It’s really hard to pay attention to ourselves and know when we need extra support. We live in a world and at a pace that makes it difficult to know when our bodies have reached their maximum.
Overstressed. That’s just another day, right?
Not sleeping. What’s new?
Digestion a mess. Welcome to my life!
If any of that comes to a point where it is truly messing with your quality of life, there is support available.
In this post, I’m sharing the story of how my stress added up, one dry stick at a time, to turn into a raging fire burning me up from the inside.
When you think about stress as bone-dry sticks of kindling being added to a brush pile, without timely burn-offs, you can get the picture of a huge fire hazard just waiting to cause a problem.
How do you know your brush pile has caught fire and you’re not equipped to manage it?
Here’s what happened to me in 2013. It took me a long time to realize I needed support, that I was basically on fire on the inside, living in a constant state of overwhelm.
Past and present stressors
First off, I had separated from my husband. It was a positive decision AND ending a 15+ year relationship is actually not small beans. Especially for your nervous system.
My nervous system was living through the separation and dissolution of my current longstanding relationship AND it was pinging the sensations and memories of when my parents separated. My parents’ divorce was a series of overwhelming events that I had no support through as a young teenager. That part of me was needing resolution as well.
Adding to the brush pile
On top of that, the separation put a strain on my finances. I was struggling with money and very worried about how I was going to support myself and my son.
Relationship and financial troubles…two common areas of personal struggle that can wreck anyone’s nervous system. I was primed.
The lit match
A mechanic left a shop rag on my muffler after changing my oil. As I drove home from the shop, the rag caught fire. It was visible to other drivers and eventually one of them flagged me down to tell me my car was on fire. I turned onto a residential street and ran away from my car watching flames flicker from underneath in the engine block. I did not know if my car would explode. I thought it would.
The fire department showed up, took a look and discovered the ashes of the shop rag. I wasn’t going to blow up. The car wasn’t going to blow up. I found out later from my mechanic that nothing was harmed by that fire.
Nothing in my car.
That event put a literal flame to the kindling of my already frazzled nervous system.
My sympathetic system, my fight or flight, my “oh shit I’m going to die!!” system, caught FIRE and it started to burn me up.
Within weeks I couldn’t eat most foods. Eventually I was down to hamburger, sweet potatoes, eggs, and greens. That’s it. And barely that.
Stress management practices that had worked for me before, stopped working.
Meditation, nope. Yoga, nada. Qi gong, negative.
My body was buzzing, popping, sizzling, edgy, and uncomfortable all the time.
Not being able to eat became the issue that drove me to seek help. But do you see how long it took me?
Months.
Months of anxiety, overwhelm and increasing symptoms of distress. I thought I could wait it out. I thought I would find a solo practice that would ease my body. I thought I could do it alone.
I couldn’t do it alone. There are some things that just cannot be done alone. And nervous system down-regulation is something that needs support. It needs the presence of someone else as safe witness.
With the assistance and presence of my therapist, who worked with me using body-up, somatic-based therapies like Craniosacral Therapy and Somatic Experiencing, I was able to put that fire out.
Within weeks, what I could eat expanded. I also regained the ability to regulate my own nervous system with meditation, yoga and other movement practices.
These days it doesn’t take me months to reach out for support. I don’t live with the stress feelings that long without informed co-regulation. I can often see ahead that there are bumpy patches coming my way and I shore up my community of support.
I share this because I know so many people are thinking that meditation and yoga alone should be doing it for them. And maybe they were for a while, but now they’re not.
I share this because it might not take as long as you think to restore your body to regulation, where you can move between nervous system states with ease, instead of being stuck in overwhelm.
If it seems like you’re in overwhelm and things are getting harder, find a practice, a provider or community that offers connected safety and support.
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