a powerful phase of self-mastery — a pathway out of old roles and into conscious, courageous living.
S — What’s My Story?
We explore the origins of your protective pattern. When did it start? What was it trying to protect? What story did it create about who you had to be?
H — Honouring Myself
Here, we begin to meet your pattern with compassion, not criticism. You learn to honour your needs, limits, voice, and energy — even if that’s new territory.
I — Insights Into Myself
This is where lightbulbs happen. You start noticing where the pattern shows up in real-time, and how it affects your choices, boundaries, and confidence.
N — Navigating Opportunities
Now you begin practicing something different. You start rewriting the pattern with conscious action. That might mean pausing before saying yes. Asking for help. Speaking your truth.
E — Empowerment
This is integration. You begin to lead yourself with clarity, choice, and power — no longer reacting from fear, but responding from alignment.
This is the real work of self-mastery.
Not controlling your thoughts.
Not becoming someone else.
But reclaiming the truth of who you are underneath the pattern — and choosing again.
Turning protective patterns into empowered practices is not about fixing yourself.
It’s about trusting yourself enough to choose something new.
You get to do this in your own time, in your own way. And I’m here to walk alongside you.
Ready to Begin?
Start by taking the Protective Strategies Quiz
Then explore the first steps of SHINE inside my community or The Arena
[Take the quiz]
[Learn more about The Arena]
And remember: you don’t need to fix yourself.
You just need to come home to yourself.