"Your nervous system gets more reactive just as your life gets more uncertain." I read that line three times.
Last month I was in Florida — family vacation, kids in tow, beach days, a spa afternoon with my daughter. By every measure, exactly what life is supposed to look like when things are good. And every single morning, before anyone else was up, I felt an electric pull to open my laptop. Not anxious. Not avoidant. Something more like: I have to get back to this.
My husband would find me there and ask, not unkindly, "What are you doing?"
I didn't have a clean answer. I still don't. But your piece just named something I've been circling — the uncertainty isn't the problem. It's that my nervous system has decided the only anchor available right now is the figuring out itself.
There's real relief in that. That this might just be the wiring — not something I need to fix.
Trying to create certainty to manage anxiety is exhausting, and ultimately ineffective. Anxiety is an overestimation of threat, and underestimation of coping strategies. Both of those need to be evaluated; and re-evaluated.
You had me at “The evidence of your own resilience has to be collected deliberately. You have to go looking for it. But it’s there.” Is so interesting how we forget our triumphs. In the Bible Samuel creates a stone, an Ebenezer, so that people will remember the miracle of crossing the Jordan.
The catastrophe machine is a smart system doing the wrong job for the right reason. It was hired during a season when scanning the field for danger was the way you stayed safe in the room you were in. Retirement does not deactivate the contract, it just removes the original predator, and the system goes looking for a lion in the grass because that is what it knows how to find.
I love, Ellen, how you combine both the scientific reasons along with the emotional realities. I just had a conversation today (almost 2 hours) with a friend who want to start her own Substack. She just described her husband as someone who can't move until every last detail is planned out. Both she and I are the opposite. Take a step forward and see what happens. Anyway, I'm going to share this article with them. The timing is too perfect. But them, I believe heartily in synchronicity. Thanks for a great read. Blue💙
Sooo good and I really needed to hear this. The uncertainty feels like a threat, and the more you think about the more you feel that. Thank you so much for sharing this
Oh, you make SO MUCH SENSE! Feel like i'm wandering aimlessly through a brain that used to fire on all cylinders. Since retiring i feel lost, detached
Saving your post to read again (and again...) and again. I see all the "life coach" and "fix yourself" offers and know my success in any of those ventures would be limited and fleeting.
I needed this question today - “What do I know for certain today?”
"Your nervous system gets more reactive just as your life gets more uncertain." I read that line three times.
Last month I was in Florida — family vacation, kids in tow, beach days, a spa afternoon with my daughter. By every measure, exactly what life is supposed to look like when things are good. And every single morning, before anyone else was up, I felt an electric pull to open my laptop. Not anxious. Not avoidant. Something more like: I have to get back to this.
My husband would find me there and ask, not unkindly, "What are you doing?"
I didn't have a clean answer. I still don't. But your piece just named something I've been circling — the uncertainty isn't the problem. It's that my nervous system has decided the only anchor available right now is the figuring out itself.
There's real relief in that. That this might just be the wiring — not something I need to fix.
Trying to create certainty to manage anxiety is exhausting, and ultimately ineffective. Anxiety is an overestimation of threat, and underestimation of coping strategies. Both of those need to be evaluated; and re-evaluated.
You had me at “The evidence of your own resilience has to be collected deliberately. You have to go looking for it. But it’s there.” Is so interesting how we forget our triumphs. In the Bible Samuel creates a stone, an Ebenezer, so that people will remember the miracle of crossing the Jordan.
The catastrophe machine is a smart system doing the wrong job for the right reason. It was hired during a season when scanning the field for danger was the way you stayed safe in the room you were in. Retirement does not deactivate the contract, it just removes the original predator, and the system goes looking for a lion in the grass because that is what it knows how to find.
I love, Ellen, how you combine both the scientific reasons along with the emotional realities. I just had a conversation today (almost 2 hours) with a friend who want to start her own Substack. She just described her husband as someone who can't move until every last detail is planned out. Both she and I are the opposite. Take a step forward and see what happens. Anyway, I'm going to share this article with them. The timing is too perfect. But them, I believe heartily in synchronicity. Thanks for a great read. Blue💙
I loved this, thank you
Sooo good and I really needed to hear this. The uncertainty feels like a threat, and the more you think about the more you feel that. Thank you so much for sharing this
Oh, you make SO MUCH SENSE! Feel like i'm wandering aimlessly through a brain that used to fire on all cylinders. Since retiring i feel lost, detached
Saving your post to read again (and again...) and again. I see all the "life coach" and "fix yourself" offers and know my success in any of those ventures would be limited and fleeting.