I found a faded psychology study guide in our staff room. Pink paper. Hole-punched. Bullet points.
One section read:
Multiple Sclerosis — explain what is occurring in the nervous system
Know three symptoms
Know potential causes
I held it for a long moment.
My father had MS.
And suddenly I realized: I never learned those three symptoms.
I learned something entirely different.
I learned how to track micro-shifts in tone, posture, and energy. I learned pacing and presence. I learned how fear lives in the body, and how relationship can soften it. I learned that dysregulation isn’t misbehavior—it’s protection.
And without knowing it, I was being shaped.
Long before I had words like neuroception, co-regulation, or autonomic state, I was studying nervous systems in the wild. I was learning that safety isn’t intellectual. It’s sensed.
Looking at that study guide, I noticed what was missing: no mention of nervous system resilience, no mention of neuroplastic adaptation, no mention of identity, grief, or relational coping.
School teaches symptoms.
Life teaches systems.
And here I am (decades later), teaching nervous system literacy to educators, students, parents, and professionals. Not because I chose it academically. But because I lived it somatically.
Sometimes the most important curriculum never appears on the page. It appears in the body.
Finding that handout in the staff room didn’t teach me something new. It reminded me of what had already been learned.
Practice
Rest your hand on your chest. Breathe slowly.
Ask yourself: What was life training me to see before I had language?
Listen for the answer beneath the words.
Remember
Purpose isn’t always chosen.
Sometimes it emerges from the nervous system’s oldest lessons.