Learning to Stop Bracing

 I am pretty certain I learned to brace very early in life.

I remember wondering what my parents might think, how they might react, and whether I had done something wrong.

I was always preparing.

Always anticipating.

Always trying to stay one step ahead of whatever might happen next.

Bracing became my way of protecting myself.

I didn’t choose it consciously.

It was simply what my little nervous system learned to do.

As I look back now, I realize something that surprises me.

I don’t think I ever stopped bracing.

It became so familiar that I didn’t even know I was doing it.

My body stayed ready.

Ready for criticism.

Ready for disappointment.

Ready for pain.

Ready for the next shoe to drop.

No wonder it has been so difficult to simply relax.

No wonder peace has sometimes felt unfamiliar.

One of the greatest gifts I can give myself now is not another explanation, but a new experience.

Safety.

Not just understanding the word.

Feeling it.

Teaching my body, little by little, that it no longer has to stand guard every moment of every day.

That feels deeply important to me.

In fact, I feel passionate about it.

I want my little girl to know that she is safe.

I want the woman I have become to know the very same thing.

I want both of them to know that they are deeply loved.

That they matter.

That they no longer have to earn their place in the world by staying alert, being perfect, or expecting the worst.

Perhaps healing is not about becoming someone new.

Perhaps it is about teaching my body what my heart has been longing to believe all along.

You are safe.

You are loved.

You matter.

And you don’t have to keep bracing anymore.

Exploring Old Beliefs

 Today I woke up with a knot in my stomach.

I know why.

I am about to do some deep work, and my body seems to know it before my mind does.

Some of this work will be grief.

As I look back on my childhood, I don’t see only pain.

I remember the people who loved me and made me feel safe. I remember the joy of my hobbies, the simple moments when I could lose myself in play and imagination. Those memories are precious to me.

But they are not the whole story.

There are other memories that cast a shadow over them.

Memories that left me with beliefs I never consciously chose.

Somewhere along the way, I came to believe that I deserved punishment.

Today, logically, I know that isn’t true.

No child deserves to live in fear.

No child deserves to carry shame that was never theirs.

But childhood beliefs don’t live in logic alone.

They settle deep into the heart and nervous system, where they quietly shape the way we see ourselves and the world.

We were taught to be afraid.

We were taught not to trust ourselves.

We were taught not to use our voices.

Those lessons became familiar, even though they were never meant to define us.

Over the years, I have gently untangled many of those beliefs.

I have learned to trust my intuition.

I have found my voice.

I have discovered courage I never knew I possessed.

And yet, as I continue this journey, I can see there are still deeper layers waiting to be explored.

Surprisingly, that realization doesn’t discourage me.

It gives me hope.

It means there is still more freedom to discover.

More truth to uncover.

More of the little girl to love.

So today, I welcome the knot in my stomach.

Not because it feels good.

But because it reminds me that I am standing at the edge of another doorway.

And this time, instead of turning back, I am ready to walk through it.

Giving Fear to God

 As I become more aware of my little girl, I can feel the fear she has carried for so many years.

It isn’t just a memory.

It feels alive within me.

Sometimes it feels as though her whole body remembers what happened, even when there are no words to describe it.

Every day, I am reminded of one simple truth.

Surrender is the only answer.

Not because we are weak.

But because fear has become too heavy to carry alone.

There have been seasons when I believed there was one more answer to find, one more book to read, one more therapy to try, one more breakthrough waiting just around the corner.

Today, I find myself in a different place.

I have tried so many things to help the little girl heal.

I have searched for relief from the physical pain that, in my experience, feels so closely intertwined with her story.

And for now, I have come to the end of what I know how to do.

Oddly enough, that doesn’t feel like defeat.

It feels like surrender.

Perhaps surrender isn’t giving up.

Perhaps it is laying down the impossible burden of believing that I alone must fix everything.

I think of the words, In God We Trust.

Trust isn’t only for the days when life makes sense.

Trust is choosing to place my fear into God’s hands when I have run out of answers.

It is waking up each morning and saying,

“God, this fear is too heavy for me today. I give it to You. Hold my little girl when I cannot. Teach her the safety she has always longed to know.”

Maybe that is enough for today.

Not to have all the answers.

Not to force healing.

Simply to trust.

The Sky is Falling

 Do you remember the story of Chicken Little?

He was always expecting danger. He believed the sky was falling.

I can relate to that story.

When you grow up with a sensitive nervous system, it doesn’t take much to frighten a little girl. She learns to watch for danger before she learns to trust that everything will be okay.

I see that pattern in myself.

I can swing from being naive to imagining frightening scenarios.

It is exhausting to live between those two extremes.

I have learned that my mind isn’t trying to make my life difficult. It is trying to protect me the only way it knows how.

As a child, expecting danger made sense.

It was my way of surviving.

But what protected me then doesn’t always serve me now.

I have to become mindful before believing every fearful thought that enters my mind. I have to pause long enough to ask myself, Is this happening right now, or is this an old alarm being sounded again?

Even then, I still make mistakes.

Sometimes I believe the fear.

Sometimes I let my imagination convince me that the sky is falling.

Instead of criticizing myself for it, I am learning to respond with compassion.

Of course my nervous system reacts this way.

It was trained to.

But it can also be retrained.

One gentle choice at a time.

One mindful pause at a time.

One reminder at a time that the frightened little girl who expected danger every day is now being cared for by the woman who knows that not every falling acorn means the sky is coming down.