If you feel more tired, tense, and frayed than ever—you’re not broken. You’re responding. That’s an important distinction. Because for so many of us, the past few years have made us question not just the world around us, but our own capacity to function within it. We wonder: Why am I so irritable? Why can’t I sleep? Why do I burst into tears at the smallest thing? Why does everything feel so overwhelming?

We quietly ask ourselves these questions, not realizing that others are doing the same. But the truth is, what you're experiencing isn’t a personal failing. It’s a biological, emotional, and spiritual response to what’s happening around you—and within you.

The collective weight we’re all carrying is immense. The pandemic may no longer dominate headlines, but its aftermath is still rippling through our lives. Add to that the climate crisis, political unrest, deepening inequities, economic uncertainty, and a relentless news cycle that rarely offers hope, and it’s no wonder we’re stretched thin. We’re grieving. We’re processing. And we’re trying to keep up with a world that often feels like it’s accelerating faster than we can keep pace.

If peace feels elusive, as I shared last week, then stress feels like the default setting. But there’s more to the story—and your body already knows it.

Stress Isn’t Just in Your Mind—It’s in Your Body

We often talk about stress as if it’s just a feeling—something we can “think” our way out of. But stress isn’t just psychological. It’s physiological. It lives in your body. When your brain perceives a threat—whether it’s a global emergency or a passive-aggressive email—it sends a message to your nervous system to activate a survival response. This is commonly known as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

• Fight might look like snapping at your partner or feeling easily irritated.
• Flight might look like overworking, over-scheduling, or distracting yourself from discomfort.
• Freeze often feels like numbness, indecision, or emotional shutdown.
• Fawn shows up as people-pleasing, caretaking at your own expense, or abandoning your own needs for others.

These aren’t “bad” responses. They’re adaptive. They’re your body’s way of keeping you safe in a world that often doesn’t feel safe. What makes stress chronic—and harmful—is when these responses never get resolved. When the stress cycle isn’t completed. When we don’t get to move through the tension and come back to a place of rest. Instead, we live suspended in survival mode.

And here’s the thing: trauma isn’t always one big, catastrophic event. Often, it’s the accumulation of micro-stressors. The never-ending list. The microaggressions. The unresolved conflicts. The lack of acknowledgment or validation. The absence of true safety. Over time, this disconnection from safety—especially when it’s prolonged—starts to erode our sense of self, our ability to connect with others, and our overall well-being.

Why Now Feels So Intense

So what makes this moment in time feel especially heavy? Why are we seeing record levels of burnout, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation? Several factors are converging:

1. Constant Change and Uncertainty

We are living in a time of rapid, disorienting change. From global pandemics to AI revolutions, we’re being asked to adapt faster than our nervous systems were designed to. We crave stability, but instead we get shifting guidelines, economic volatility, and existential threats. This chronic uncertainty keeps us in a heightened state of vigilance.

2. Digital Overload and Performance Pressure

Even our rest has become performative. We post our self-care routines online. We compare productivity metrics. We’re expected to be “on” at all times, reachable via text, email, Slack, and social media. We measure our worth through likes, comments, or deliverables. Our devices have become extensions of ourselves—and that tether makes it hard to disconnect or feel truly restored.

3. Loss of Community, Stillness, and Rhythm

Human beings are wired for community and rhythm. We are not meant to do life alone or on overdrive. And yet, loneliness is at an all-time high. Natural rhythms—like seasons, meal times, and sleep—are disrupted by modern life. Even stillness can feel like a luxury we’re not allowed to afford.

4. Rising Awareness of Personal and Collective Trauma

On the one hand, this is good. We’re naming and acknowledging traumas that have long been minimized or ignored. But with this awakening comes a heaviness—a reckoning. We’re seeing more clearly the systems that harm us and the ways those harms live in our bodies. It’s validating and overwhelming at the same time.

5. The Compounded Toll of Identity-Based Stress

For many of us, the weight of stress is magnified by our identities. People of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, caregivers, and those living with chronic illness or disability are often navigating multiple systems of oppression—on top of their personal challenges. This kind of layered stress isn’t just exhausting. It’s depleting on a cellular level. It chips away at our resilience, not because we are weak, but because the toll is so high.

6. Deepening Polarization and Fractured Relationships

In a world where everything feels high-stakes, many of us are sorting ourselves into ideological camps—sometimes without even realizing it. Families, friendships, and communities are fraying under the weight of political and cultural division. It’s not just disagreement; it’s disconnection. People we love may now feel like strangers. And that sense of being on “opposite sides of a war” only adds to our collective grief, isolation, and stress. Polarization doesn’t just shape our headlines—it shapes our homes, our holidays, and our hope.

So when you feel like you’re “not coping well,” remember: You’re actually responding exactly as your body was designed to respond. It’s not that you’re too sensitive—it’s that you’ve been paying attention. Your body is sounding the alarm. Not to punish you, but to protect you.

What Our Bodies Are Asking For

So what now? If the stress is real—and it is—what can we do?

The good news is that your body isn’t just the site of your stress. It’s also the path to your healing. When you start to listen to your body—not just as a vessel to be controlled or a machine to be optimized, but as a source of wisdom—you begin to find your way back to yourself. Here’s what I believe our bodies are asking for:

• Safety

Before we can thrive, we must feel safe. Not just physically, but emotionally. Safe to be ourselves. Safe to rest. Safe to feel. Creating safety means setting boundaries, seeking out affirming spaces, and reducing exposure to people, media, or environments that destabilize us.

• Slowness

Slowness isn’t laziness. It’s nourishment. Our bodies aren’t meant to rush from one task to the next. They need pauses. Transitions. Deep breaths. Allowing even small moments of slowness—like sipping tea without multitasking or pausing before responding to a message—can begin to rewire our nervous system toward calm.

• Permission

Permission to rest. To feel. To not have it all together. To opt out of hustle culture. Many of us carry internalized beliefs that we must “earn” our rest or “deserve” care. But your body doesn’t need to meet a quota before it’s allowed to breathe.

• Compassion

Shame tightens the nervous system. Compassion softens it. Self-compassion is not about letting yourself off the hook—it’s about offering yourself the grace you’d give a dear friend. It’s about choosing kindness over critique when you fall short or feel overwhelmed.

• Movement

Not as punishment. Not as productivity. But as a way to release. Shake. Stretch. Dance. Walk. Breathe. Movement is how we complete the stress cycle and come back into our bodies. It doesn’t have to look like a workout. It can be three minutes of swaying to music in your kitchen, rolling your shoulders between meetings, or stretching before bed. Your body doesn’t need you to perform for it. It needs you to partner with it.

Why I Created #MyPeacein50

Over the past year, I started to realize something: I couldn’t think or “strategize” my way out of stress. I had to feel my way through it. I had to listen to what my body was telling me—and respond with intention rather than reaction.

That’s what inspired me to create #MyPeacein50—a yearlong challenge I designed as I approach my 50th birthday. Each week during my 50^th year, I’m committing to one evidence-based peace practice. Some are simple. Some are challenging. All are meant to bring me closer to myself.

Because instead of numbing out or pushing harder, I’m choosing to listen. To my breath. To my body. To the deeper purpose that’s calling me forward. This isn’t about perfection. It’s not about curating the “right” kind of peace practice. It’s about creating a rhythm of return—coming home to yourself, one week, one moment, one breath at a time.

A Gentle Invitation

If you’ve read this far, I want to leave you with one truth: You are not alone. You are not too sensitive. You are not weak. You are not failing. You are responding—with a wise, attuned, and overstimulated body doing its best in a very complicated world. And if you’re ready to try something different—not to fix yourself, but to be with yourself—consider joining me.

Start with a breath. A pause. A moment of honesty. And if it resonates, keep showing up for yourself with compassion and care. Because peace isn’t about escaping the world. It’s about learning how to stay—present, grounded, and whole—within it.

And if you’re curious about what it looks like to explore this more deeply, join me for the #MyPeacein50 challenge—a yearlong journey of small, evidence-based peace practices during the year I’m 50. You’re invited to:

• Visit my website to find the newest MyPeacein50 practice 
•  Subscribe to receive the posts directly in your inbox every Monday morning 
• Download the free Calm Calendar to track your reflections or notes from week to week
• Follow along on Instagram or LinkedIn or share your own moments with the hashtag #MyPeacein50 (totally optional) 
• Share your own ways of coming home to yourself 

It will kick-off on July 7. You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to begin.

With care,

Lisa