Each of these verses is not a flaw, not a symptom, not evidence of failure.
Each is a sacred adaptation — the map your nervous system drew when the world was not safe, and yet you still had to survive it.
What a holy thing it is to name them now, gently. To honour them as the gifts they were. To notice the places they still live in your body, your breath, your movements.
And maybe — one day — to no longer need them.
The body that flinches before it even registers threat.
You don’t walk into a room. You scan it.
Where are the exits? Who’s holding tension? Who’s holding power?
Is there breath in your own chest? Not really. Just readiness.
Your muscles are primed for movement, but you’re not going anywhere.
Stillness, in hypervigilance, is not peace — it’s freeze.
And that freeze is sacred. It’s your body saying:
I’ve learned how to make myself small enough to survive.
The heart that listens for tone instead of truth.
You sense the shift before it lands.
The subtle sigh, the changed rhythm of a response, the ghost in someone’s eyes.
You’re already adjusting, already softening, already shaping yourself
to soothe what hasn’t even been said yet.
You became a mirror because you weren’t allowed to be a flame.
And your gift of attunement? It was born from the ache of never being attuned to.
“You became a mirror because you weren’t allowed to be a flame.”
The mind that out-thinks safety to avoid pain.
You analyse every sentence.
You replay conversations.
You read between lines that were never meant to be read.
You study people like puzzles because somewhere long ago, unpredictability was danger — and so you learned to predict.
The intellect became armour.
And you, love — you became strategy.
The soul that confuses surrender with danger.
You feel everything — but trust nothing.
You want to open, but opening once led to being abandoned,
or worse — spiritually shamed.
So now you read all the signs,
follow all the rules,
pray with one eye open.
You’ve mistaken vigilance for discernment,
because your spirituality was once laced with control.
And yet…
The sacred still calls — softly, patiently, without demand.
The bodymind that split desire from safety.
You read desire like a weather map.
Know how to be wanted.
Know how to disappear while still being touched.
Know how to fake ease, how to decode power.
Pleasure became performance.
Consent became strategy.
Safety? It was always just a moment away from being revoked.
So you learned to stay alert —
to move before danger even arrived.
But you’ve always deserved to exhale while being held.
A Final Whisper
Hypervigilance is not your flaw.
It’s the map your nervous system made
when the world was not safe,
but you still had to survive it.
“What a holy thing —
to name it, gently.
And one day, to no longer need it.”
In Tenderness
Ashé — Being Human
A Note from Ashé
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Copyright & Sharing Info
All words © A.J. Ashé | Being Human.
You may quote or share this piece with credit and a visible link back to the original page.
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In softness and integrity — Ashé
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