The Season Beneath the Skin

There’s something in the air this time of year—just subtle enough to miss if you’re rushing, but insistent in its presence. A longer stretch of light in the afternoon. Dampness giving way to the scent of green. A kind of restless hum that settles into the bones before it makes sense in the mind.

Spring doesn’t just arrive in the trees and blossoms.
It arrives in us.

And it doesn’t always feel good.

We often think of spring as a joyful season—of bursting energy, color, life returning. And that’s true, sometimes. But spring is also a season of tension, of friction, of the awkward push from dormancy into motion. It can feel vulnerable. Overwhelming. Disorienting. Especially when the world around us—politically, socially, economically—feels just as unstable.

Even if we don’t name it outright, our bodies know. They track these subtle shifts in tone and pressure. They register the collective unease. The nervous system, our constant companion, doesn’t just respond to our personal stories. It listens to the environment—internal and external—and it adjusts accordingly.

We are constantly adjusting.

In winter, many of us moved into a kind of conservation mode—slower, quieter, more internal. Maybe you noticed it as fatigue, numbness, or disconnection. Maybe it was a welcome pause. Maybe it felt like shutdown. From a nervous system perspective, this is often a dorsal vagal state: the brake pedal pressed down, conserving energy, reducing output. It’s not wrong. It’s intelligent.

But then spring comes. The world starts to move again. And suddenly there’s pressure to bloom.

That pressure might be external: expectations to do more, plan more, show up more. Or internal: a sudden burst of energy, ideas, or anxiety that you can’t quite make sense of. Either way, we begin to shift from that winter stillness into sympathetic activation—the nervous system’s mobilizing state. This is the energy of action, of movement, of doing. At its best, it fuels us. At its most dysregulated, it floods us.

You might notice it in your thoughts: looping, racing, or scattered.
In your breath: high in the chest, or held without realizing it.
In your muscles and fascia: subtle bracing, a low-level tension buzzing under the skin.
In your digestion or inflammation: old symptoms flaring, sensitivities heightened.
In your emotions: irritability, grief, or hope that feels too tender to touch.

This is the nervous system mid-transition—still thawing from freeze, not yet regulated. And when the world outside feels uncertain, volatile, or unsafe, that transition gets even harder.

We aren’t designed to bloom on command.
We’re designed to emerge slowly, cautiously, following cues of safety and connection.

But most of us live in systems that don’t honor that. There’s no societal rhythm that says: go at your own pace.
Instead, there’s a pressure to keep up, to stay productive, to act like everything’s fine.

So we override.

We push past our signals. We breathe shallowly through the stress. We get things done. But the cost is often dysregulation—a nervous system that never quite gets to complete its cycles of activation and rest.

This is where body-based practices become essential—not as luxury, but as medicine.
Touch, breath, and somatic awareness are how we begin to come home to ourselves in the middle of an unsettled world.

A warm hand on your chest.
A deep exhale that takes you by surprise.
A moment of noticing: I’m holding my jaw again. My shoulders are up to my ears. I’m not even fully here.

These are the small portals of return.

In Somatic Experiencing®, we learn to track the nervous system’s rhythms—subtle shifts in sensation, the movement of activation, the natural impulses toward rest or completion. We don’t force the system to relax. We listen to what it’s needing, where it’s stuck, and how to support it through gentle awareness and containment.

Sometimes, this happens through dialogue.
Sometimes, it happens through touch.

The right kind of touch—attuned, non-invasive, grounded—can help the body remember safety. Not in a conceptual way, but in the tissues, the fascia, the breath. It speaks directly to the places words can’t reach. It says: You don’t have to carry this alone. You can soften now. You can come out.

In a world that doesn’t always feel safe, we need spaces where the body can feel safe again.
Not perform safety. Not pretend it. But truly experience it.

This is how regulation happens—not through forcing calm, but by following the body’s pace.
Letting the thaw be slow. Letting the bloom come in layers. Letting the nervous system take its time finding the ground again.

So if this spring feels strange—if you’re more anxious than energized, more tender than excited—you’re not doing it wrong. You’re in a seasonal shift. One that’s happening both inside you and all around you.

You are allowed to emerge slowly.
You are allowed to need support.
You are allowed to hold joy and fear in the same breath.

Let your nervous system be in the season it’s in.
Let touch and breath be your tools for recalibration.
Let nature’s rhythm remind you: there is no rush.
You are not late. You are not too much.
You are becoming—just as the world is.

And that is enough.

We are here to support all of the ways that this season is moving through you.