I was about six years old when my mom got diagnosed with cancer, and I remember being very aware and mature for my age of the gravity of that situation. At the time, it was early in her cancer journey, so there was a lot of optimism and hope, but I remember being really scared because you hear the big C and you don’t know what that means.

I also felt like I had to be a little adult. I was the older sibling with a younger brother, and there were moments where I felt like I had to watch him, step up, and understand what was going on around me even when I was still a kid. My mom was at the hospital getting chemo, my dad was working, and I knew how to keep the house going. I had an awareness and a level of responsibility that I didn’t need to have as a child.

From the time my mom got diagnosed until I was about 18, that was the trenches for me. I was responsible, mature, and the one that had it together. I did well in school, didn’t cause problems, and was the one you didn’t have to worry about. There was also this underlying pressure to be perfect, to not mess up, and to always be on top of things. At that age, you don’t fully understand it, but you feel it.

Around nine or ten years old is when I started getting bullied in my neighborhood, and that added another layer to everything I was already carrying. I remember the first time it happened, and after that I would stay inside a lot. I started secluding myself to feel protected. I had a lot of anxiety on the inside. I was tight, alert, and scanning. It felt like I was waiting for something to happen all the time, and I would let what people said about me become my inner voice, questioning if it was true.

When I really think about it, that whole period of my childhood is where survival mode began, and it carried into everything that followed.

When I was 13, my mom passed away, and that was the other shoe dropping. There was a moment before that when I overheard my parents talking about how sick she was and the possibility of her dying. I remember being really upset, and my mom told me that one day we would look back at that moment and laugh and that we would be together in the future. She was so positive and such a fighter, but two years later, she passed. That changed my life forever.

As I got older, that survival mode didn’t just go away. It followed me into adulthood. I developed what I now understand as fixer energy. I would feel like I needed to soothe people’s feelings, help people solve problems, and make sure everything stayed smooth. A lot of that came from trying to avoid unpredictability. If everything was handled and everything was okay, then nothing unexpected could happen.

In certain ways, that part of me is still there, but it looks different now. Now it comes from capacity, not obligation. As an intuitive and a healer, I can support people, but I no longer feel like I have to carry everything or fix everything to feel safe.

In 2024, when I moved to Jacksonville, I ended up in a terrible apartment situation. I was shown one thing and given something completely different. I had just moved 1000 miles away, so I had to take it because I had nowhere else to go. As I was moving in, I started seeing all these problems, structural issues and things that weren’t right, and I was on high alert constantly in that apartment.

Every time I entered a room, I would scan it. I could never fully relax.

What I realize now is that apartment was symbolic of the survival mode I had been living in. It reflected the way I had been living internally for years. Being in that environment amplified the remaining pieces of survival mode that were still in me and brought them to the surface so I could finally see them clearly and leave them behind. Everything I had been doing internally was showing up externally in that space. I was fixing things that weren’t mine to fix, enduring high levels of stress, and constantly alert, scanning, and bracing.

Around December 2024, I started to become aware of what was happening in a different way. I could feel that something deeper was coming up, even if I didn’t fully have the words for it yet. It wasn’t just about the environment anymore, it was about what it was bringing up in me. You hear the term survival mode, but you don’t always realize how deeply it lives in your body and your patterns until something brings it to the surface.

By March 2025, I had a moment where I realized this is not how I’m supposed to live anymore.

I didn’t know exactly what was next yet, but I knew that when my lease was up, I was leaving. I knew it was time to be in a peaceful environment that actually matched the work I had done within myself.

When I moved into my new apartment in September 2025, everything started to shift. About two and a half weeks in, I stopped scanning my space. I was able to fully rest, fully relax, and fully be present. I wasn’t waiting for something to happen and I wasn’t bracing anymore.

At first, that felt unfamiliar because I was used to scanning and bracing. I wasn’t used to fully feeling safe within myself in my body. I could understand safety in my mind, but I didn’t fully feel it in my body until recently. Now that sense of safety is consistent. My body is calm, my space is calm, and my space reflects my internal state.

Over the past month, I started doing somatic meditations to release the tension my body had been holding for the last 30 years. When I think about that, it’s not a coincidence. Around six years old is when a lot of this started for me, and over time it built through different experiences, responsibility, loss, and everything I carried. Thirty years later, my body is finally releasing that tension.

As I started to understand what was happening, I also began to see how survival mode had been showing up in my life in ways I didn’t fully recognize before. One of the biggest ways it showed up was through trying to control what hadn’t happened yet. I thought if I could stay ahead, plan everything out, and anticipate what could go wrong, I could protect myself from feeling the way I had felt before. Over time, I realized I wasn’t just being responsible, I was trying to create certainty in a life that was never meant to be certain. That constant need to figure things out ahead of time kept my body in a state of tension, always bracing for what could happen next.

Now, I don’t move through life with fear about the future anymore. There’s a calm and a steadiness in me now because I trust myself in what comes.

The ultimate truth we have to accept as human beings is that nothing is set in stone and the future is unwritten. You can plan it, prepare for it, and try to control it, but it is still unwritten. Nobody has their future set in stone. What matters is how you show up in what unfolds. I trust God, and I trust the path that I’m on. I know I’m on the right trajectory because I’ve done the work and I have the tools that I need to face anything that comes my way. Because of that, I don’t move with anxiety about what’s ahead. Instead of filling the unknown with fear, I’ve learned to fill it differently. The future is unwritten to be beautiful.

Because of that, the way I move through life has changed.

I used to think my responsibility was to control life and stay ahead of it, but the truth is you can’t do that. Now, my responsibility is to stay present, to be aware, to have discernment, and to be grateful for each moment as it is.

I trust myself now. I know I have the tools to navigate whatever comes my way, and I know I will be okay. I also know that I am protected. God shows up for me every day, and I am safe in ways that are both seen and unseen.

I was an anxious, scared girl, always bracing and waiting for something to go wrong. Now I am a confident, strong, and wise woman who knows how to be present in her life.

xo Jessica