The Hidden Part that needs Healing
For the past few weeks, I’ve been carrying a tightness in my chest an anxiety I couldn’t quite name. It would rise and fall like a quiet wave, sometimes subtle, sometimes loud and consuming. I kept brushing it off, telling myself it was just work stress or the changing seasons. But deep down, something more was stirring.
In meetings at work, I found myself feeling on edge. I looked around the room and noticed, once again, I was the only person of colour. A familiar but unspoken discomfort crept in a discomfort I’ve known in different shapes and settings over the years. One I’ve learned to push down in order to remain professional, composed, unshaken. But this time, I couldn’t quite push it down. My body felt tense. My breath shortened. My smile strained.
I began noticing the unease seeping into other areas of my life too. On evening walks with my husband, a routine that usually brought me peace, I found myself changing course or reaching out for his hand whenever a group of lads walked towards us. There was no clear threat. These were streets I knew. But my body was sending me signals. It didn’t feel safe. It didn’t feel settled. Something old was being reawakened.
Seeking grounding, I went to a women’s circle a space that normally nourishes me, holds me, reminds me of sisterhood. And yet, I left feeling more anxious than before, that had never happened, again I was reflecting I was the only woman of colour. It left me wondering: What is going on? Why does nothing feel safe right now?
I sat with these questions. I asked them gently, without rushing to fix or solve.
Maybe it’s the season of change, I thought. The quiet shift happening in my body. The subtle crossing from the mother phase of life into the wise woman. Ha! That gave me a soft laugh, and yet even that felt emotionally raw. It’s a strange thing to sense yourself changing, becoming, shedding old skin. But still, the anxiety remained.
Then, a safeguarding issue came up at work. Nothing new. I’ve had difficult conversations with parents many times in my role, again being a woman of colour was coming up for me. But this time, the anxiety surged to another level. It took over my body. I felt hot, overwhelmed, unable to focus. Something inside me said: This isn’t just about the work. I knew I had to return to my tools: breathing, journaling, meditation. I reached for stillness, for guidance, for clarity.
And then there it was. A lightbulb moment. A memory surfaced, sharp and vivid.
Just a few weeks ago, I was reversing my car when a white, middle-aged man began banging loudly on my window. His daughter had stepped out of their gate onto the pavement, and I hadn’t seen her. I apologised through the glass, but my heart was pounding. His anger felt heavy. Disproportionate. Familiar. And something in me collapsed a little.
My body was no longer in the car. It had travelled back, back to a childhood memory I hadn’t realised was still living in me. I saw the shattered glass. The brick thrown through our front room window. The cold fear that lived in my family’s bones, in our unspoken rules about how to survive as a family of colour in a place that didn’t always welcome us.
This is what my anxiety had been trying to tell me. It wasn’t about the meetings, or the streets, or the circle. Not directly. It was about the hidden memory. The inherited fear. The part of me that had been holding this pain quietly for decades, asking to be witnessed.
That moment in the car cracked something open.
And in the quiet after, I realised:
My anxiety wasn’t irrational. It was ancestral.
My reaction wasn’t too much. It was rooted in what came before me.
My body wasn’t betraying me. It was protecting me. It had always been protecting me.
This is the part of healing we don’t always talk about. The part that doesn’t look neat or polished. The kind that sneaks up in the everyday on a walk, in a meeting, behind the wheel of a car. The kind that shows up not because we’re weak, but because we’re ready.
This hidden part of me the one that carries ancestral fear, lived experience, and unspoken pain had finally found a voice. And I’m listening.
As we move through this retrograde season a time of reflection, shedding, and release, I feel the invitation to let go of what no longer serves me. Not with force, but with tenderness. To hold the scared parts of me with compassion. To name what was hidden. And to honour the wisdom that lives in my body.
Healing isn’t always loud. Sometimes it whispers.
Sometimes it comes in the form of anxiety.
Sometimes it comes wrapped in memory.
But always, it carries a message.
And I’m learning, slowly and gently, to listen.
🌙 Reflective Prompts:
Take a moment to sit with these, in stillness or journaling:
- When have you felt anxiety that didn’t seem to “make sense” in the moment?
- What might your body be trying to tell you through sensations like tension, tightness, or unease?
- Are there childhood or ancestral memories that still live quietly in you, asking to be acknowledged?
🕊 Gentle Practice: Offering Safety to the Body
This simple daily practice invites your body to feel held:
- Place one hand over your heart, the other on your belly. Close your eyes.
- Breathe slowly, in through the nose, out through the mouth.
- Say gently to yourself (or out loud):
“You are safe now.”
“That was then. This is now.”
“I see you. I honour what you’ve carried.” - Stay here for a few breaths, allowing your nervous system to settle.
Repeat whenever you feel your body remembering something old.