The Sentry & The Garden

A journey from hyper-vigilance to inner quiet.

Jenny was always described as bright, thoughtful, and conscientious.

As a child, she noticed things others missed. She picked up on the invisible moods in a room. She wanted to do well, not just for herself, but so everyone felt okay. Teachers praised her effort; family members relied on her maturity. She learned early that being responsible, helpful, and prepared was a good way to stay safe and valued.

When life became more demanding—exams, relationships, work, illness, uncertainty—Jenny did what she had always done. She thought things through. She anticipated problems. She tried harder. She pushed herself gently but consistently, believing that if she stayed on top of things, her body and life would eventually settle.

But something subtle began to change.

After a period of illness and stress, her body no longer bounced back in the same way. Fatigue lingered. Sleep became light and unrefreshing. Ordinary activity felt heavier than it used to. Understandably, Jenny began to worry. She paid closer attention to symptoms. She planned her days carefully. She anticipated setbacks so she wouldn’t be caught out.

None of this was irrational. None of it was a mistake. It was her nervous system trying to protect her.

Over time, the constant monitoring, anticipation, and self-pressure meant her system rarely fully switched off. Even on quiet days, her body stayed alert. Energy was used for coping rather than recovery. Confidence in her body gradually faded, and self-doubt crept in—not because she lacked resilience, but because her system had been under strain for too long.

By the time Jenny realised how unwell she felt, the patterns were well established. Not through weakness or trauma, but through years of being capable, conscientious, and trying to manage uncertainty the only way she knew how.

The work wasn’t about fixing Jenny. It was about a quiet awakening.

As Jenny began the work, her awakening didn't arrive like a thunderclap. It came like the slow lifting of a morning fog. For the first time, she began to notice the "horse" she had been riding—her own subconscious conditioning that always chose more effort over more rest. She realised that her patterns weren't flaws, but a series of survival scripts she had written long ago to keep her world steady.

She began to practice de-centering: stepping back just an inch from her racing thoughts and clenching jaw. Instead of being the storm, she became the person watching it from the window. When her heart hammered at a simple email or her breath grew shallow at a loud noise, she no longer asked, "What is wrong with me?" Instead, she whispered to her system, "I see you trying to protect me. Thank you, but we are safe now."

This awareness changed the architecture of her days. She stopped treating her energy like a debt to be paid and began to treat it like a garden to be tended. She noticed the small "glimmers" of safety that her over-eager sentry had previously missed—the warmth of a mug, the weight of a blanket, the rhythm of a deep exhale.

She realised that her system wasn't broken; it was just stuck in a loop of a story that had already ended. By becoming the narrator of her own patterns, she finally gave her body permission to stop rehearsing for a battle that was no longer coming.

And so, the cycle slowly began to loosen. As her system received consistent signals of safety, energy returned. Sleep deepened. Confidence followed.

Not all at once.

Not by force.

But at a pace her system finally knew it could tolerate.

One evening, Jenny sat by her window and realised she wasn’t scanning the horizon for storms. She was simply watching the light fade, her hands still, her breath easy. The sentry had finally gone to sleep, and for the first time in a long time, Jenny was home.