A Letter from Prue · Steady Ground: Healing in an Unsettled World – 8 Week Series
It’s Sunday morning, lovely you. Grab your cup of tea, settle in, and join me in week 2 of our new eight-week series, Steady Ground: Healing in an Unsettled World. I’m so glad you’re here.
Week 2: Where Worry Lives in the Body
Last week I asked you to place a hand wherever you feel the unsettledness most. If you tried it, you may have been surprised by where your hand went. For some people it’s the chest, or a knot in the stomach, or shoulders that have quietly crept up and stayed there. Worry may start as a thought, but it rarely stays in the mind. It finds an address in the body and moves in.
For years before my diagnosis, mine lived in my chest. There was a tightness I never questioned and a bone-deep exhaustion I blamed on being busy. I wore stress like proof that I was doing enough. After the diagnosis, it moved in properly. I would lie awake at night with fear sitting so heavily on my chest it felt like a physical weight, and I would tell myself to stop being silly and go to sleep.
What I’ve come to understand since is that my body wasn’t working against me. It was trying to tell me something, and I kept talking over it.
The Late-Night Scroll
Many of us have a ritual we don’t think of as a ritual: lying in bed with a phone, reading one more headline, then another. Lately that scroll is full of stories about what artificial intelligence will change and whose work might disappear. I understand the pull. When the world feels uncertain, we want information, as though knowing enough might keep us safe. But our nervous systems can’t tell the difference between reading about a threat and facing one. We put the phone down, and our bodies carry on bracing.
The Creek
Let me take you back to the cul-de-sac.
While Dad was busy looking over the land, I wandered down to the creek. I remember the sound of the water moving over the stones, steady and unhurried, as though it had all the time in the world. I didn’t have words for it then, but standing there, something in my small body softened. My breathing slowed and my shoulders dropped. For a few minutes, nothing needed to be done.
I’ve carried that sound with me for over forty years. On some of the hardest nights of my illness, I would close my eyes and go back to that creek. It didn’t take the fear away, but it gave my body somewhere else to rest for a little while.
I think many of us have a creek, a place or a sound or a memory where our body once felt safe. We just forget we’re allowed to go back.
Finding Your Creek
This week, give yourself a few quiet minutes each day. Sit somewhere comfortable and let your breath slow down, allowing the out-breath to be a little longer than the in-breath. Then bring to mind a place where your body once felt at ease. It might be a beach, your grandmother’s kitchen, or a garden after rain. Stay there for a while. Notice the sounds and the light. Notice whether anything in your body loosens, even slightly.
If you’re living with illness or anything that affects your breathing, go gently and follow your care team’s guidance. This isn’t about forcing calm. It’s about reminding your body that ease is still possible, because even tired, even unwell, your body still holds so much potential for peace.
Next week, in Week 3, Coming Home to Your Body, I’ll share the moment I realized I had stopped trusting my own body, and what the old trees in that cul-de-sac taught me about finding my way back.
❤️ Love
Prue
If you missed Week 1 here it is: https://pruesplace.org/steady-ground-healing-in-an-unsettled-world-week-1/
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