When the Ground Gives Way

There are seasons when life removes the illusion of control, when the scaffolding that holds your sense of safety simply disappears. You think you’re doing well, managing everything, staying grounded… until something shifts beneath you and your nervous system tells the truth your mind won’t say out loud.

Recently my foundation disappeared.

My home, the place where I regulate, rest, and reset, was suddenly uninhabitable. Overnight I lost privacy, order, rhythm, autonomy, and choice. I couldn’t plan. I couldn’t prepare. I couldn’t fix what was broken or even tuck the chaos out of sight. I could only wait until others decided it was done.

What I didn’t expect was how much my body would react. Outwardly I stayed calm, logical, composed. But migraines, clenched shoulders, and that constant background tension made it clear: my mind compartmentalized… but my body was overwhelmed.

And because I couldn’t control anything out there, I reached for control in the places I still could.

For me, that looked like buying things.
Organizing future order because I could not create present order.
Reaching for soothing through consumption when I couldn’t find it through space or stillness.

It wasn’t about the purchase.
It was about nervous system relief.

This is what I hadn’t seen clearly until now: when I feel powerless, I regulate through acquiring. When my environment feels chaotic, I try to buy myself the feeling of safety. And even when I know this sabotages bigger goals, like paying off debt, survival patterns don’t care about long-term healing.

They care about immediate relief.

That’s the moment the Ten of Swords energy arrived, not as catastrophe, but as revelation.

The “end of illusion” moment. The place where a coping mechanism can no longer hide behind justification and becomes visible enough to witness honestly.

Not the collapse itself ,
but the clarity that comes when it’s finally undeniable.

This month hasn’t been the rebuilding.
It has been the seeing.

The humbling truth of recognizing where I grasp for safety instead of receiving it.
The realization that nervous system coping is not a character flaw, it’s a signal.

I’m not through it yet.

I’ve just returned home. Everything is back in order — furniture restored, closets organized, belongings returned to their rightful place. On the surface, life has settled. The container has been reassembled. And yet… my body is still remembering safety.

Because coming home is not the same as feeling home again.
The space is reset — but my nervous system hasn’t fully exhaled.

I am still learning what groundedness looks like when it is not tethered to environment or control, when it lives inside the body rather than the room it stands in. But I can feel the doorway opening: the shift from reacting to witnessing, from automatic pattern to conscious choice.

Awareness is the beginning of release.

It’s in the moment we recognize the pattern that we stop being ruled by it.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤︎