The Nervous System, Spring Bulbs, and the Return of Joy

A few weeks ago, we experienced unseasonably warm temperatures. As I walked about the landscape, I noticed green shoots that should not have unearthed themselves yet. The blanket of mulch intended to keep the spring bulbs tucked safely underground until the appropriate time was no match for the mild breezes and bright sun. With the tip of my shoe, I gently pushed some mulch over the tender shoots. I knew the harsh temperatures and snow forecasted for the weekend were coming, and the tiny hyacinths weren’t ready for that.

If you have experienced trauma or lived with chronic stress, your nervous system can become stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. Without even realizing it, life becomes more about surviving than thriving. Emotions exist on a narrow spectrum—either volatile or nearly nonexistent. We rush through our days because the adrenaline of fight-or-flight demands it, or we push ourselves relentlessly, forcing ourselves forward while stuck in freeze or shutdown. We’ve learned how to cope, but we cannot heal in this state. Joy has long since disappeared, and peace feels out of reach.

Physical healing often revives emotions, and emotional healing often brings physical relief. So the next time you feel a hint of joy, thank the Lord for the reminder of healing after a hard and difficult season. Smile widely. Notice how your body sighs with relief and contentment. It may be fleeting, gone in a moment. Embrace it anyway, and don’t be surprised if tears fill your eyes. Tears release the stress hormone cortisol as your nervous system steps out of fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown and into calm—alongside joy.

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Why the News Is Wearing You Out (And It's Not Your Imagination)

By Rachel Rauch • September 8, 2026

Do you ever feel like life is moving faster than you can keep up with? I do. So I went digging into the history of how news actually traveled, and it turns out I wasn't imagining things. Life really has sped up. Let me walk you through it, because it explains more about your body than you'd think. In 1776, news moved at the speed of a horse or a ship, and sometimes slower than the war it was reporting on. The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December 1814, but it took six weeks to cross the Atlantic. Andrew Jackson fought the Battle of New Orleans two weeks after the war it belonged to had already ended. The telegraph closed that gap. The Associated Press started in 1846, when five New York papers pooled money for a courier-and-telegraph relay to beat each other on Mexican-American War news. By the 1870s, the AP wire was the backbone of newspapers coast to coast. When the first working transatlantic cable went in in 1866, European news reached city readers by the next morning. Rural readers, stuck waiting on the mail train, stayed weeks behind. Radio and television took over in the 20th century, still riding on the AP wire underneath. Overseas footage could reach American living rooms the same day. Cable news pushed that down to real time — by September 11, 2001, people watched history happen live instead of waiting for the evening broadcast. Today the lag is seconds, and the source is usually a stranger's phone, not a newsroom. Wire services and reporters still do the actual digging, but social platforms and algorithmic feeds decide what you see first, and they usually beat professional verification to the punch. Speed isn't the problem anymore. Knowing what's true before you share it is. Here's what that means closer to home. A woman in 1776 spent her day on what was in front of her: feeding her family, supporting the war effort locally, running her house. Her stress was real, but she wasn't carrying Africa's wars or Asia's famines on top of it, because by the time that news arrived, it was already over. Even through World War II, women served their cause by investing in their own community. Worldwide events they couldn't touch were, for the most part, not part of their daily awareness. And when they were, it came through black-and-white photos and print — sterile, one step removed. Even the six o’clock news felt at a distance most nights. Social media changed that. Now a plea to save trafficked children and a plea to save dying coral reefs show up back to back in the same scroll. We watch villages in Africa pillaged by rebels, children starving as civil wars tear countries apart, cities flattened by earthquakes and wildfires — all shot on the phones of people living through it in real time. Every influencer has a cause, and plenty of them want you to feel something urgent enough to act, whether that's guilt, outrage, or a call to fix something four thousand miles away. I'm not minimizing what any generation before us dealt with. I'm giving you context for what makes ours different. When women in earlier generations felt worried, they could point that adrenaline at something in front of them and actually do something about it. Now, every time we watch a crisis unfold somewhere we have no power to change, our body still releases the same stress hormones it always has — as if we were about to step into that crisis ourselves. Except we can't. Your body doesn't know the difference between a threat in your kitchen and a threat on your screen. It reacts the same way either time. And it's not just the news — it's the constant hum of social media running in the background of your day, quietly keeping your body braced for something it will never actually need to respond to. That's a real cost. It pulls from the same reserves your body needs for the stress you can't avoid. If you're anxious most of the time, short-tempered in a way you don't like, sleeping poorly, or dealing with digestive issues that won't resolve, social media and the news cycle may be part of what's driving it. Try a sabbatical — no social media, no podcasts, no news, even for a few days. Let your brain settle. Let your attention come back to what's actually in front of you, and notice whether your body feels different. When you're ready to bring news back in, I'd point you to The Pour Over. It's non-partisan, comes with Scripture and prayer built in, and delivers everything in short pieces — enough to stay informed without getting pulled into the emotional undertow of events you have no way to change.

Nothing Is Certain Except Death, Taxes, and How Your Body Handles Uncertainty

By Rachel Rauch • August 25, 2026

You've probably heard the line, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes." It's usually attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote it to the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy — expressing his own anxiety about not hearing from Le Roy for over a year during the chaos of the French Revolution. Every era has its uncertainty. But is it just me, or does the world feel more uncertain lately? Maybe it's the upcoming midterm elections. Maybe it's the unrest in the Middle East. Maybe contagious viruses just feel more ominous since COVID. And then the news serves up one terrible headline after another that I wasn't even thinking about until I read it. Maybe current events barely register for you, but you still struggle to feel safe because of something that happened to you, or to someone you love. It's hard to feel certain about anything after what you've been through. If that's you, I am truly sorry, and I lament with you in that! Here's what's actually happening in your body: uncertainty triggers the same stress response as a real physical threat. You have a small gland in your brain called the amygdala, and it interprets ambiguity the same way it interprets danger. Your body responds accordingly — racing heart, shallow breathing, sweating, blood rushing to your limbs. At the same time, the amygdala suppresses your prefrontal cortex, which slows your thinking and makes it harder to make decisions or regulate your emotions. Live in that state long enough, and it becomes an allostatic load on your body: chronically elevated cortisol, a suppressed immune system, more inflammation, reduced digestive capacity, and hormones out of balance. You might also notice more anxiety, more fatigue, and everyday tasks feeling like more than you can carry. I wish we could avoid uncertainty. I think you do too. We are finite people held in the hands of an infinite God. Some days I catch myself thinking that if my life had no uncertainty, I'd be less stressed. Deep down, though, I know that's not true. No uncertainty would mean I'd know everything — including every scary thing headed my way — and that would stress me out more, not less. So if uncertainty isn't going anywhere, how do we keep it from wrecking our bodies? Limit your knowledge. I know that sounds backward. We have the whole internet in our pockets, and we can watch the news unfold in real time. But most of what we're consuming is about things we can't control or influence. That turns knowledge into a burden. Cut back on the things you have no say in, and focus on what's local and within your reach. Cut your social media scroll. Comparison breeds "what if" thinking and discontentment. And the algorithms are tracking every half-second pause in your scroll, then feeding you more of exactly what stirs up your uncertainty. Build a budget and stick to it. A budget lets you plan for what you need and prepare for the unexpected. It slows the kind of spending that feeds on uncertainty. Cut back on caffeine and other stimulants. They stack extra stress hormones on top of what your body is already producing, keeping you stuck in an activated, wound-up state. Write down reminders of God's faithfulness — put them where you'll see them. When Moses handed leadership over to Joshua, right before Joshua had to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, Moses gave him this: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." — Deuteronomy 31:8 (ESV) Joshua was afraid. Moses didn't hand him a plan — he reminded him who was going ahead of him. We can hold onto that same reminder. Ask if there's a deeper root to your uncertainty. Is there a past event, or a pattern, feeding what you feel now? That can be a loaded question, and it's often easier to sort through with a counselor or therapist who can help you connect what happened then to what you're carrying now. Uncertainty isn't going away. But we don't have to just absorb it. We can be strategic about how we handle it, and about lightening the stress load it puts on our bodies.