A lot of what we perceive as “personal problems” or “weaknesses” are more often than not explainable reactions and responses that we lack context and understanding for.
The manifestations of traumatic stress are primary examples of this- let’s use free floating anxiety (that pervasive feeling of anxiety that creeps up in seemingly disconnected moments) as our case and point.
In this instance, we have three primary options that could help us make more sense of what we are experiencing:
Possibility 1: The sensations your body is communicating to you is a call to pay attention. They are instinctual and intuitive messengers tapping on the door and saying that there is something that you need to notice and prepare for.
Possibility 2: The anxiety is a symptom of a nervous system in a state of dysregulation and discombobulation. Over time, for whatever reason, your baseline has shifted and you are finding yourself consistently living outside your window of capacity. Life, for the moment at least, feels bigger than the edges of your skin, and your thoughts mirror where it is your nervous system is sitting.
Possibility 3: What you are experiencing is the product of traumatic stress (that ties in closely to what we were talking about in the previous option). A combination of incomplete stress cycles and seemingly random spikes of emotion (thank you implicit and unconscious memories!) that leaves you living in the midst of a seemingly disconnected and decontextualized experience.
All three are understandable. All three are figureoutable. All three are workable.
And what’s more, understanding that can liberate you from internalising and personalising what is instead a very explainable pattern of the body and mind. You just have to know a little bit about how it works.
Onwards.
❤️ Jane
