Your Body Was the First House

Long before you had language for what happened, your body was keeping record — the flinch, the held breath, the tiredness that sleep never touched. It was the first house you ever lived in, and it never stopped protecting you, even when its methods got loud. Reconstruction is not only a work of the mind; it is a truce with the body. Feed it like someone you are rebuilding. Let it sleep like something sacred. Breathe low and slow until it remembers the emergency is over. You cannot think your way into a safety your body does not believe — so show it, in small daily ways, that this house is safe now.

PRACTICE — Do a slow scan from head to feet and name where you are holding today — jaw, shoulders, belly, breath. Then give that one place one act of care before the day ends: water, stretching, a warm shower, an early night.

Today's affirmation: “My body was my first house — I tend it with tenderness.”