It’s hard to enjoy life when you feel constantly hypervigilant. If you’ve dealt with past trauma, as – let’s face it – most of us have, you may think of the world as a dangerously unpredictable place. Instead of finding excitement in the unknown, it might seem terrifying. This is perfectly normal when you have experienced instability and chaos, especially in relation to your primary caregivers as you grew up.

Your relationship to past unpredictability can manifest either as a strong need to have security or a wish to stay in an unstable type of life because it feels familiar. Neither of those options are ideal, because they are born of trauma response. What if, instead, you could find safety inside your own skin? What if you felt strong and grounded enough that the world could move around you, as is inevitable, without shaking you?

The answer is always within you. The world is what it is, but you can change how you feel about it. Through doing work to heal yourself internally so that you feel confident and safe, you can in turn learn to accept the ups and downs of life as something that simply happens around you. You have sovereignty over how you move through your life, even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. All you can manage is yourself, and everything else is out of your control. What if you stopped desperately attempting to change that which you can’t, and instead focused on changing the way you feel about it?

It takes time, patience, and self-compassion. I’m on this journey too. I’ve been unsteady in my own self for a long time, and I’m deep in the process of transforming that wound. I don’t want to be afraid of everything. I want to be calm, peaceful, and capable of handling whatever comes my way. To be honest, the alternative is exhausting and I don’t have the energy to keep it up anymore.

As you move into self-knowledge and security, you’ll find that life actually becomes easier. It’s simpler not to stay caught up in constant drama, anxiety and fear. I hope that the small shifts encourage you to keep going. It’s worth it. You are worth it. I love you.