When life asks for more than we have…

A friend sent me pictures from 2016. Not these exact photos, but the same feeling.

Our girls, not yet one. Big eyes. Soft smiles. Moments that look happy.

When I look at photos from that time, it almost feels like amnesia. I think I was there.  It looks sweet. 

I remember it being really hard and beautiful. Glennon Doyle calls it brutalful. 

But when I try to recall what it actually felt like in my body? Hazy. Narrow. Fragmented. Like I was there, but not fully inhabiting myself.

When demands exceed resources, the nervous system narrows experience. Even when there's joy, connection, and wonder sitting right alongside the hard. Not as a flaw, as protection. Full sensation would be too much. We do what we have to do to keep going.

This is part of survival physiology and it can show up in work, in health challenges, in phases of parenting, in relationships, and in seasons of change. 

Right now, people across the US are responding in all the ways survival physiology shows up: some are organizing and protesting, some are hiding or fleeing, some are frozen in overwhelm, some are trying to stay safe by staying small or compliant.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a chosen response and what's an adaptive reaction that kicks in to help us navigate what feels unnavigable.

There's often an expectation in these moments that we should take it all in. That if something matters, we should be able to think clearly, feel deeply, take all the right actions. But that's generally not how survival physiology works.

Our nervous systems were designed to navigate communities of 150-250 people. To grieve together, to celebrate together, to support one another with what we're all meeting together. Now we're aware of contrast across the entire world: suffering and solidarity, cruelty and courage, abundance and loss and all the grey in between. 

As I said above, when the pain is enormous, whether it's yours directly or you're holding what's happening to others, sometimes the only way through is to turn the volume down on everything. 

Other times, when you have more support and capacity, you can feel the full range: the grief and the beauty, the rage and the tenderness. You can use your anger for clear action on behalf of your heart. 

I often return to Brigit Viksnins' exact phrase: "Small doable pieces over time."  It often doesn't feel like enough. But it is the way forward (IMO).

In this very moment, with the support I have, I can find small doable pieces of action and care.  I can find places to donate, reps to call, and ways to act with more clarity than I could five or ten years ago. My system has enough space to stay present with myself (most of the time), my family, my friends, and begin extending into our neighborhoods. 

Capacity isn't linear, and it isn't permanent. Hard things happen and sometimes we rise up. Sometimes the same hard things diminish our ability to do anything at all. Both responses are physiological.

When I look back at my postpartum period, one of the reasons I made it through was support. A few steady people walking alongside me (like the friend who sent me pictures last week). Not fixing. Not rushing meaning. Just being there.

I share this email to de-shame various survival responses and to amplify the importance of community.

If you're in a season where things feel narrow, where time blurs, where you know something matters but can't quite orient: your body is protecting you. It's holding you together in the only way it knows how with the resources you have.

And if you're able to step forward right now, to show up as support, as a friend, as an ally, you are needed. And you need support too.

In nervous system work, whenever we can, we orient, stabilize, address a piece of the challenge, then stabilize again. It's a cycle, not a straight line. Tending to your own regulation, finding grounding practices, building in rest, isn't optional. It's what allows us to keep showing up.