What Happened Matters
Harm, inconsistency, betrayal, manipulation, and unsafe behavior should not be minimized. Self-awareness does not require pretending that another person's actions are unimportant.
About Relational ROOTS™
Understanding Yourself Before Trying to Change the Relationship.
Relational ROOTS™ is a response-centered framework for relational self-awareness. It was created to help people locate where they are relationally, understand what may be happening beneath their responses, and recognize opportunities for intentional growth in their relationship with Self, Others, and God.
Locate. Understand. Grow.
Why It Was Created
A Different Starting Question
Relational ROOTS™ does not begin by asking, “What is wrong with you?” It begins with a different question: Where are you?
The question is an invitation to awareness. Where are you emotionally? Where are you relationally? What is happening beneath the response? What did the experience come to mean to you? What are you reaching for, afraid of losing, or trying to protect?
Relational ROOTS™ was developed to give people language and structure for slowing that process down. Rather than beginning with a label or an explanation of someone else's motives, the framework helps a person examine their own lived experience, relational meaning, what may be carrying weight, and the response that belongs to them.
What Guides the Framework
Awareness Without Labels. Responsibility Without Misplaced Blame.
Relational ROOTS™ keeps the focus on what a person can examine and influence while still making room to name what actually happened.
Meaning Matters
People do not respond only to what happened. An experience can also take on relational meaning, and that meaning may place greater weight on Trust, Safety, Security, Connection, Importance, Acceptance, or Protection.
Your Response Matters
A response may be understandable and still need examination. Relational ROOTS™ helps a person consider what their response may be trying to preserve, regain, or protect and what a more intentional response could look like.
Three Relational Domains
The Same ROOT Can Carry Weight Differently Depending on Where You Are Looking.
How you relate to your own thoughts, emotions, needs, limitations, decisions, worth, and responses.
How you experience trust, vulnerability, stability, closeness, significance, acceptance, and protection in interpersonal relationships.
How you experience and understand God's character, presence, trustworthiness, acceptance, protection, and invitation into relationship.
Founder & Creator
Javonté Rice
Founder & Creator of Relational ROOTS™
Javonté Rice conceptualized and developed Relational ROOTS™ through study, reflection, faith, and real relational experiences, with a growing focus on understanding what may be happening beneath the responses people bring into relationships.
Drawing from a background in psychology and independent study of relational and behavioral research, he developed Relational ROOTS™ as a structured way to explore seven proposed relational ROOTS (Trust, Safety, Security, Connection, Importance, Acceptance, and Protection), across relationships with Self, Others, and God.
His aim is not to create another label for people. It is to give people a clearer place to begin: locating where they are, understanding what may be carrying weight, and taking greater ownership of the response available to them now.
A Clear Boundary
Self-Awareness, Not Diagnosis.
Relational ROOTS™ is an evidence-informed, psychoeducational framework under active development. It is not a diagnosis, clinical evaluation, personality type, or tool for determining another person's motives. Its assessments and resources are intended to support guided self-awareness and intentional growth, not replace licensed professional care.
Begin Where You Are
Where Are You, Relationally?
Explore your relationship with Self, Others, or God through the seven Relational ROOTS™.
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