The storm didn’t just hit our homes & our community. It hit our nervous systems.

By: Kelly Caul

The storm didn’t just hit our homes. It hit our nervous systems.

If you feel disoriented, out of sync, exhausted, tearful, or disconnected from your body right now —
You’re not broken. You’re not being “dramatic.”
You’re having a nervous system response to a traumatic event - a collective trauma.

Your body is doing what it was brilliantly built to do: protect you.
In the face of threat and loss, we might feel:

🔸 Hyper-alert (jumpy, anxious, can’t sleep)
🔸 Shut down (numb, foggy, frozen, apathetic)
🔸 Emotionally reactive or totally flat
🔸 Guilt, shame, or grief we can’t quite name

You are not alone. Your body is wise.
Let’s practice compassion over judgment.
Let’s allow space for the full range of responses.

There is no “right way” to feel in the aftermath of crisis.
Only your way. And it is valid. 

After a collective trauma like this, care practices - care for our community and care for ourselves - become life-saving.

As we work to restore our communities, we need also need to nurture ourselves and one another. 
Here are ways we can tend to our own nervous systems — and each other’s — as we begin to process:

🌿 Nourish your body: Drink water + eat grounding food (protein, warm meals, simple carbs)

🌿 Connect in relationship: Sit with a friend. Share silence or tears. Just be together.

🌿 Let your body move slowly & mindfully: Shake, stretch, sway, cry, rest, hum, sing.

🌿 Tend to your breath, gently. Don’t force it — just return when you can.

🌿 Practice Discernment around media- your nervous system will tell you when you have capacity to take in the news & when you don’t. Your system deserves space to recover, and you will be more powerfully engaged if you tend to yourself this way.

🌿 Say no to urgency. Urgency is a survival response, Slowness is a form of resistance and repair.

🌿 Ask for help. Offer help, if you can. Reciprocity is healing.

We are not meant to heal alone.
We are not meant to carry this alone.

Continue to check out our stories for ways to volunteer and donate as you can. 

With love and care