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.