What the Eagle Knows About Stillness and Strength

There's something about arriving at a reservoir just after sunrise that has a way of quieting everything inside you.

The light is still soft. The water holds the last traces of morning mist. The world hasn't fully woken up yet. You're just there. Present. Watching.

That's when I spotted him.

A bald eagle, perched high on a weathered telephone pole at the water's edge. Still as sculpture. Unhurried. Gazing out over the reservoir with a quiet, measured certainty, as if he already knew exactly how the morning was going to unfold.

I lifted my camera. And I stayed with him for a while.

Sometimes Strength Is Very, Very Quiet

We tend to associate strength with movement. With noise. With visible effort and constant action.

But watching that eagle, I couldn't help but think about a different kind of strength. The kind that doesn't need to announce itself. The kind that simply rises above the noise, grows still, and sees farther than everyone else. It's a quiet picture of stillness and strength.

I've been thinking about that ever since.

He wasn't performing. He wasn't straining. He was simply doing what eagles do, and he was doing it with breathtaking ease.

Built for Exactly This

A bald eagle's eyesight is remarkable. Research suggests eagles can see four to five times farther than the average human, able to spot a fish beneath the surface of a lake from hundreds of feet in the air. Their eyes are designed to cut through glare, track movement, and perceive depth and detail with extraordinary precision.

He wasn't scanning that reservoir with borrowed vision. He was using exactly the eyes he was given, the ones perfectly designed for his life, his purpose, and this moment.

And here's what struck me: he wasn't trying to be anything else.

He wasn't envying the heron's patience, or the hawk's speed, or the songbird's melody drifting from the cattails below. He simply was, fully, confidently, beautifully himself. Perched at exactly the right height. Seeing exactly what he needed to see. Waiting for exactly the right moment.

There's something quietly profound in that.

What Are You Built to See?

I think many of us spend a surprising amount of energy trying to see life through someone else's eyes.

We compare. We measure ourselves against people who seem to have gifts we don't, a perspective we can't quite access, a stillness we haven't found. We wonder if we're doing it right, whatever it happens to be.

But what if the invitation isn't to see the way someone else sees?

What if the deeper question is: What are you uniquely built to notice?

Every one of us brings a particular way of seeing to the world. A specific set of experiences, sensitivities, and strengths that shapes what we're drawn to, what moves us, what we can't walk past without stopping. That eagle wasn't born with a generalist's vision. He was born with eagle vision, and he uses every bit of it.

There's wisdom in that for us.

When we stop trying to adopt someone else's vantage point and start showing up fully from our own, with curiosity instead of comparison, with presence instead of performance, something often shifts. We begin to see our own life more clearly.

The Practice of Rising Above

One of the things I find most moving about this image is where the eagle chose to be.

He didn't position himself at the waterline, squinting through the reeds. He rose. He found the highest perch available to him, a simple, unglamorous telephone pole, and from there, he could see everything.

There's something worth sitting with in that.

Sometimes the clearest view of our lives doesn't come from being closer to the problem. It comes from stepping back. Getting a little higher. Creating enough space between ourselves and the noise of daily life that we can actually see what's happening, and what might be coming.

This is part of what nature does for us when we let it. A walk outside, a quiet morning, a few moments of genuine stillness. These aren't escapes from our lives. They're invitations to rise above the noise long enough to see more clearly.

Research in mindfulness and attention suggests that when we slow down and intentionally shift our focus, we often gain perspective that simply isn't available to us in the middle of the rush. The eagle doesn't hunt from the noise. He hunts from above it.

We can learn something from that.

Stillness as a Practice, Not a Luxury

If you're someone who finds it difficult to sit still, who fills every silence with something, who feels guilty slowing down, I want to gently offer this: Stillness isn't idle.

The eagle looked still, but he was deeply, actively present. Every sense alert. Every instinct engaged. He wasn't checked out. He was fully in, just without the frantic energy that so often masquerades as productivity.

True stillness isn't emptiness. It's a kind of gathered focus. The opposite of scattered.

And it turns out, the nervous system genuinely responds to this. Slowing down, breathing more deeply, pausing to simply observe the world around us. These practices may help reduce the physiological markers of stress and help us return to a calmer, clearer baseline. Not because we've solved anything, but because we've given ourselves permission to be for a moment instead of constantly do.

The eagle on that pole was a living reminder: you don't always have to move to make progress. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is be still enough to see clearly.

Sometimes the first step toward stillness isn't grand. It's simply noticing that something feels heavy, and having a gentle tool to help you set it down. If emotional stress has been making it harder to slow down, breathe, or find your footing, the Pulse Points Stress Tool is a free, simple technique that uses 8 pulse points on your wrists, focused awareness, and slow breathing to help calm your nervous system in just a few quiet minutes. Like the eagle, you don't need much. Just a moment of stillness and a willingness to begin. 👉Download the free Pulse Points Stress Tool here.

A Gentle Invitation

The next time life feels loud, scattered, or overwhelming, the next time you're not sure which direction to move, consider taking a small step upward.

Not physically, necessarily. But mentally. Emotionally.

Step back from the noise. Find a quiet perch. And ask yourself: What do I actually see from here? What are my strengths, the gifts and sensitivities I was built with, and am I using them? What might become visible if I stopped comparing my vision to someone else's and trusted my own?

You don't have to be louder, faster, or more impressive than you already are.

Sometimes the most powerful thing is simply to rise above the noise, grow still, and trust what you see.

Laurie Nessland is a Licensed Professional Counselor, emotional healing educator, certified expressive arts practitioner, and nature photographer. For more than two decades, Laurie has helped people navigate stress, anxiety, grief, emotional overwhelm, trauma, life transitions, and personal growth. Her work integrates emotional healing, mindfulness, nervous system awareness, creativity, and practical tools that help people experience meaningful change. Laurie combines her professional background with her lifelong love of nature and photography to create experiences that help people reconnect with peace, beauty, gratitude, and themselves.

When Mother's Day Hurts: Finding Compassion for Your Grief

The cards are everywhere. The flower displays are overflowing. Brunch reservations are booked weeks in advance. And if Mother's Day feels less like a celebration and more like a wound reopening, you may find yourself wondering why it hits so hard, or even feeling guilty that it does.

Here's what you need to know: your grief is valid, it's real, and it lives in your body just as much as it lives in your heart.

Whether you've lost your mother to death, or you're grieving a mother who was physically present but emotionally unavailable, Mother's Day has a way of amplifying pain that you carry quietly the rest of the year. This post is for you, a space to feel seen and to understand what your nervous system is actually going through.

When She's Gone: Grieving the Death of Your Mother

The loss of a mother is one of the most primal griefs a human being can experience. She was, in many ways, your first world. Your first sense of safety, belonging, and being known. When she dies, that world shifts on its axis in ways that are difficult to put into words.

And Mother's Day? It can feel like the whole world forgot she's gone.

You might notice that the grief feels fresh all over again, even if she passed years ago. You may be doing just fine in February, only to find yourself undone by a simple commercial in May. That's not weakness or a sign that something is wrong with you. That's actually your brain doing exactly what it's wired to do.

What's Happening in Your Brain and Body

When you lose someone deeply significant to you, your brain doesn't simply "move on." The anterior cingulate cortex (the part of your brain involved in emotional processing and social bonding) registers the loss of an attachment figure similarly to physical pain. This is why grief literally hurts.

On top of that, your amygdala (the brain's threat-detection center) learns to associate certain cues with loss and danger: a date on the calendar, a song, a smell like her perfume. This is why Mother's Day can trigger a grief response that feels almost involuntary. Your nervous system is responding to a real threat: the absence of someone who mattered profoundly.

Your body holds this too. You might feel tightness in your chest, heaviness in your limbs, a lump in your throat, or exhaustion that doesn't make sense given how much you've slept. These are the physical signatures of unprocessed grief living in your tissue and nervous system. Not imagination, not overreaction.

What You Might Be Feeling

• A wave of sadness that seems to appear out of nowhere

• Longing to pick up the phone and call her

• Anger (at the holiday, at people who still have their mothers, or even at her)

• A deep ache to be mothered one more time

• Numbness, disconnection, or going through the motions

• Relief mixed with guilt if the relationship was complicated

All of it is okay.

The Grief on Mother's Day No One Talks About: The Absent Living Mother

There's another kind of grief that often goes unacknowledged on Mother's Day, and it can be just as deep and just as disorienting. It's the grief of having a mother who is still alive, but who was never truly there.

Maybe she was emotionally unavailable. Maybe she struggled with addiction, mental illness, or her own unhealed wounds in ways that left you feeling unseen or unsafe. Maybe she was physically present but emotionally absent, going through the motions of motherhood without the warmth, attunement, or security that a child needs. Maybe the relationship is estranged today, for reasons that were necessary for your own wellbeing.

This grief is particularly complex because the world doesn't always make room for it. You may have been told, "But at least she's still alive." You may feel guilty grieving someone who is technically still here. And on Mother's Day, when the cultural message is celebrate your mother, the pain of what you didn't have, or what you had to let go of, can feel isolating and confusing.

Let's be clear: you are allowed to grieve the mother you needed and didn't have.

This is sometimes called ambiguous loss, a term coined by researcher Pauline Boss to describe grief that exists without the clear closure of death. Your nervous system doesn't know the difference between losing someone to death and losing them to emotional unavailability. The longing, the ache, the complicated feelings: they're all rooted in the same neurobiological need for secure attachment.

The Neuroscience of Attachment and Early Wounds

From the moment you were born, your brain was wiring itself in response to your primary caregiver, your mother. A consistent, attuned caregiver helps develop a regulated nervous system: one that can handle stress, feel safe in relationships, and return to calm after difficulty.

When that attunement was inconsistent or absent, the nervous system develops differently. The stress response system (governed by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis) can become hypervigilant, always scanning for threat or preparing for disappointment. This isn't a character flaw. It's an adaptive response to an unpredictable environment.

What this means is that the grief you carry around your mother isn't just emotional. It's stored in your physiology. And it often shows up in unexpected ways: anxiety, difficulty trusting others, chronic tension in the body, or a persistent feeling that you're somehow not enough.

Mother's Day can bring all of that rushing to the surface.

Your Grief Deserves Gentle Support

Whether you're grieving a mother who has died or mourning the mother you needed, there's one thing that's true for both: the pain doesn't have to stay stuck.

Grief that isn't processed tends to live in the body. It compounds. It shows up as anxiety, chronic pain, emotional reactivity, or a heaviness that never quite lifts. But when you give your nervous system the right support, genuine healing becomes possible. Not just coping, but actual release.

This is why body-based approaches to emotional healing can be so powerful. Talking about grief is helpful, but it often isn't enough on its own, because grief doesn't only live in the mind. It lives in the body, and that's where it needs to be gently tended to.

Start with Your Body Right Now

If you're feeling the weight of Mother's Day grief today, I've created something just for you.

The Grief Relief Tool is a gentle, guided resource designed to help you begin moving through grief in your body, not just your thoughts. It walks you through a simple, evidence-based technique to help settle your nervous system, acknowledge what you're carrying, and begin to release the emotional weight that's been stored in your body.

You don't have to do this alone. You don't have to push through or pretend you're fine.

Access the Grief Relief Tool here →

You Are Not Broken for Hurting

Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is love with nowhere to go, and it deserves to be honored, not rushed or minimized.

If Mother's Day is hard for you, that says something true and important: you are someone who loves deeply, who needed to be loved well, and who is worthy of healing.

Whatever your story with your mother, whether she is gone, she was absent, the relationship is complicated, or some tender combination of all of the above, your grief has a place here. Your healing is possible.

Take a breath. Put a hand on your heart. And know that support is available whenever you're ready.

If you'd like to go deeper than a single resource allows, I also offer virtual Rapid Emotional Reset sessions and intensive sessions designed to help you work through grief, loss, and early emotional wounds at the root level, in the body, where they live. You're welcome to reach out to learn more.

Laurie Holland Nessland, LPC, is an emotional healing practitioner and licensed professional counselor with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals through anxiety, grief, stress, trauma, and life transitions. She is the developer of the Feel Better Fast Technique™ and specializes in deep, nervous-system-informed emotional healing for women who feel stuck despite years of insight and personal growth. Laurie’s approach blends clinical expertise with holistic, mind-body-based methods to help clients access lasting change at the subconscious level. At Healthy Holistics, she offers shorter emotional healing intensives virtually, while extended intensives are provided either virtually or in person at her West Denver office. Laurie is deeply committed to providing compassionate, expert care in a safe, respectful environment where meaningful healing can unfold at its own pace.

Emotional Suppression: Why Forcing Yourself to Feel "Fine" Isn't Working

There's a quiet belief you might carry: “This will probably always be something I work on”.

So you pace yourself. You manage your symptoms. You learn to function around the pain. And while growth happens, the emotional weight never fully lifts.

You might wonder why you still feel stuck after years of personal growth work. But what if the missing piece isn't more effort or more insight?

If you experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)—such as early traumas, severe household dysfunction, or prolonged stress—your body may have been conditioned into a chronic fight, flight, or freeze mode (2). Because this stress is deeply embedded in your physiological survival responses, you cannot simply "think" your way out of it. If your nervous system remains activated, no amount of cognitive insight can fully resolve the pattern.

The "Big Ten" Emotions (And What They Are Trying to Do) 

To understand why pushing past your feelings backfires, you first have to understand that emotions aren't just in your head. They are physiological states designed to mobilize your body for specific behaviors (1).

Psychologists categorize our core emotions into the "Big Ten," which carry critical mobilization goals (1):

• Anger mobilizes you to attack, signaling that a boundary, value, or rule has been violated.

  
  

• Fear mobilizes you to freeze or flee, signaling a threat or danger.

  
  

• Sadness signals a loss, mobilizing you to seek comfort and consolation.

  
  

• Joy motivates you to approach, signaling a reward.

  
  

• Shame mobilizes you to hide, signaling low social status or a feeling that you are bad.

  
  

• Guilt mobilizes you to make amends, signaling remorse that you have done something bad.

  
  

• Disgust mobilizes you to reject or distance yourself from something potentially toxic or harmful.

  
  

• Surprise signals something unexpected, mobilizing you to focus your attention.

  
  

• Embarrassment signals a minor social misstep and mobilizes you to appease others.

  
  

• Pride signals achievement and mobilizes you to share your success.

The Hidden Health Costs of the "People-Pleaser" 

You might frequently suppress these natural emotional signals out of a desire to keep the peace. Suppression often looks like keeping your emotions to yourself or trying to stay pleasant specifically so that your friends or loved ones won't get upset.

While this people-pleasing might avoid immediate conflict, it deprives you of the broad, health-protective effects of social connection and authentic vulnerability. What's even worse is that your body registers this emotional resistance as a threat, which triggers an immediate spike in your sympathetic nervous system.

Over time, this constant physiological bracing takes a serious toll on your health. Unresolved emotional stress frequently manifests in your daily life as persistent tension in your neck or shoulders, fatigue, digestive discomfort like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and sleep disturbances such as insomnia and shorter, poorer quality REM sleep (2).

The long-term statistics regarding chronic emotional suppression are even more eye-opening:

• Increased Inflammation: A comprehensive review found that in 74% of studies, poor emotion regulation or emotional suppression was directly linked to higher levels of health-harming inflammation in the body (3).

  
  

• Elevated Mortality Risk: A 12-year longitudinal study tracking mortality outcomes revealed that individuals with high emotional suppression had a 35% increased risk of all-cause mortality (4).

  
  

• Cancer Risk: That same study found that high emotional suppression increased the risk of death from cancer by a staggering 70% (4).

What Changes When the Nervous System Is Addressed Directly 

When your healing works with the nervous system instead of against it, your body finally stops bracing. Here are a few research-backed ways to support your system and safely process these big emotions:

1. Putting Feelings Into Words (Affect Labeling) Simply naming your emotional state actively disrupts emotional distress. Translating feelings into words increases activity in your prefrontal cortex, which sends a signal to dampen reactivity in the amygdala (your emotional response center) (5). This helps your body actually experience relief.

2. Therapeutic Journaling Developed by Dr. James Pennebaker, expressive writing is a proven way to release stuck emotions. Writing continuously about an upsetting or stressful experience for 15 to 20 minutes a day over four consecutive days allows your brain to process events so they don't remain stuck as physiological trauma, ultimately improving your immune system functioning (6).

3. Mindful Acceptance and "Allowing" When emotional pain arises, try this: place your hand on your heart, breathe deeply, and tell yourself, "I'm doing meaningful healing work right now". Allow yourself to fully feel the emotion for at least 5 minutes before deciding if you need a distraction (7). This softens your resistance and helps your nervous system update its patterns.

How Emotional Healing Intensives Can Help 

 If you feel like you have been talking about the same issues for years without experiencing a true shift, it may be time to try a different container for your healing.

While weekly therapy provides wonderful, steady, ongoing support, an Emotional Healing Intensive offers 3 to 5 hours of deep, focused immersion. Instead of pacing things out week by week, an intensive creates a protected space where your mind and body don't have to "pause" just as something important begins to surface. This extended timeframe allows your nervous system to fully settle, safely open, and process those subconscious root patterns without interruption.

A Gentle Invitation 

Healing doesn't need to be dramatic to be profound, and it doesn't need to take years to be legitimate. You don't have to force an elevated state. Sometimes the most powerful shifts happen when your body is finally given the conditions it needs to reset.

🌿 Relief is not something you have to earn....it's something your system is capable of remembering.

Want a simple way to support your system right now? If you're looking for a practical way to calm your nervous system when difficult emotions feel heavy, I invite you to download my Pulse Points Stress Tool. In this free, 4-minute guided video, I will teach you a gentle technique combining focused awareness, slow breathing, and the activation of 8 specific pulse points on your wrists to help your body release emotional pressure in minutes (8).

👉 Download the Free Pulse Points Stress Tool Video Here

Laurie Holland Nessland, LPC, is an emotional healing practitioner and licensed professional counselor with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals through anxiety, stress, trauma, and life transitions. She is the developer of the Feel Better Fast Technique™ and specializes in deep, nervous-system-informed emotional healing for women who feel stuck despite years of insight and personal growth. Laurie’s approach blends clinical expertise with holistic, mind-body-based methods to help clients access lasting change at the subconscious level. At Healthy Holistics, she offers shorter emotional healing intensives virtually, while extended intensives are provided either virtually or in person at her West Denver office. Laurie is deeply committed to providing compassionate, expert care in a safe, respectful environment where meaningful healing can unfold at its own pace.

Scientific References & Further Reading

1. The "Big Ten" Core Emotions: Cullen, K. (2022). "Suppressing Emotions Can Harm You—Here's What to Do Instead." Psychology Today. This article outlines our primary and social emotions, explaining how they act as physiological states designed to mobilize us for specific behaviors.

2. ACEs, Sleep, and Gastrointestinal Impacts: Neethi, M. V., et al. "Emotional Suppression And It's Impact On Physical Health – A Data Driven Approach." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts. This research explores how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) condition the body into a chronic fight, flight, or freeze mode, and links emotional suppression to physical manifestations like IBS, insomnia, and shorter REM sleep.

3. Inflammation and Emotion Regulation: Moriarity, D. P., et al. (2023). "A systematic review of associations between emotion regulation characteristics and inflammation." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. This comprehensive review of 38 studies found that in 74% of the research, poor emotion regulation or emotional suppression was directly linked to higher levels of health-harming inflammation in the body.

4. Mortality Risk of Emotion Suppression: Chapman, B. P., et al. (2013). "Emotion Suppression and Mortality Risk Over a 12-Year Follow-up." Journal of Psychosomatic Research. This 12-year longitudinal study revealed that high emotional suppression is associated with a 35% increased risk of all-cause mortality and a 70% increased risk of cancer-related death.

5. The Neuroscience of Naming Emotions: Lieberman, M. D., et al. (2007). "Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli." Psychological Science. This neuroimaging study demonstrates how translating feelings into words actively activates the prefrontal cortex to dampen the amygdala's stress reactivity.

6. Therapeutic Journaling Benefits: University of Wisconsin Integrative Health. "Therapeutic Journaling." This clinical resource details Dr. James Pennebaker's expressive writing protocol, showing how writing continuously about stressful experiences for 15-20 minutes improves immune system functioning.

7. The "5-Minute" Mindful Acceptance Practice: Ivtzan, I. (2025). "Why Feeling Your Pain Is the Key to Emotional Healing." Psychology Today. This article highlights research on grief and provides the framework for placing a hand on your heart and allowing yourself to feel difficult emotions for at least 5 minutes to promote psychological healing.

8. The Pulse Points Stress Tool: Nessland, L. H. "A Simple Technique to Calm Emotional Stress in Minutes." Feel Better Fast Technique™. This resource provides the foundation for the gentle mind-body technique using 8 specific pulse points to help the nervous system release emotional pressure.