When Your Nervous System Decides You've Been Running the Show Too Long

Or: A Somatic Guide to Ego Dissolution for Overachievers Who Think Control Is a Personality Trait

Here we are... standing like nervous system CEOs of our destiny, wearing a crown of cortisol-fueled confidence that outshines supernovas, clutching a five-year plan that would make pyramid architects blush. Your prefrontal cortex watches with a knowing wink: “Honey, you’ve got this.” And truly you do... wisdom downloaded into your fascia, strength lodged in your jaw tension, and that infamous “I’ve got everything under control” stance that could throw shade at Zeus on his best day.

But your body (that somatic truth-teller with a highly questionable sense of timing) has other plans.

Because beneath that gleaming surface, in the basement of your tissue where you store all those “let’s not talk about this” moments, something begins to whisper. And this whisper isn’t mystical guidance from celestial beings. It’s your vagus nerve. Screaming. Through sensation. The way it’s been trying to get your attention since approximately 1997.

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This essay grew up and moved out. It lives in Under the Healing now.

The full text is in print. A book with a spine, a cover, and a body that holds the whole thing.

✨ Read the full essay in the book✨