10:40 AM, Sunday, February 8th. I’m on my way to Dance Church at The Yoga Barn.
This is exactly why I want to capture what’s happening in the moment, because this can only be explained and made sense of while I’m actually living it.
There was lawn mowing first thing this morning. I don’t even know what time it was. There’s also a cat that lives in my Airbnb that I didn’t sign up to live with, and I’m really allergic. I’ve been woken up every single day here by surprise noise.
Right now in Bali I’m trying to find a quiet place to live because my nervous system is firing off constantly. I’ve done seven years of work and now I’m in my body. I used to be dissociated. I had no idea what was going on inside me. Now I’m acutely aware. Ever since this vibration thing, everything is amplified. My nervous system and brain are confused. Everything sets off my threat detection system. That’s developmental trauma. It takes time to rewire neural pathways, but it needs a safe space to do that.
This morning I woke up to lawnmowers. I’ve communicated with the manager that if they just let me know ahead of time, I can plan around it. I will accommodate people’s needs. Please accommodate mine. But they don’t understand.
I had to move while recording because there’s a motor running in the rice fields. That’s the level of distress I’m living with. I feel sound in my body. It throws off my threat detection system. I go into panic and I can’t settle. I have to flee. I have to run. My nervous system will not settle with sound in it.
I don’t have a baseline for safety. I was born into chaos. I don’t think there is a baseline of safety in my body. My job now is to be the competent adult I never had.
When I wake up to shock, it feels like invasion. It’s a consent thing. I do not consent to this invasion of my body. I’ve lived through so much force. So much doing uncomfortable things. Now I’m aware of it, and every little thing that enters my body, whether it’s sound or touch, feels like consent matters. Please do not touch my body. Please do not vibrate through my body.
When people touch me, I get flashes. Impressions. Emotions. Quick images about them. I know how that sounds. I was never a supernatural person. But something is happening where I can feel people deeply. Even eye contact is intense. It takes energy. I’ve trained myself to make eye contact because I sensed it made others uncomfortable if I didn’t. Now I’m choosing more intentionally who I engage with. I don’t have the capacity to take in random energy.
I need a place where my body can feel calm and regulated. But I have about four thousand dollars to survive on. I need to make money. I need security. That pressure is hanging over me. I don’t want to default back into working for someone else out of fear.
I’m ready to ground. To get into routines. To hide away in nature and only connect when I have capacity.
This theme of not having a home is huge. I’ve moved so many times. Before 15 I had lived in around 18 places. My body knows how to move and adapt. It doesn’t know how to stay.
Climate matters. I cannot live in winter. My body can’t handle cold. I have circulation issues. My extremities turn blue. Tropical places feel safer in my body.
Containment is huge for me. I need to feel held. That’s why I’m obsessed with baths. Warm water wrapped around my body is instant regulation. It’s safety.
I’m on my way to ecstatic dance. That’s how I move energy. That’s how I ground. Normally after being triggered like this, I would meditate with noise-canceling headphones, have a bath, disconnect completely. But right now my body knows it’s on its way to safety.
When you’re highly sensitive and waking up, you realize how much discomfort you’ve tolerated. Once you’re aware, you can’t unfeel it.
I know abundance is available to me. I know when I step into my power without fear, there’s a lot that will come. But my nervous system has to be able to receive it. I need to feel safe in my body so I can receive.
We are all having vastly different experiences of the world. Different genetics, cultures, nervous systems. People tell me how to be without understanding how my system works. I am the expert on me.
For years my hyperfocus was trying to fix what was wrong with me. Now I see there’s nothing wrong with me. My brain is designed this way. Developmental trauma taught me things. It dragged me through darkness, and that darkness created longing for light.
The first 35 years of my life were training. Now this is nervous system regulation season.
I’m still dysregulated driving. The noise, the traffic. I’ll need to ground before interacting with people.
I’m in a financial predicament, but I’m trusting the process. I’m checking out places. Seeing how they feel. Is this somewhere I can lock in and rest my brain?
I just want a home. A baseline. A place where my body can learn safety.
Threads
1. Noise as Nervous System Threat
Summary
I describe how everyday sounds like lawnmowers and motors trigger panic in my body. Sound overrides my cognitive processing and shuts down my ability to communicate or think clearly. I have to flee to regulate.
Lesson / Teaching
When a nervous system has no baseline of safety, sensory input becomes threat. Healing requires environments that allow the body to experience predictable, consensual stimuli so new pathways can form.
Tags
sensory-processing, hypervigilance, nervous-system-regulation, developmental-trauma, environmental-trigger
2. Consent, Invasion, and the Body
Summary
I frame noise and touch as consent violations. My history of being forced into discomfort makes my body react strongly to intrusion. Now I am hyper-aware of what enters my physical and energetic space.
Lesson / Teaching
Trauma recalibrates boundaries at the somatic level. Reclaiming consent is not ideological, it is physiological. Healing involves reestablishing bodily sovereignty.
Tags
consent, somatic-boundaries, trauma-patterns, bodily-autonomy, safety-in-the-body
3. Sensory Gifts and Energetic Sensitivity
Summary
I speak about experiencing flashes, impressions, and deep energetic reads when people touch me or make eye contact. This sensitivity feels like both a gift and a burden in a world not designed for it.
Lesson / Teaching
Heightened perception can be reframed from pathology to capacity. The task becomes learning discernment and energetic boundaries rather than suppressing sensitivity.
Tags
energetic-sensitivity, autism-experience, intuitive-perception, identity-reframe, boundary-setting
4. The Search for Home and Baseline Safety
Summary
I reflect on lifelong movement and the lack of a stable home. I recognize that my body knows how to adapt but not how to stay. I long for containment, warmth, and consistency.
Lesson / Teaching
Home is not only a location, it is a nervous system state. Stability allows the body to unlearn survival and practice safety.
Tags
home-and-belonging, nomad-life, attachment-patterns, containment, safety-baseline
5. Financial Pressure and Receiving Abundance
Summary
I name the tension between limited funds and the belief that abundance is available to me. I understand that stepping into my power requires a regulated nervous system capable of receiving.
Lesson / Teaching
Expansion without regulation overwhelms the system. Capacity to receive is built through safety, not force.
Tags
financial-stress, abundance-mindset, nervous-system-capacity, self-trust, power-and-visibility
6. From Broken to Designed
Summary
I revisit the story that I was broken and contrast it with a new belief that my brain is designed this way. Developmental trauma becomes part of the training ground rather than proof of defectiveness.
Lesson / Teaching
Reframing trauma from damage to design shifts identity from deficiency to purpose. Meaning-making changes the nervous system’s relationship to the past.
Tags
identity-reframe, developmental-trauma, post-traumatic-growth, self-concept, awakening-process
Selected Quotes
“I do not consent to this invasion of my body.”
“I don’t think there is a baseline for safety in my body.”
“Home is where my body can learn what it feels like to be consistently safe.”
“I am the expert on me.”
“There is nothing wrong with me. My brain is designed this way.”