How My Body is Responding to What’s Happening

Resilience in uncertain times

Recently, I found myself in a state of overwhelm. My nervous system was over-activated, making it hard to stay grounded. I felt tension in my throat and solar plexus, my breathing was restricted, and I could feel my body holding something more than just my own stress.

So, I sat in meditation and checked in with myself. Where was this coming from? It became clear that this was bigger than me. The sensations in my body weren’t just my own - they were connected to the collective stress, the political climate, the uncertainty of what’s unfolding in real time.

I’ve been trying to stay informed. What’s happening is unprecedented. And as a craniosacral therapist and somatic practitioner, someone who has spent decades helping people heal at a root level, I am naturally drawn to the undercurrents - the unseen forces shaping our reality. As a sensitive empath, I feel into the big picture, the patterns, the systems. And lately, it has been a rollercoaster.

At times, I feel terrified of losing the safety and infrastructure that has kept society afloat. I’ve never believed the government was perfect, but I did believe that certain structures existed to protect us. That belief is eroding. Those in power are operating above the law, shaping reality to fit their own agenda, dismantling structures with no apparent plan to replace them. Thousands of government employees have been let go.

What happens next?

- Will AI replace human workers in essential government services?

- Is our government being quietly privatized?

- Will our national parks and public lands be sold to corporations?

- Are Medicare and Social Security at risk?

- Are we moving toward a techno-corporate state where the most vulnerable are left behind?

I hold these questions in my body. I feel the grief, the concern, the frustration. My nervous system is reacting in real-time, because uncertainty is a threat to survival.

This fear isn’t just theoretical for me. It lives in my lineage.

My paternal grandmother, her sister, and their father were incarcerated in Japanese American internment camps during WWII. My grandmother’s husband, my grandfather, was serving as a U.S. Army medic in India at the same time. All of them were born in the U.S. except for my great-grandfather. Their only “crime” was their ethnicity.

They lost everything - their homes, their businesses, their belongings. They were transported to another state and forced to live in barracks. They were watched over by armed guards. My great-grandfather died shortly after arriving. My grandmother and her sister were sent to different camps. They lived behind barbed wire fences for years.

This was before my father was born, but that kind of trauma doesn’t just disappear. It can live in the body, imprinted into the nervous system, passed down through generations. Studies on intergenerational trauma and nervous system regulation are now confirming what many have always known: trauma can shape how we experience stress, fear, and safety, even if we never lived through it ourselves. I’ve seen it in my own work - the way patterns of tension, hypervigilance, or shutdown responses don’t always start with us. Sometimes, they are echoes of what came before.

And now, as I watch history repeating itself - calls for mass deportations, talk of rounding up certain groups into 'health camps' - I feel my body responding in a way that is visceral.

Am I safe? Are my loved ones safe? Can we trust that this government will protect us? My body tells me no.

It knows that manipulation, control, and self-serving interests seem to be driving many of the decisions at play. It’s hard to say whether those in power have a clear plan, or if they are simply acting out of recklessness, dismantling systems without fully grasping the consequences. Either way, my body senses the instability, the unpredictability. And yet, I also know that I cannot function in a frozen state.

Fear is natural, but I don’t want to be trapped in it. I don’t want to be over-activated, and I don’t want to shut down in helplessness. This is where I come back to my body. There is a difference between being informed and being consumed. I can acknowledge the truth of what’s happening without being controlled by it. I can recognize the weight of my lineage without being paralyzed by it. Instead, I choose to stay grounded and present.

I choose to listen deeply. To my own body, to the wisdom of those I trust, and to the voices that are speaking truth in uncertain times. If I am in freeze and fear, it is harder to hear my own knowing. And that knowing is what I will need to navigate whatever comes next.

Because history tells us that no system lasts forever. Healing usually happens in cycles. Not in a straight line, but in a spiral. We revisit what needs to be seen, but each time, we meet it with new awareness. Systems follow predictable patterns. Are we in a contraction and on the edge of an expansion? I don’t know. But I do know this: how we respond matters.

If we freeze, if we turn away, if we let fear dictate our next steps, we risk losing our agency. But if we tune in with awareness, if we anchor into our center, if we stay present with what’s unfolding, we create the conditions for something new.

We may not be able to control the bigger forces at play, but we can choose how we meet this moment. And that choice shapes what comes next.

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