07/25/2026
Healing sometimes shows up in the most unexpected places.
This week I noticed something that would have seemed impossible a few years ago.
My deck is covered in spiders. Windows. Doors. Railings. Everywhere.
For most of my life, spiders terrified me. Not just a healthy dislike—they triggered a genuine sense of panic.
But after remembering and processing the abuse I experienced from my father, something shifted.
I've come to realize that the spiders were never really the source of my fear.
When we live with chronic trauma, our nervous system often attaches overwhelming fear to something concrete in our environment. Sometimes it's a smell, a sound, a place... or, in my case, spiders. Their sudden, unpredictable movements mirrored the constant hypervigilance my body had learned to live with.
Now, when I look at them, I don't feel that same terror.
I simply observe.
That doesn't mean every part of my healing is complete. It means my nervous system is beginning to understand something it couldn't before:
The danger is no longer here.
Standing on my deck, watching a mother spider protecting her babies, I found myself seeing something entirely different than I would have years ago. Instead of fear, I saw protection. Instead of a threat, I saw nature carrying on exactly as it was designed to.
Healing doesn't always announce itself in dramatic moments.
Sometimes it's realizing that something which once sent your body into survival mode now simply... exists.
And in that quiet shift, you discover that your body finally believes what your mind has been trying to tell it:
You are safe.
🤍 Trauma doesn't just live in our memories—it lives in our nervous system. And when the nervous system heals, the world often begins to look different too.
Mixed Media: "Between Two Worlds" - Darla Datsenko (2025)