What If Your Body Was Trying to Stabilize You?

Tonight, I lit a candle.
Wrapped myself in a blanket.
And let the evening become quiet.

In that quiet, something came into view.

For some time now, I’ve noticed small changes.
Eating a little more.
Carrying a little more weight.
Feeling heavier in my body.

And quietly, I judged myself.

I wondered what I was suppressing.
Why I couldn’t seem to “get it together.”
Whether I had somehow been holding myself back.

But tonight another possibility appeared.

What if my body was not failing me?

What if it was stabilizing me?

The last decade of my life has not been steady.
At times, it has felt like living beside a wrecking ball, watching familiar structures swing and fall, one after another.

Some seasons asked for quiet rebuilding.
Others arrived like sudden weather, rearranging everything.

It has been a long stretch of learning how to remain standing while the ground beneath me kept shifting.

When life moves that way, the body pays attention.

It braces.
It monitors.
It holds.

A nervous system under prolonged uncertainty looks for ways to create stability.

And sometimes stability looks different than we expect.

More food can be grounding.
More weight can feel anchoring.
More substance can feel like ballast.

Not as punishment.
Not as weakness.

As protection.

What if the extra weight was not something to shame?

What if it was my body adding steadiness while I was absorbing emotional shock?

Another question followed close behind.

Have I really been playing small?

Or have I been conserving energy in places that did not feel fully safe?

Conserving is not shrinking.

It is pacing.
It is discernment.
It is knowing when to stay measured while life finds its footing again.

Maybe what I interpreted as limitation was actually adaptation.

Maybe my body and my spirit have been quietly working together to carry more than I consciously realized.

Earlier today, I had a small moment with my body.

Nothing dramatic.
No declarations.

Just a brief wave of appreciation.

And now I understand why it mattered.

My body has been on my side.
Holding me together while I continued to show up for life.

Tonight, there is no distaste for my weight.

No vow to fix.
No dramatic swing toward exposure.

Just understanding.

Just compassion.

Just a candle, a blanket, and the quiet recognition that sometimes the body does what it needs to do so the heart can keep showing up.

If you have been carrying more than you realized…
If your body has changed in ways you didn’t fully understand…
If you have been bracing longer than you meant to…

Perhaps you are not failing.

Perhaps you have been stabilizing.

And perhaps seeing that clearly is where gentleness begins.

Another quiet reflection from the lantern.

— DeAn’Na

Sometimes the body is simply trying to keep us from capsizing.