“Your nervous system isn’t scared of success. It’s scared of more responsibility without more support.” – Caroline Middelsdorf
I’m learning, in a completely new way, what it means to listen to my nervous system—not just acknowledge it exists, but actually pay attention to what it’s telling me.
For the last 5 or 6 years, I’ve been aware of it because of my anxiety and the treatments I’ve pursued, but that awareness was flat. Almost clinical.
What I’m realising now is that my nervous system has been speaking to me in multiple languages. It doesn’t just shout in panic when I’m overwhelmed. It whispers when I’m carrying too much, tightens when I’m stepping into something without enough foundation, goes quiet when I’m running on empty.
It’s not that I’m scared of growth. I’m afraid of growing without the scaffolding to hold me—without boundaries, without rest, without help.
Success, on its own, doesn’t break us. The absence of support does. Like a tree that grows too quickly in poor soil, we can stretch toward the light only to find our roots can’t sustain the weight.
And so I’m learning to pause.
To ask myself not “Can I do this?” but “Can I do this and still feel safe in my body?”
Because I don’t want to win at the cost of my nervous system.
