If you’ve found your way here, there’s a good chance you’re carrying something heavy.
You may be living with grief, trauma, or a deep sense of being alone in the world. You may be a motherless daughter, navigating life without the person who was meant to be your safest place—or perhaps carrying the weight of a mother-daughter relationship that left you with wounds that haven’t healed. You may have experienced suicide loss, family estrangement, or life transitions that have left you feeling lost.
I want you to know that you are not alone.
In the decades since losing my mother to suicide while I was still in high school, I have lived through profound grief, abandonment by my family members, economic hardship, and deep loneliness. There were times I did not want to go on.
And yet, I did go on—until my body, in its own way, shut down, refusing to continue like this. Overworked, overthinking, ignoring trauma after trauma throughout my life, thinking that if I just stayed busy enough, that the pain and trauma would fade away.
What followed was a period of intense panic, anxiety, and depression. The anxiety showed physically more than mentally. As they say, the body knows the score. Layers of trauma had buried deep in my body. When my body said “No more!” a constant fizzing started surging throughout my legs almost 24/7. I woke up every morning with panic and dread, even though nothing in my immediate world was wrong.
Over time, I began to understand that what I needed was to stop pushing through. That I had to create a felt sense of safety within my body. Part of finding my way back to a sense of steadiness, and to the creative, capable self I once knew—has been building this space. I didn’t wait until everything was resolved. I knew that part of my healing was to speak out, to be heard, and to listen to others who have traveled similar paths. Being heard is healing. Being heard is the next best thing to being loved.
A gentle place to begin…
If you are living with difficult emotions, you may already know that there are many healing approaches and techniques. What I offer is not instruction, but ideas to consider. Here is one of them. If it feels right to you, you might take a moment to lie down or sit comfortably, placing a hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach. Then, simply notice your breath as it is. If you can, breathe in deeply and exhale at length because that signals safety to your brain and your body.
This action can create a small sense of steadiness. You might try this a few times a day, as you transition from one task to another or from one location to another. Done regularly throughout the day, you give your nervous system the gift of regular pauses, regular rest, and and signals safety to it.
This is not the only way. And it may not be the right way for everyone. But experimenting with ways to help your body feel safe is one place to begin. I wish you well in your journey back to your most peaceful version of you.