STOP LIVING BY CHILDHOOD RULES.

Your past shaped you, but it doesn’t have to keep calling the shots. Rewrite the patterns keeping you stuck.

What you learned in childhood might explain your struggles,
but it doesn’t have to decide your future.

Unpacked

ABOUT THE BOOK

In Unpacked, licensed psychotherapist and author Kristen Jacobsen offers a clear, no-fluff path to understanding how childhood shapes the way we move through adulthood. Through personal stories, clinical insight, and practical tools, she helps readers recognize how early emotional dynamics quietly become the blueprint for adult anxiety, self-doubt, and perfectionism.

This book explores how common patterns like:

  • Overworking to feel worthy

  • People-pleasing to avoid rejection

  • Emotional shutdown to stay safe

  • Self-criticism to stay in control

...aren’t random habits, they’re survival strategies that started in childhood and followed you into adulthood.

Whether you've done years of therapy or are just starting to wonder why success doesn’t actually feel good, Unpacked will help you:

  • Understand how your subconscious beliefs were formed

  • Connect the dots between your past and your present patterns

  • Recognize how your nervous system got wired for hypervigilance

  • Learn tools to shift the emotional scripts you’ve been stuck in

With a mix of honest reflection, client stories, and guided exercises, this book helps you move beyond insight and into change. You'll stop just managing symptoms, and start changing what’s underneath them.

If you’re ready to stop living by the rules you never chose, Unpacked shows you how to let them go.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

How your early beliefs still shape your work, confidence, and the people you let in.

Why your coping strategies, like overthinking, hustling for approval, or shutting down, aren’t flaws but leftover survival tactics.

Simple, practical ways to rewire your thinking, calm your body, and finally live like you’re safe to be exactly who you are.

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  • This book is a clear, compassionate guide that shows how hidden beliefs can shape our lives. Kristen Jacobsen tells her own person story as well as the stories of others and blends that with practical exercises to help you notice patterns like people-pleasing and self-criticism. The tools are simple to use and genuinely empowering. If you feel stuck despite doing all the right things, this book offers a hopeful path forward.

    Elisabetta

  • The stories in Unpacked are so relatable and easy to understand. The chapters about how we unconsciously allow childhood experiences to limit our beliefs are fascinating! I look forward to letting go of those behaviors that no longer serve me and building new ones. Thank you Kristen for this book!

    Lynn Miller

  • The writing style is excellent, straightforward and easy to read. I appreciated the real-life stories used to illustrate points that made me rethink many of my own habits. I found it to be insightful, practical, and easy to read.

    B Barton

  • As a therapist, I highly recommend this book for anyone feeling stuck or inadequate. It’s a fantastic resource for exploring the deep-seated beliefs we hold about ourselves and where they came from. It’s also very compassionately written and easy to digest.

    Zach

  • Very insightful and helpful. Easy read and immediately actionable. Highly recommend.

    Robert Deming

  • Unpacked is a powerful and practical guide for anyone who feels stuck despite trying all the usual self-help tools. The author explains how subconscious beliefs quietly shape our lives and gives simple, compassionate steps to recognize and release them. I appreciated the reflective prompts and real-life examples that made the process feel doable. This book is approachable, insightful, and genuinely helpful for creating lasting change.

    ja8720

  • I’ve followed Kristen Jacobsen on social media for a while and love all of her content. When I found out she had written a book, I couldn’t wait to read it. And let me tell you, Unpacked did not disappoint. Written in a relatable and easily digestible way, Unpacked breaks down how your childhood experiences and perceptions directly affect your patterns and behavior in adulthood. A fascinating and enlightening read. If you’re looking for a self-help book that actually helps, Unpacked needs to be at the top of your list!

Kristen

Meet

Kristen Jacobsen, LCPC, is a licensed therapist, speaker, author, and coach who helps high-achieving adults unlearn the subconscious beliefs driving their anxiety, perfectionism, and emotional exhaustion. With a background in evidence-based therapy and a talent for cutting through psychological fluff, Kristen brings sharp insight and grounded compassion to her work with clients, and now to her readers.

After years of seeing intelligent, self-aware people continue to sabotage their own peace, Kristen wrote Unpacked: How to Detach From the Subconscious Beliefs That Are Sabotaging Your Life to help readers get to the root of their patterns. Blending personal narrative, client stories, and practical tools, Unpacked shows how childhood beliefs shape adult behavior, and how to finally rewrite the rules.

Kristen’s work centers on a simple idea: what you learned in childhood might explain your struggles, but it doesn’t have to decide your future. Whether through therapy, public speaking, or the pages of her book, she helps people stop overfunctioning, start healing, and live more aligned with who they truly are, not who they were expected to be.

As Seen On

  • The wound you avoid becomes the loop you live. You'll meet the same person in five different bodies, and you'll hit the same stall in your career and business in a thousand different ways. Sit with your Self. Discover who you are.

    J. Mike Fields

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