What would you have done?

Stress is in the air.
There’s a lot of conflict, chaos, and a general sense of being unsettled right now. No matter who you follow, what you believe is right, or what you think is fair, it’s hard to escape the divisions woven into daily life. They show up everywhere—at the dinner table, on our news feeds, and yes, even during the Super Bowl. Your team. My team. The team.
This sense of separation feels especially sharp right now. And it leaves many of us wondering:
How do we soften the edges?
How do we become more resilient, more accommodating, more capable of sitting inside discomfort without escalating it?
How do we de-escalate situations—old ones with our families of origin, and new ones popping up every time we open our phones?
I wish I had a simple, one-size-fits-all answer. Believe me, if I did, I would have shared it long ago.
What I can share is an insight that became very clear to me during my recent time in Portugal. Being in a country where I barely spoke the language, navigating a different culture and sense of timing, encountering emergencies, storms, flooding, and nearby destruction—I saw just how much my practice has quietly prepared me for resilience.
I managed, for the most part, to keep my head on. There were moments of intense stress when I couldn’t get myself unstuck. And I count it as part of my practice that I was able to listen and follow my partner when he recognized that I was frozen and unable to make a good decision. We don’t always have to know what to do—but knowing who to listen to, and when, is essential.
So this is what I can offer you: do your practice.
Whatever it is. Whatever discipline you follow.
But here’s the important part—you can’t just make it up as you go. Find something with a proven track record. When the nervous system is overwhelmed, it will short-circuit even the best intentions. This is why the first step is always listening to your nervous system.
Sometimes it’s saying, “I’m in the weeds. I need outside assistance.”
That message is not weakness—it’s wisdom. You can’t muscle your way out of it, rationalize it away, or ignore it. It’s a gift to hear it, and it becomes your responsibility to respond.
Trust me on this: those messages get clearer the more time you spend stepping outside your habitual thought patterns—seeking the divine, your true essence, God, the Creator, whatever language resonates for you.
Yoga practice reminds us that the path to higher consciousness—meaning peace, openness, and a regulated nervous system—comes through steady, consistent practice over a long period of time (Yoga Sutras 1.12).
That’s it. No specific pose. No mantra count. No checklist.
Just show up regularly, with sincerity, over time.
It is never too late to begin.
If you’d like to start that conversation with your nervous system, join me on Wednesday for the TRE class. You may find that those messages become easier to hear—and easier to trust.