In the beginning of July, I had emergency surgery on my ankle. Several fractures from a fall that required internal screws. I am non-weight bearing, stitches out, and ice and elevation mostly. I am not in a crisis. I am not in despair.
I am just still. And my nervous system feels completely unsafe.
I’ve been sitting with that (literally and figuratively). Because it doesn’t make logical sense. Nothing is wrong. Maria is here. MJ is healthy. Business is good. Everything that matters is intact. And yet there is a persistent sense of alarm running underneath the still that’s humming.
I have spent most of my adult life in motion. Forward is my natural state. I’ve built three companies, written a book, launched a speaking career, hosted a podcast, followed up on everything. Movement is not just how I work. It is how I know I am okay.
Take the movement away and I am having to ask the question: who am I when I am not doing anything?
What I come to realize is that my nervous system doesn’t know how to be still. It was never trained for it. For years, it has been regulated by motion, by output, by the next thing on my list. Remove the list and it doesn’t rest. It spikes. A nervous system that has learned motion means safety.
So, instead of resting, I decided to make the bed.
It had been weeks since I was able to make my bed. Today was that day.
Making the bed takes me a few minutes on a normal morning. Today it took forty. I crawled on my knees from one side to the other, pulling the sheets, straightening the pillows, doing the thing I always do in a way I have never had to do before.
I told myself I did it because something Admiral McRaven* once said: if you want to change the world, start by making your bed. The first small task that tells you the day has begun. I’ve always believed that. It showed to myself discipline, attention to detail, and the one constant that I could count on every day.
Although, I think that’s not why I think I made my bed on this day. I did it because my nervous system needed something to hold onto. Something it could complete. It was regulation.
Most of us will never fracture our Talus neckbone. But most of us know what it feels like when the structure that organizes our identity disappears.
The job that ends. The relationship that closes. The season of life that shifts before you’re ready. The Sunday afternoon with nothing on the schedule and the uneasy feeling of just resting on the sofa.
That unease is your nervous system looking for the thing it uses to know you are safe. And when it can’t find it, it doesn’t rest. It searches. It spikes. It fills the quiet with a low hum of alarm that has nothing to do with actual danger and everything to do with the absence of familiarity.
This isn’t weakness. It is a nervous system doing exactly what it was trained to do.
I don’t have a clear answer yet. I’m not sure I’m supposed to yet.
What I know is the bed mattered this morning. A small act of order in a season where I control almost nothing. I did it badly and slowly on my knees and it still counted.
I’m still on the couch. The hollow feeling is still there. But the bed is made. And today, that was enough.