A little over a decade ago my nervous system overloaded. It was powering a whole city and maxed itself out.

Today though it is back online and more stable than it’s ever been. And I’ve found peace.

It cost me though.

Dreams died. People left. Hope stepped aside while healing became a full time effort but because healing refuses to leave emptied spaces empty…

New dreams arrived. Safer people stayed and joy slowly began to make itself at home.

There was a season when my brain worked so hard trying to solve impossible problems that it nearly burned itself out right along with my nervous system.

My heart went numb and my spirit felt used up.

Sometimes I think the wires in our minds become so tangled they spark and then nothing works the way it was meant to.

People ask what caused me to burn my whole life down. It might have looked like I did but I didn’t. I rearranged it.

But I suppose the answer really depends on who’s telling the story. From the outside I think my life looked full. And in so many ways it was.

From the inside though I was juggling worlds with hands that had never learned to juggle. Unhappy people become toxic people. Like mold that isn’t dealt with becomes toxic so do people. All of us. Toxic to others and toxic to ourselves. That toxicity spreads and if left too long drastic actions need to be taken.

So eventually I dropped all the balls.

For the first time in my life I had chose nothing.

But nothing didn’t choose me back.

Instead grace found me and so did sleep. And when I woke up I made one important decision to get my brain back online. Hardest work I would ever have to do.

I asked a friend once what he feared most. “My own mind,” he said. Mine too. Because I’ve lived inside a mind that believed there were only two choices.

Everything. Or nothing.

Healing taught me differently.

The things that matter most are rarely found in the extremes. In fact, I have a deep dislike for all or nothing thinking because it nearly cost me everything.

Peace doesn’t live inside the extremes. It lives inside of balance.