When Joy Feels Far Away

 I have learned that physical pain has a way of concealing joy.

There was a time when emotional pain overshadowed everything. But through years of recovery, therapy, prayer, and inner work, I slowly found my way back to myself. The weight of emotional suffering began to lift, and joy became something I could recognize again.

I smiled more easily.

I laughed more freely.

I felt grateful simply to be alive.

Then physical pain entered my life.

It didn’t erase my joy.

But it hid it.

Pain has a way of narrowing our focus until all we can see is the next moment of discomfort. It whispers that this is all there is. It tries to convince us that joy has left for good.

But I know better.

Joy hasn’t disappeared.

It has simply become quieter.

These days I have to look for it in smaller places.

The warmth of the morning sun.

The song of a bird outside my window.

The comfort of a soft blanket.

The gentle purr of Winston.

The laughter of a friend.

A moment when my body softens, even for just a breath.

Recovery taught me something I will carry for the rest of my life.

Gratitude is not the denial of pain.

It is the quiet willingness to notice that something beautiful still exists beside it.

Some days, gratitude is abundant.

Other days, it is wonderfully simple.

Today, I am grateful for breath.

I am grateful for faith.

And for today…

That is enough.

Reliving the Nightmare

 In some strange way, I feel as though I am reliving my childhood nightmare.

Once again, I find myself tiptoeing around fear and pain.

As a little girl, I learned that expressing my feelings wasn’t safe. I swallowed my tears, my anger, my confusion, and my fear because there was no room for them. There was only room for being the good little girl.

Today, I notice something heartbreaking.

When I cry, my physical pain often becomes worse.

It feels as though my body is still carrying the same message it learned long ago—that my feelings are dangerous, that expressing them comes with consequences.

This is how I grew up.

Afraid.

Walking on eggshells.

Trying so hard to do everything right.

Trying to be good enough.

Trying to earn love, acceptance, and safety.

Yet somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I was left feeling ashamed. Guilty. As though I was always disappointing someone. As though I was somehow getting life wrong.

That old feeling still visits me.

Now, instead of trying to fix a family that could never give me what I needed, I find myself trying to fix a body that won’t cooperate.

I read.

I pray.

I rest.

I try new treatments.

I search for answers.

And when the pain refuses to let go, a familiar voice quietly whispers that I must have failed. That if I had only done something differently, somehow I would feel better.

I know that voice.

It isn’t really about today.

It is the echo of a little girl who believed that if she could only be better, quieter, smarter, kinder, or more lovable, everything around her would finally become safe.

She carried responsibilities that never belonged to a child.

Now I wonder if I have unknowingly handed those same impossible responsibilities to the woman I have become.

Part of me feels as though I have failed both of us—the little girl who needed protection and the woman who carried dreams for a different life.

But perhaps that, too, is an old story.

Maybe neither of us failed.

Maybe we have simply been carrying burdens that were never ours to carry.

And maybe the bravest thing either of us has ever done is to keep hoping, even while walking through the fear.

Teaching My Nervous System to Rest

 There is so much written these days about the nervous system.

As I read and learn, I cannot help but feel sadness for all that mine has endured.

It has lived through fear.

Through hypervigilance.

Through grief.

Through loss.

Through years of believing that pushing harder was the answer.

I became so accustomed to overriding my body’s whispers that I rarely noticed when they became screams.

Some of it came from the perfectionist in me.

Some of it came from the part of me that believed multitasking was a measure of my worth.

Some of it came from simply believing this was how life was supposed to be lived.

Work harder. Do more. Push through.

There were choices I made that, had I known better, I would have made differently.

But there were also many things that were never within my control.

The little girl who learned to survive did not choose the world she was born into.

She simply learned how to adapt.

Today, I no longer judge her for the ways she survived.

And I no longer judge myself.

I cannot undo the years of asking my nervous system to carry more than it was ever designed to hold.

I cannot rewrite yesterday.

But I can choose a different way to live today.

I can speak to myself with kindness instead of criticism.

I can move with gentleness instead of urgency.

I can rest without earning it.

I can listen when my body whispers instead of waiting until it cries out in pain.

The pusher in me no longer gets to lead my life.

She helped me survive.

But she is ready to rest now, too.

These days, I return again and again to a simple reminder—

Easy does it.

Waiting for the Next Shoe to Drop

 I find myself wondering what life felt like inside my little girl’s heart when everything seemed calm.

Was I ever able to relax?

Or was I always waiting for the next shoe to drop?

Was I living on pins and needles, anticipating the next outburst, the next disappointment, the next reason to be afraid?

Most likely, the answer is yes.

Fear was more familiar to me than peace.

At home, I learned to expect that safety could disappear without warning. Even during the quiet moments, perhaps my little nervous system never truly believed the calm would last.

Children who grow up this way don’t simply experience fear.

They begin to expect it.

Yet there was another world.

When I stayed with my grandparents, something inside me softened. I felt safe. I felt protected. I could lose myself in play for hours without worrying about what might happen next. My body knew the difference, even if I couldn’t have explained it at the time.

Looking back now, I think my sensitive little girl lived in far more fear than I ever realized.

That realization helps me understand so much about the woman I became.

I have always wanted life to go well.

I have always hoped for good things.

But underneath that hope has lived another voice, quietly preparing for disappointment.

A part of me expected life to take away whatever I loved.

A part of me believed that peace was temporary.

Fear had taught me that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t count on life to stay safe.

Perhaps that is one of childhood trauma’s greatest losses.

It doesn’t only steal a child’s sense of safety.

It quietly steals her expectation that life can be good—and that she is capable of meeting it with confidence.

Today, I see that little girl with new compassion.

She wasn’t expecting the worst because she lacked faith.

She was expecting what she had already learned.

I will gently continue to teach her that the future does not have to repeat the past.