by Irene Roth/Blog Editor
Hi Friends! Welcome to September!
What does it actually mean to feel calm in a body that doesn’t always feel calm? I’ve been thinking about that question as I planned our blogs for September.
Those of us who live with fibro know that calm isn’t always as simple as sitting down, putting our feet up, or telling ourselves to relax. We can be physically still while our bodies continue to feel restless, painful, tense, exhausted, or overstimulated. Sometimes we desperately want to relax, yet our bodies seem to have other ideas.
That experience can be frustrating. There have certainly been times when I’ve wondered why my body couldn’t simply settle down. I might be tired enough to rest, yet pain keeps demanding my attention. Or I may finally have a quiet afternoon only to discover that my body still feels as though it has been through a marathon. This is one reason I became interested in exploring The Science of Calm for our September blogs.
Calm isn’t only an emotion. There are fascinating things happening within the brain and nervous system when we experience stress, pain, safety, relaxation, and rest. For people living with fibromyalgia, understanding some of these processes can help us look at our bodies with greater curiosity instead of constantly feeling frustrated with them. I think that distinction matters.
When symptoms increase, it’s easy to immediately think, “What did I do wrong? Did I walk too much? Sleep too little? Eat the wrong thing? Take on too much? Should I have rested earlier?” We can become detectives investigating our own bodies, endlessly searching for the mistake that caused today’s pain or exhaustion. But our bodies aren’t problems that we have to solve every minute of the day. Sometimes understanding what is happening can be enough to change the way we respond.
Throughout September, we’re going to explore that idea together. We’ll look at the relationship between fibromyalgia and the nervous system and why our bodies can sometimes become so sensitive to pain, noise, activity, stress, and other stimulation. We’ll also explore what neuroscience can teach us about peace and why seemingly small calming experiences may matter more than we realize.
We’ll also challenge some familiar ideas about strength. Many of us have spent years believing that being strong means continuing despite pain. But what if stillness can also be strength? What if noticing that we’ve reached our limit and responding before we completely exhaust ourselves is actually a powerful form of self-awareness?
Finally, we’ll explore the pause—that tiny space between one activity and the next. For people living with fibro, pausing can give us an opportunity to check in with ourselves before automatically continuing. It can help us notice what our bodies are saying while the message is still a whisper rather than waiting until it becomes a roar.
My hope for this month’s series isn’t that we all become wonderfully serene people who never feel stressed or overwhelmed. That wouldn’t be realistic, and it certainly isn’t the way I experience life with fibromyalgia. Instead, I hope we become more curious about what settles our bodies, what makes us feel overstimulated, and how our bodies tell us when we’ve had enough. What might happen if we allowed ourselves to find five quiet minutes before moving on to the next thing?
This September, let’s become students of our own nervous systems. Let’s notice, experiment, listen, and learn. Perhaps calm isn’t something we have to find. Perhaps it is something we can slowly learn to create.