I keep looking back, long after I know it’s time to turn around, and watch as I leave the familiar island.

The water churns,

the vapour cool as it reaches my skin,

keeping me from drifting too far into memory.

I stand there,

eyes fixed on the shrinking shoreline.

Each second it gets further away.

Heart in my ears, beating:

Fear.

Hope.

Fear.

Hope.

A slow ache accompanies me.

Then silence.

That sort of silence you get on a snow day,

when the sound gets swallowed up.

Quite a relief, really.

I’m going to miss that place.

I take in a deep breath.

Fill my lungs with sea-air goodness.

Slightly dizzy and wobbly.

I tear my eyes away from the shrunken view

and turn towards the other one.

So much space ahead.

Breathing space.

I see the horizon.

And for once,

my heart and stomach agree on this direction.

The bird can be heard before seen. Slightly annoying, it’s so loud.

Where the fuck is it? I wonder.

Bloody thing is doing my head in.

I tune in. This is nature after all. Better listen.

I pick up the rhythm of its call.

Four calls.

Pause.

5 calls.

Pause.

Its loud, almost piercing my ears, but the light in the sky is kind of cool.

Somewhere further back, another bird calls in response — hidden, but present.

A return.

Same tune.

Jesus, the sky looks painted by an old cathedral hand,
pastel pinks and washed gold against the blue evening canvas.
Alive colours.

I don’t normally go for pastel. But this backdrop looks good enough to stare at for a while.

The air still carries the chill of the in-between season.
Not winter anymore, but not yet warm enough to fully soften the the muscles.

A tear escapes without warning.

No build-up.
Just a quiet overflow, slipping free before it can be stopped.

Why does grief takes so long to loosen its grip?
Why, even now, small shifts move about inside us: moments of lightness, warmth, possibility and then they disperse as quickly as they arrive?

Why is it so hard to hold onto these lighter moments?

Yet, the darkness seems to linger more stubbornly.

Let the tear fall anyway.

No waiting to be alone.
No angry smoke screens.
No sorry for feeling.

The birds continue calling to one another across the evening sky.
One voice singing out.
Another answering back

Maybe this is what healing sometimes looks like in real time —
not the disappearance of grief,
but the slow discovery that we can remain beside it without asking ourselves to carefully step aside from it.

The light stretches a little longer now each evening.
Almost miss it happening.

Until one day…
the season has already begun to change.

The memory folds left on paper.

Every fold leaves a trace.

Even when you open it back out,

the lines remain — quiet, precise, visible.

We spend years learning how to fold.

Fold to fit.

Fold to stay.

Fold to survive the room, the tone, the look, the moment.

Sharp creases where we needed structure.

Soft ones where we needed to bend without breaking.

And if you’re really good at it,

you can become something intricate, impressive…

and completely unlike the sheet you started as.

Sounds alright, doesn’t it?

Until you forget your original shape.

Learning to unfold parts of ourselves

can feel as painful as it sounds.

The body becomes contorted, stiff and creaking.

Who are we if we are not this shape anymore?

Sometimes unfolding feels liberating.

Sometimes it feels blank.

Like standing over an empty page,

waiting to remember your own thoughts.

Unfolding is a bit like map reading.

Running your fingers along each crease

and realising:

Shit, that wasn’t random.

It wasn’t weakness.

It was design under pressure.

Some folds you keep.

They hold strength — like old beams holding a house upright.

Some you ease open slowly,

because they were never meant to stay that tight.

And some…

you don’t fight at all.

You just let the paper relax.

Folding is a skill.

Unfolding is letting go.

So much harder.

Anyone can be taught to fold:

precision, repetition, control.

But unfolding needs something else:

Patience.

Permission.

Awareness.

Courage.

A willingness to see what’s actually there

after years of shaping yourself

into what you thought you were meant to become.

Closing

So, I reckon origami isn’t just about shapeshifting.

It’s about the movement between pressure and release.

Form and freedom.

About folding ourselves over and over

until we can’t anymore —

then slowly opening back up

to whatever remains underneath the creases.

Not perfect.

Not untouched.

Just real.

A real map.

Your map.

Old pattern
well-worn, churned-up ground.
Steps already synced with the old GPS.
The body moves on autopilot
before the mind has time to think of another route.

But -
slow down enough and...

there’s a counter thought,
an annoyingly quieter option.
Signposting a different path,
at first not fully visible, barely audible -
but open. New.

The two don’t cancel each other out.
They meet.
Friction and choice.
Pull and push,
navigating side by side.

It could be an old song stuck on repeat,
playing the sound of “don’t bother.”
An initial low hum,
increasing in tempo and volume over time.

It doesn’t change its tune.
It surges.

Until
all other possibilities are drowned out.

It becomes the daily theme song.
Easy to move to.
Easy to follow.

But what about that other rhythm?

Barely audible

No performance.
No pressure.
No crashing crescendos.

Just a quieter bass note.
A heartbeat.
Tapping out a rhythm of:
“this way, if you want.”

Easy to miss.
There in the back.

It doesn’t promise comfort.
It doesn’t fight for control.
It leaves space.

Choice isn’t dramatic.
It’s a pause.
A brief stillness 𝄐

a beat between instruction and instinct.

And…
a small shift.

Not a massive jump.
Not a cracking transformation.

Just movement.

Toward something that builds
instead of drains.

A step that wasn’t taken yesterday.

Nothing loud. Nothing to prove.
But not automatic.

The old road got us this far.
The new one is quieter.

That’s enough to change direction.

It can stay too long,
Might feel like you can’t or don’t want to shift it.

A tenant that won’t leave -
if you fight it.

It comes in through the cracks.

Even through the boarded up parts.

Doesn’t fix the lights when they go.
Doesn’t respond to an official notice.

Just sits there.

Dark.

Ignore it,
and it doesn’t budge.

It spreads…

Into the mind.
Into the body.
Into every room there is to find.

It can feel heavy as a heap of shit waste.

Growing, steaming each time a new load is offloaded.

Won’t move,
unless you face it.

Shovel in hand.

The mouth closes tight. Nose offended.
The chest locks.
Appetite for life - gone.

Legs that were made to move
turn to lead.

Grief doesn’t rush out.

It waits.

And it wants something simple -

To be met.

As I sit with mine.

Neither black nor light — just grey.
Facade removed from the building.
No longer lit up.

Just tired, for a while.

The weight sits on my stomach.
My jaw locked.

Chest slow, rising, dropping.
I can barely feel myself breathing.

Eyes no longer bothered.

And then something eventually breaks through.

A neighbour.

Her wheelie bin dragging through the mud.

Stop.
Start.
Stop again.

No momentum.

She’s struggling with it.

We talk.
We cry.
We laugh.

She remembers a life built with someone else.

Decades of it.

And now she’s left with the pieces of herself.

“I gave my life to this,” she says.
“And now what?”

Now she’s here,
with her stubborn garden bin.

But she keeps moving it.

Step by step.
Slow.
Heavy.

Grief in the body.

Weight everywhere.

And still… movement.

Final Thought

Grief lives in the body.

Heavy.
Stubborn.

But not immovable when it’s met with strength and courage to acknowledge it in all its phases.

Part of the series “Grief in the Body.”
Next: Grief in Everyday Life.

Kelly Giles

Registered Counsellor based in Reading

At times, there can be very little feeling.

Except the quiet barriers of the mind,
holding things back from moving too far ahead.

It does this to protect.

There can be an impulse to go full steam ahead…
plan, panic, doubt, dream, feel.

Then something slows it down.

Don’t move too fast.
You’ll crash.

One step at a time.

Grief doesn’t arrive with a video doorbell, or a polite knock.
It doesn’t leave once it’s crashed through the door.

It can flatten a person
with the sheer weight and force of it.

How long can someone stay down?

Life carries us on.
Wheels keep turning.

How do we feel enough
to move through it
without letting ourselves drown?

The mind can feel like a DAM.

Controlling when the system fills.

Preventing a flood.

Storing.

But what about the body?

All that energy, held there.

Contained.

What does the body say to this?

The body doesn’t hold it in one place.

It can be everywhere.

In the eyes.
The throat.

The chest.
The spine.

The stomach.
The legs.

But the ache often settles in the heart.

And from there, it moves.

Like a river.

It rises, and finds its way out through the eyes.

On the way, it passes through memories.
Grief from before,
grief not yet recognised as grief.

Places revisited.
Moments remembered.

The body knows.

It remembers what the mind could not hold at the time.

And in those moments, there can be a quiet recognition:

that this feeling has been here before.

________________

This piece is part of a series exploring grief in its different forms.

In the moment, it can feel like nothing.

And no-thing is a feeling we all recognise.

What does nothingness feel like?

Shit.

Some of us know what we do to reach it.
Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid it.

There’s lots of money pointed at nothingness.

Feeling it. Escaping it.

So the subtle devastation of nothingness describes this edge of grief so well.

A kind of vacuum.

A black hole.

If something is too painful, too much to process in the moment, the nervous system moves into shock.
Give us an anaesthetic.
Numbs the area before repair.

How it might feel to when the anaesthetic wears off

Sort of moving through the day as if the lights have dimmed.
The sound is muffled.
The HD has been switched off.

Autopilot takes over.

Moments replay on repeat.
Sometimes harsh, jagged, filled with hurt, regret, anger, doubt.
Sometimes warm, now lost.

A sense of moving away from what once was,
into something that is no longer.

A shift.

Pain comes after the nothingness.
A return to feeling.

Deep.
From bone to skin.

Not welcome at first.

But when you remember that feeling something means we are alive,
then maybe it’s meant to be felt.

Allowed to move through.

Necessary, in its own way,
for us to move forward.

It doesn’t move in a straight line.

We can go from feeling nothing
to feeling everything,
sometimes in the same day.

Finding a middle ground takes time.

Often it’s not found in doing more,
or escaping the feeling,
but in returning to something ordinary.

A small moment.
A familiar rhythm.

Life, as it is.

Grief doesn’t need to look a certain way to be real.

Sometimes it is just the body recognising that something mattered.

Part of the series “Grief in the Body.”
Next: When Grief Feels Everything.

I come and go,
no warning sign.

I confuse you - everything looks fine,
eyes far behind.

I stop the air,
hold down the heart.
Sometimes the engine just won’t start.

Containment

Frozen body,
wandering mind.
Something undefined.

It brews inside, nowhere to go.
Will this carry a blow?

A feeling of unease before a storm.
Packed away, contained - feigned calm.

Stay away, stay away.
Not now, not today you say.

Release

I find a gap in this tiny box.
There I breathe, not stopped.

I swirl around
and around,
move up and down.

Truth

If I am heard,
I move.

I move,
I breathe…

Ease

Don’t hear me,
I freeze.
Cold. Heavy.
Carried deep underneath.

Closing

Meet me, we return.
Contain me, I take us down.

A short series exploring how our bodies respond to threat, and how we find our way back to ourselves.

Choose any order -

• Part 1 - Freeze

• Part 2 - Flight

• Part 3 - Fawn

• Part 4 - Fight

• Part 5 - Returning to Regulation

“5 senses in 60 seconds”.

That can help in the moment when the nervous system is moving towards shutdown or overwhelm.

But returning to regulation is not something that happens instantly or permanently through a single technique.

It is more like working a muscle.

The quick tools can bring us back enough to breathe, to pause, to create a little space. But the deeper return, the one that begins to settle into the body, comes through repetition over time, and of course, the motivation to help ourselves.

Like any learning process really - it needs willpower, time and practice, learning to come back to ourselves again and again until it becomes as natural as our mindbody intended.

How it can feel in the body

Firstly, we might begin to feel open to the experience of being back in control of our nervous system.

This can be a subtly powerful shift. When all systems are activated, we can feel overwhelmed, pulled out of ourselves.

Learning to bring ourselves back, even in small ways, begins to change that.

In the moment, grounding ourselves can look like -

Getting close to the ground (funny that)
Focusing on the breath (consciously)
Noticing what is around us through the senses
Allowing the body to move - shaking it off, stretching, humming, etc.

We are returning to our instincts.
Listening to what we need.

Truly listening.

Not necessarily following a tick list, but finding the natural flow of how we are designed to move through threat in a safe way.

It can be hard to recognise this at first.

“Don’t tell me to breathe or smell the coffee, I know these things,” one might think.

And that’s true.

But in moments of overwhelm, the nervous system isn’t looking for something profound.

It is looking for something simply… ordinary.

Something steady.
Unchanged - like the Sun, although sort of unreliable here in UK, so the rain or whatever weather system is mainly predictable in your homeland.

Our mind will begin to register that.

Ordinary means, right now, in this moment nothing is crumbling.

Over time, as we learn this again and again, something deeper begins to settle.

We start to recognise that we can return to ourselves.
That we are not completely at the mercy of our thoughts and suffering; we can shift ourselves through it each time, often quicker than the last.

And then something else opens.

Not just control, but awareness - space, a clearing, room to see, feel, build or plant something.

The simple things begin to register again:

Sunrise, sunset,
the moon, the stars,
clouds moving - incessant rain,
Easyjet planes overhead,
birds, animals rustling,
the smell of the season changing.

Ordinary life, but felt.

Closing thought

Regulation isn’t something we achieve once.

It’s something we practice.

Until the body begins to trust we can return back to ourselves.

__________

Note

Part of the series “Four Ways the Nervous System Protects Us.”

When the nervous system senses threat, the body mobilises to protect itself. Muscles tighten, breath changes, the heart beats faster. The system prepares to move toward the threat rather than away from it.

Reflection
For some people, especially those who grew up in environments where anger or boundaries were not allowed or ignored, initially that protective energy has nowhere to go.

The body still generates it, but expressing it is unsafe. So the person learns to keep a calm face, a neutral body, and push the energy inward.

That internalised fight response can feel like pressure building inside the body - a surge that wants to move but cannot.

It is one of the most uncomfortable emotional states to carry: being ready to defend yourself while having to remain completely still.

When protective energy has no outlet, it can turn inward as tension, numbness, or confusion about one’s own anger.

Closing thought
Fight is not the enemy of healing. In its healthy form it becomes something much quieter: the ability to set a boundary, to say no, to protect one’s own space without losing connection to oneself and others.

Sometimes the work of healing is not learning to suppress fight, but learning how to use it safely.

Part of the series “Four Ways the Nervous System Protects Us.”
Next: Part 5 - Returning to regulation.

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The fawn response appears when the nervous system senses that safety may depend on keeping connection with the person who holds power. Instead of fighting or fleeing, the nervous system adapts.

People may become agreeable, attentive, accommodating. They read the room carefully. They soften their own needs in order to keep the relationship stable.

From the outside this can look like kindness or an easy-going nature.

Inside, it is often a strategy for safety.

Reflection
Many people who developed a strong fawn response learned early on that conflict was threatening, and that expressing their needs or wants could lead to rejection, punishment, or withdrawal of love.

So the nervous system becomes skilled at maintaining the relationship. The person learns to anticipate others’ needs, smooth over tension, and keep the emotional temperature of the room low key.

Over time, this response can make it difficult to recognise one’s own wants or boundaries. It becomes familiar — and we can lose sight of who we are and what we need to stay connected.

Closing thought

Fawn is not weakness. It is an intelligent response to environments where connection had to be preserved at all costs. Often in childhood carried into adulthood (if left unattended).

Healing often involves restoring parts of ourselves that had to be set aside, and learning to stay connected to others without abandoning who we are.

Part of the series “Four Ways the Nervous System Protects Us.”
Next: Part 4 - Fight

When the nervous system senses danger, it doesn’t always shut down. Sometimes it mobilises energy to escape.

The body prepares to move.

Heart rate rises.
Breathing quickens.
Attention sharpens.

In the natural world this response is immediate and purposeful - something we can still see in our slightly wild but domestic companions such as horses, cats and dogs.

When the threat passes, they shake it off. The body settles again.

In modern life, the pattern can become difficult to recognise.

The urge to move remains, and can get stuck when there is nowhere to run.

What Flight Can Look Like

Flight doesn’t always look like panic.

Often it looks like motion.

Constant busyness.
Productivity that feels urgent rather than steady.
Moving quickly from one task to the next.

Sometimes it shows up in small ways: leaving conversations early, stepping out of rooms, checking a phone repeatedly, reaching for another activity before the last one has finished.

From the outside, flight can often look like productivity.

The person appears active, capable, efficient.

But underneath the movement there can be a quiet sense that stopping might allow something uncomfortable to catch up.

So the body keeps moving.

Why the Body Does This

Flight is one of the nervous system’s oldest survival strategies.

When danger is detected, the body releases energy to create distance between itself and the threat.

Adrenaline moves through our system.
Muscles prepare for action.
Attention scans the environment.

It is an ancient, intelligent response.

Without it, many of our ancestors would not have survived.

The nervous system does not ask whether a threat is modern or ancient. It simply responds to the signals it perceives.

The Modern Version of Flight

Today the we experience are often less visible.

Deadlines.
Uncertainty.
Conflict.
Old beliefs that continue to echo long after the original moment has passed.

The body may still respond with movement.

Planning the next step.
Solving problems quickly.
Starting new projects.
Filling the day with activity.

Sometimes distraction becomes part of the pattern: phones, conversations, new ideas, endless improvement.

The movement can feel productive, even necessary.

But underneath it there may still be a quiet sense of urgency.

As though something is unfinished.

This is the body responding to a survival pattern that never fully completes.

When Flight Moves Into the Mind

For many of us, the running eventually shifts from the body into the mind.

Thoughts begin to speed up.

Old criticisms return.
Beliefs that once felt true begin replaying themselves.

A familiar urgency appears - the sense that something needs to be fixed, solved, or escaped.

If it goes unnoticed, the mind can build a trench very quickly.

Before you realise it, the thoughts begin to set like cement, and you’re building foundations with old beliefs.

Awareness can notice this before we allow our thoughts to set.

To begin with, that awareness arrives through a small pause.

Relaxing the jaw.
Letting the shoulders drop.
Taking a slower breath.

Sometimes it means standing up and stretching.

Sometimes it means stepping outside and listening to whatever is happening in the natural world - wind moving through trees, birds calling, distant sounds of ordinary life continuing.

Ordinary.

Just enough space for the nervous system to recognise that the present moment is safe.

The thoughts begin to slow.

The body settles.

The running stops.

Learning to Stay

Flight once helped the body survive.

It carried people away from danger and towards safety.

In modern life, the response does not always disappear but it can become easier to recognise.

Movement still happens.

And awareness arrives sooner.

More often, with practice.

The practice is not to eliminate the response, but to notice it early enough that the body can choose something different.

A pause.
A breath.
A moment of stillness.

PRESENCE.

Practising these ordinary moments during a threat response can begin to open a new pathway - less familiar, less worn, but clearer.

This is where regulation begins.

Flight once helped the body run.

The practice now is learning when it is safe to stay and explore on your own terms.

__________

Note

This piece is part of a series exploring how the nervous system organises experience.

Part 1: Freeze

Part 2: Flight

Part 3: Fawn (coming next)

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There are a lot of places to talk about trauma — thankfully.

There are fewer places to talk about what comes after it.

After the adrenaline drops.
After the threat passes.
After you realise you’re not in survival anymore — but your body still remembers.

This space is for that.

I’m a trained counsellor, writing from both practice and real life.

What interests me now isn’t over performance or dramatic transformation.

It’s steadiness.

It’s what happens in ordinary life when you’re no longer on alert.

It’s how the nervous system shows up in life: relationships, money, parenting, love, work, grief, health, quiet mornings before the house wakes up, and evenings when it sleeps.

Here, I’ll write about:

– Regulation in real situations
– Rebuilding identity after depletion
– The body as information
– Sustainable work
– Ordinary courage
– The practical side of recovery

Nothing abstract.
Just putting ourselves into practice.

In real life.

If you’ve already named your survival and are now learning how to live beyond it, you’ll feel at home here.

One steady piece each week.
Calm. Clear. Grounded.

Building, reclaiming, restorating self.

Brick by brick.

_

If you’d like to begin with a deeper exploration of how the nervous system organises experience, you can start with Part 1: Freeze here.

Part 1: Freeze

Part 1 - What Freeze Can Feels Like

Most of us understand fight or flight.
Freeze is less discussed... more misunderstood; more frozen.

Freeze is not weakness.

It is the nervous system applying the brakes when action feels unsafe.

Freezing over - What It Can Feel Like


Jaw tight or buzzing

Breath shallow and high

Limbs heavy or numb

Thoughts foggy or distant

Time slowing

A sense of “going still” even if the mind is active

This is dorsal shutdown — a protective response.

The Misinterpretation leading to -

Afterwards, people often feel shame.

“Why didn’t I say something?”

“Why didn’t I move?”

Freeze response is not a character flaw.
It is a survival strategy.



The Thaw Post Freeze

The shift back can be subtle.
Often it begins with warmth in the chest.

A sense of expansion.

Breath moving lower.

Perspective widening.

Some people describe colour returning,

or the mind feeling cooler and clearer.

This is not dramatic recovery.
It is the nervous system re-engaging

Co-Regulation (connection with life)

Freeze often softens in connection. Examples of this are can be -


Conversation.

Being heard.

Shared thinking.


This is not dependency.
It is biology. Humans regulate in relationship.

We are not machines designed for solitary survival.

_______________

Note

Part of the series “Four Ways the Nervous System Protects Us.”

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