There are days
when the nervous system speaks in whispers,
a slight tightening in the throat,
a heaviness behind the eyes,
a sudden exhaustion at the kitchen sink.
And there are days
when it arrives like a wave—
Unexpected grief in the grocery store,
panic in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday,
longing that appears out of nowhere
and drops us to our knees
in the middle of a restaurant.
And because we have been taught
to fear disruption,
to worship control,
to mistake calmness for safety,
we immediately assume
something has gone wrong.
We call what is simply a wave of Life a problem.
A setback.
A failure.
A sign that we are broken.
But what if nothing has gone wrong?
What if trembling, aching, and weeping
are not evidence of dysfunction,
but evidence of Life itself
moving through in its own perfection?
What if healing was never meant to look like
someone who never feels grief,
never panics,
never aches,
or never longs—
What if true healing—true reintegration—is the simple remembering
that waves on the ocean—as turbulent as they may seem—
are always the activity of the Ocean itself.
Life Life-ing.
Love Loving.
One movement of energy
expressing in an infinite number of waves.
Of course,
there is the one within me who longs
for control, for certainty, and for guarantees.
She is not a problem to solve.
Beneath and beyond that longing, there is something greater.
Something vast enough, loving enough, stable enough
to hold even the longing for control.
There is something that does not disappear
when the turbulent waves of Life arrive.
Because they always do.
That is actually the kindness of the design.
Waves of all sizes and shapes move through each of us.
They rise, they peak, and they fall away.
As long as we animate these human costumes,
the waves will continue in their own perfect rhythm.
Maybe this is true peace. TRUE relief—
Knowing that the turning of seasons,
the rhythm of waves,
the ebb and flow of the tide
are all simply Life expressing itself.
And it’s all trustworthy and kind.
A few weeks ago, my oldest daughter Megan, who is 27, declared that Saturday, May 16th would be “Megan Day.” And with the authority and confidence only adult first-born daughters seem to possess, she informed me that I was to leave my “little bubble of Cary” and drive to her home in Raleigh. She wanted to show me all of her favorite places in the city she has grown to love. And who was I to refuse such an incredible opportunity. The very idea of spending 14 uninterrupted hours with the one who made me a mom delighted me.
And honestly, from the moment I arrived last Saturday, the entire day felt magical. Megan took me to her favorite French pastry shop for breakfast before giving me a tour of her 15th story office in the middle of downtown Raleigh. She showed off her new professional engineering seal which she had placed right next to a silly Lego creation. That is SO like her! We hiked nearly ten miles through two of her favorite state parks, and ate lunch at a quirky little sandwich joint in a part of town called Iron Works. I drank in every word she said, and I marveled at how this BABY of mine spoke with such authenticity, rawness, and sweet vulnerability. She articulated her fears about her upcoming move to the other side of the country, while highlighting the awesomeness of her decision to leave North Carolina behind.
It was one of those rare days where nothing extraordinary happened, and yet everything about it felt extraordinary. At dinner that night, I found myself looking across the table at her more than once with that strange ache mothers know so well — the simultaneous joy of seeing your child become fully herself and the quiet heartbreak of realizing she no longer belongs to you in the way she once did.
And then, in the middle of dinner, it happened. Not dramatically. Not maliciously. Not even intentionally. Just one innocent sentence woven casually into conversation as we talked about her upcoming move to San Diego to be with the man she loves. She smiled and said, almost offhandedly, “Oh, we definitely don’t want to stay in San Diego forever. Eventually we want to move to the Bay Area to raise kids.” (For those of you who are not familiar with U.S geography, the Bay area is also in California, 2,500 miles away from me).
I smiled so hard in that moment to mask the profoundness of the proverbial dagger that had just pierced my heart.
With one tiny innocent sentence, my little mind leapt years into the future. Future grandchildren. Holidays. Distance. Airplanes. Geography. Missing things. Not being woven into the ordinary fabric of their daily lives. It all flashed through me in an instant. But I didn’t say anything. Dinner continued as that initial trigger subsided down into the far reaches of my belly, dutifully retreating so that I could continue our beautiful evening together. Megan and I belly laughed at jokes and ordered another round of cocktails. The night magical. And yet somewhere inside me, that tender place that had been triggered was still…well…tender.
The next morning, right after my sunrise walk with Lacey, I drove to Starbucks and then to Wegmans grocery store buy snacks for a Mahjong event. Part of me was grateful that the tender ache from the night before was not as potent. After all, I had a LOT to do to get ready for my Mahjong event. But, as I pulled into the Wegmans parking lot, one of Megan’s favorite Noah Kahan songs came on the radio. That sweet trigger from the night before that had so graciously retreated to my belly was ready to come into the light of day. At first, I felt the familiar tightening in my throat. A lump rising. Heat behind my eyes. And then suddenly, the dam broke. Tears. Full body sobbing. Grief moving through me in waves. Perfect. Rhythmic. Waves.
And here is the part that feels so helpful to point out. Even in the midst of my falling tears, my burning eyes, and my heaving chest, I knew with absolute certainty:
Nothing was going wrong. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was dysregulated. Nothing was “too much” or “not enough.”
Life was simply moving through. Arising like a wave on the ocean as this.
As this moment.
As a wave, a sensation, a longing, an ache.
As hot tears, as intermittent soft and heavy sobs. As Life Life-ing perfectly in the moment.
This beautiful energy had been set in motion the night before by Megan’s perfectly scripted words, “We want to settle down and raise kids in the Bay Area.”
And that is what I would love for us to explore a little more deeply today. The juxtaposition of our experience of life in this very human body alongside the deeper knowing that this momentary constellation of identities is not our whole story.
Two seemingly opposite things held together as ONE truth. No denying or dismissing. Just the perfection of the paradox. Fully human in experience AND fully the space of unconditional love that holds everything. The form AND the formless. The one experiencing and the experience itself.
Before I went to bed Sunday evening, I found myself listening to a podcast interview with Nicole Sachs, and honestly, so much of what she shared resonated deeply with what I’m seeing more and more deeply these days.
As many of you may already know, Nicole Sachs once worked side-by-side with Dr. John Sarno. Sarno was the physician who helped bring wider awareness to the profound relationship between the nervous system, emotions, chronic symptoms, anxiety, pain syndromes, and the mind-body connection. And what struck me so deeply as I listened to her was not just the information itself, but the compassion underneath it all.
Again and again, Nicole Sachs pointed toward the possibility that symptoms are not the enemy. Panic is not at all what we have been taught. The nervous system is not broken, defective, weak, or betraying us. Rather, so often it is doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect, anticipate, scan, react, brace, prepare, and survive.
Her words brought so much clarity to my experience in the Wegmans grocery store parking lot. My “emotional meltdown”—as some in our culture would have called it—was simply Life moving through a human nervous system that loves deeply.
On one level, my so-called melt-down made sense. Because when Megan spoke about moving across the country and one day raising children far away, something ancient and protective stirred awake inside me. Not because I have somehow regressed in my awakening or in my level of consciousness. But because this human system — like all human systems — is wired for attachment, connection, proximity, belonging, and continuity. Love and grief have always traveled together. They are dance partners. One does not exist without the other.
It has been tremendously helpful for me to deeply understand the role of the nervous system, neuroscience, and the ancient mind that has been evolutionary conditioned to “protect and preserve.” It offers that little narrator in my head moments of sweet relief and respite when I see on an embodied level just how incredibly NORMAL and SAFE all of these human waves are. That morning in the parking lot was just that: NORMAL and SAFE.
So, when Nicole described in her podcast how BRILLANT and miraculous symptoms are, that landed as absolute truth within me. It stabilized and confirmed what has felt true for a very long time. The body is wise. Symptoms—both physical and emotional are not the enemies we’ve been taught they are. And none of this means that we don’t take action. Of course we do.
But as her podcast interview so brilliantly points out, those actions are taken so much more easily when they are taken from outside of the war in our minds. From outside of the battle we have innocently been taught to engage in when our body does something different from what our culture says it should.
There is something so incredibly soothing to hear someone NORMALIZE what most human brains have learned to CATASTROPHIZE.
She goes on to give examples of real clients with actual diagnoses—complete with confirmation from MRIs, CT scans, bloodwork, and all the other tools. In each case, she never ever dismisses the diagnosis or the real experience of each client. But, she describes how, as she worked with these clients over time, they were able to see the role of beliefs and identities in their overall experience of chronic pain, fatigue, sensitivities, and overall illness.
The part I loved most about the podcast was that the focus of her work was kindness for the system. Basic self-compassion and grace. Not pushing, forcing, or figuring out. Simple kindness. Openness to truly seeing on an embodied level (not as an intellectual concept) that it’s only the human mind that creates these dramatic, catastrophic, future-oriented stories about what our bodies are doing. And the human mind is not an enemy. It is a perfectly designed ancient machine whose only job is basic survival.
Beneath the mind’s compelling and hypnotic stories about our experience, there is simply this moment unfolding. Even exhaustion or pain or stomach upset or vertigo become something completely different without the mind’s added layers of “this isn’t fair” or “this is ruining my life” or “I can’t handle this.”
But, as far as I can see, even those beliefs—as false as they are—are part of the perfect design! They are not wrong for existing. They are not even OURS. They are not PERSONAL. The pain of these beliefs is the invitation, the offering…the portal to waking up.
I LIVED within those very beliefs for a long season. My identity revolved around not only my physical symptoms but also depression, a compelling victim story, anxiety, and panic. And it was the desperation and pain of these identities that cracked open the door for me. Even the beliefs, the identities, and the desperation were part of the perfect waking-up design. Nothing had gone wrong. Nothing.
This is what I have spoken about since 2020 when I wrote my first blog. This is the message worth sharing again and again.
BEGIN WITH KINDNESS for exactly where you are in this very moment. Even if where you are is lost, confused, or completely identified with your illness or emotional state.
Simply begin exactly where you are. And maybe even ask the question, “Can I be kind to the one I believe myself to be in this moment?”
And if you believe yourself to be a victim in this moment, could you simply offer that victim-identity some grace and kindness?
If you believe that Life has somehow shortchanged you or given you a raw deal, could you offer a moment of compassion to the one who believes she was shortchanged and got a raw deal?
There is something about kindness for this wild roller coaster ride of the human experience that allows us to begin to touch something far greater than this realm.
So, for now, if the realm I am alluding to—the one that human words cannot adequately describe—seems impossible to open yourself to, could you begin with kindness for this precise moment as it is appearing?
What if….and you know this is my most favorite question ever…
What if NOTHING you are experiencing right now is what you think it is? Just breathe that in for a moment without giving it to your mind to figure out. Just feel it in your belly.
What if there is a much greater perspective than the one your mind is capable of seeing right now? Again, just breathe and ask the question without looking for an answer.
And WHAT IF…just maybe…the truth of who you are…the pure aliveness of you…is lovingly and peacefully holding all of the waves that arise—the ones we call emotions, the ones we call symptoms, and the ones we innocently call “our problems”?
Maybe true peace and joy are not found in finally controlling the waves.
Maybe freedom is not found in becoming a version of ourselves untouched by grief, fear, longing, symptoms, uncertainty, or change.
Maybe true peace begins the moment we choose kindness with the nature of the ocean itself, no matter how it is showing up in this moment.
Because waves were never evidence that the ocean is failing. They were evidence that the ocean is alive.
What if the same is true for us?
What if these human hearts were never meant to remain untouched by love, distance, endings, tenderness, longing, beauty, or change? What if trembling, tears, sensations, symptoms, fear, and even the mind’s dramatic stories are all part of this mysterious dance of the human system? Not mistakes. Not punishments. Not signs that we are broken or behind.
Simply waves moving through.
And underneath it all — beneath every identity, every diagnosis, every story, every season of panic or certainty or confusion or awakening — there remains something quietly untouched. Something vast, open, and endlessly patient and kind. Something that has been holding every wave of life without resistance.
What if peace is on offer right now? Not someday. Not once you heal.
Not once you awaken enough. Not once you “get this.”
Now.
What if peace begins right now—but just not in that little thought-machine that loves to spin stories?
For a moment, could you be open to seeing this with your heart instead of your mind?
Could you bask in the space of “I don’t know anything right now, but my heart is open?”