When the World Gets Loud, the Body Knows

Reflections on stress, resilience, and living from the body instead of the worry

In early 2025, we sensed what was coming, even if we couldn’t see how it would unfold. The warning signs were there, but the impact still found ways to surprise us. Many of the institutions we trusted quietly folded their tents. Climate chaos proved it never was theoretical. Wildly different viewpoints collided with our sense of who we are and what we stand for. Unease hovered.

What followed was a kind of vigilance. A visceral response to living in uncertainty. Bodies stayed alert even when we tried to rest. Trust thinned. We scanned for danger, for disappointment, for the next thing that might fall apart. Over time, that constant readiness took a toll. Not always in obvious ways, but in exhaustion, irritability, withdrawal, and a quiet loss of faith that things would hold.

This is how stress becomes trauma, not in one dramatic moment, but through sustained exposure to feeling unsafe, unseen, or unsupported. And it helps explain why so many pulled inward, hunkered down, or waited for the ground to steady itself before taking another next step.

Some people tuned it out as best they could. Others powered through it like a freight train. In my friends and teachers, I saw something else. They started paying attention not just to what was happening out there, but to how it was landing in their hearts and bodies. In their nervous systems. In their sleep, they experience digestion, patience, and a sense of grounded presence.

That’s not panic-inspired weakness. That’s wisdom.
"Our bodies are telling the stories we have avoided or forgotten how to hear.", "If you're willing to pay attention to and dialogue with what's happening inside of you, you'll find that your body already knows the answers." –Hillary L. McBride

This year quietly taught us that stress doesn’t live only in headlines or conversations. It lives in shoulders that won’t drop. In breath that stays shallow. In minds that keep scanning for what might go wrong next. 2025 showed us something else, too.

When we meet stress only with thinking, it multiplies. When we include the body, something begins to soften.

We learned, sometimes the hard way, that awareness isn’t about being undisturbed. It’s about being honest. Honest about what we’re carrying. Honest about what we’ve absorbed. Honest about what needs to be released. What needs to be held preciously close.

Guess what.
Overthinking didn’t save us this year.
Clenching our fists and shouting at the skies didn’t protect us.
Trying to control what we couldn’t control mostly just made us tired.

What helped, even in small doses, was coming home to ourselves.

Coming home to the body as a place of information, not judgment.
Coming home to the heart as something more than sentiment.
Coming home to the present moment, again and again, even when the world felt anything but settled.
Coming home to ourselves helps us avoid getting caught up in the swirling chaos.

This isn’t about retreating from life. It’s about resourcing ourselves so we can stay in it. Somatic practices aren’t an escape. They are a way to metabolize what we’ve been living through. To let the nervous system complete stress cycles instead of storing them. To remember that steadiness is something we can cultivate, not something we have to wait for.

As we look toward 2026, maybe the invitation isn’t to brace for impact or plan our way into certainty. Maybe it’s to build capacity.

Capacity to feel without flooding.
Capacity to care without collapsing.
Capacity to respond instead of react.

This is where mind-body awareness matters. Not as a trend or a technique, but as a way of living with a little more agency. Feeling your feet on the ground when the mind races ahead. Noticing when the breath tightens during hard conversations. Letting the body tell you when it’s had enough news, enough noise, enough effort.

We can actually make room for joyful awe too. Not the shiny kind that ignores reality, but the grounded kind that notices we’re still here. Still capable of kindness. Still able to laugh. Still able to be moved by beauty, connection, and small moments of relief.

A different kind of resolution for the year ahead might sound like this:

Less rehearsing what might be.
More inhabiting in what is.
Less living from the neck up.
More listening to the wisdom below it.

The future is still gonna be uncertain. That’s not new. What can be new is our willingness to meet it with steadier nervous systems, clearer boundaries, and hearts that haven’t gone numb. With careful attention to what the body has to tell us.

After a raucous year, coming home to yourself isn’t indulgent.
It’s how we build the energy to move forward with resilience, presence, and a little more grace.

No grand reset required.
Just a quieter, braver way of showing up for the life that’s already here.