The Story of Why

Welcome to this little corner of the world where we are learning how to decrease stress and co-regulate with Jesus as we move toward God through it all.

If you've ever been told, "You just need to decrease your stress," did that statement somehow make you feel even more stressed? I know it did for me.

It felt like someone was asking me to build a house without giving me a blueprint or the tools to do it. Where do you even begin?

My own story includes childhood trauma, multiple traumatic brain injuries from an early age, and years of abuse on my body as an athlete. Those experiences trained my nervous system to live in survival mode, remaining in the sympathetic state of fight, flight, or freeze more often than not.

Living in those survival responses slowly drained my body and disrupted the beautiful coherence God designed between my mind, body, and spirit. My mind learned to survive through unawareness because that was how it protected me. What a remarkable gift God has placed within our bodies. They are designed to protect our hearts and spirits while living in a world we were never created to carry on our own.

This realization has led me on a long journey of learning, healing, and growing.

What I have discovered is that many approaches help manage symptoms, but so much of what I was experiencing came from years of accumulated stress that my body had never been given permission to release. My body had forgotten how to truly rest, reconnect, and feel safe to heal.

Several doctors have told me that my brain and body are unfortunately years older than my actual age. Hearing those words created more fear than hope. They could identify the problem, stress will make it worse, but no one could hand me a treatment that simply said, "Here's how to decrease stress."

Thinking about becoming healthy felt overwhelming. Honestly, it still can.

So my journey became less about searching for the perfect solution and more about getting on my knees before God.

Day by day, I have asked the Holy Spirit to lead me, what to do, how to think, how to feel, what to believe, and where to place my hope. God knows me better than anyone else ever could. He is my comfort, my wisdom, and my unfailing love. He has never been shaken by my diagnosis, my fears, or my story. While I have often felt unsteady, He has remained my firm foundation.

There has also been grief.

Grief over the ways I lived without awareness.
Grief over the ways I wasn't cared for well.
Grief over the places where my body quietly carried burdens I never knew were there.

Lately, God has been inviting me into those hidden places of unawareness. Together we have been revisiting memories, relationships, emotions, and old ways of perceiving my life. Rather than bringing condemnation, He has brought compassion.

What once protected me can now become something I thank God for.

My mind and body did exactly what they were designed to do—they kept me alive.

Now, in God's kindness, I am slowly becoming aware enough to heal.

As I welcome my whole story instead of resisting it, I believe the pain and stress my body has carried for so many years can begin to loosen its grip. My hope is not simply to live longer than the predictions I've been given, but to live more fully—to experience greater peace, presence, joy, and connection with God each day I am given.

The stress of this world isn't disappearing anytime soon.

So how do we find calm in the middle of the chaos?
How do we experience peace when life continues to feel uncertain?
How do we heal while still living in a broken world?

I believe these are the questions worth asking.

My prayer is that together we would learn to live lives marked by presence instead of panic, peace instead of striving, and contentment instead of constant survival.

I don't have all the answers, but I would love to share what I am learning along the way. I would also love to hear your story. Healing is deeply personal, and I believe we learn so much from one another as we walk with Jesus together.

As we walk with God, led by the Holy Spirit and following the life of Jesus, we discover that surrender is not giving up, it is giving our stress to the One who has already overcome the world.

I hope you'll join me on the journey.