The on with the flood, the zombie Monday and the internal gaslighting.

It was Sunday evening.

I had just finished working and was doing a few jobs before taking the boys out for their last walk of the day. My house backs onto a park and when I went to fetch the bin in, someone called over the fence: "Have you seen the big flood?"

It's summer. The weather has been anything but what usually induces the flooding we know here in winter. So, reasonably assuming it was a Netflix movie I had missed, I replied that I hadn't and went about my jobs.

It was 7:45pm.

When I rounded the corner at the top of the road at 8:15pm, the road had almost disappeared.

I mean. It was a lake.

Cue language not suitable for this broadcast.

I managed to get the boys in, cleaned off their paws — because I had no idea what was in that water — and set about the very real and involuntary job of trying to stay calm while panicking that the garden was about to flood.

The boys were bemused.

I was not.

For the next hour, I ran. Upstairs to check the situation at the front and get information from the firemen patrolling the street. Back to the garden to check whether the drains were still holding. Into the bathroom to make sure a lake hadn't developed. To the living room to move anything I could. Back upstairs to see what was happening.

Rinse and repeat.

I was using every single trick I had to stay as level as I could.

Then, just like that, the water level stopped rising. In another few minutes it started to recede.

We were safe.

It didn't feel like it. By now it was well past 9:30. Tea had long been forgotten. I sat on the sofa with the TV on and absolutely no idea what was playing. The boys were wired — normally peacefully asleep in the evenings, they were as unsettled as I was. Every little noise was like a bomb going off.

I went to bed and lay awake until the early hours.

I didn't reach for any of my tools. I felt like I wanted to be awake. Which is, when I think about it now, a very telling thing.

The next morning I felt like a zombie.

I have had bad nights before. Nothing has made me feel quite as slightly mad as this one did. I kept reminding myself that we were safe. The boys were fine.

It didn't help.

We got up, got ready, and set off for our usual morning walk. Like nothing had happened.

We went outside and the road was clear. A few leaves here and there, but otherwise — nothing. Like it had all been a dream.

I actually went to check that the massive hole in the road where the water main had burst was still there. Just to reassure myself that I hadn't made the whole thing up.

It was still there.

Hello, internal gaslighting.

I'm including this because I know I am not the only person who has done this. Talked herself out of her own experience. Wondered if she overreacted. Decided it probably wasn't that bad because look — the road is clear, everyone is fine, move on.

But the body keeps the score even when the brain is busy telling it not to be dramatic.

And if any part of this story made your chest tighten — I see you. Drop me a message in complete privacy anytime. Truly.

After a morning of coaching where I worked hard to be as much myself as I could, I went to train.

Monday is usually squat day. No idea why — it started like that about ten years ago and despite changing gyms and coaches, Monday is still squat day. I opened my app.

Deadlifts. Sumo deadlifts.

It's Monday. I feel like a zombie. The universe — in the form of my coach — has given me deadlifts.

I shook my head. Warmed up. Deadlifted.

Pretty fitting for the way I was feeling, now that I think about it.

By now you probably know that I used to use my lifting rest breaks to practice handstands. Now I think I lift to force myself to rest between handstand sets. As soon as I got upside down, something weird happened.

The world was upside down. I felt like a zombie. And I was also the most normal I had felt since everything kicked off the previous evening.

I couldn't think about the panic I had tried to hide, or the stress of not knowing if we were going to be safe, or whether the dogs were going to get cholera. I know. I was panicking.

Being upside down let my body give my brain the signal it needed.

Calm. We're here. We're okay.

In science terms, this is called the vestibular-limbic bridge.

The balance challenge activates your vestibular system — your inner ear, your visual field — which talks to a nerve that runs into your vagus pathway. This system also connects to your limbic system, your emotional centre.

Turning the world around started a new conversation in my body. One that had nothing to do with floods, helplessness, or the very real possibility of spaniel cholera. It brought me back to: I'm here now. Things are okay.

I wasn't magically untired for the rest of the day. It took about three days to feel fully normal again. But the dread disappeared. The fog around my thoughts vanished.

My bones were tired. But my brain had space where there hadn't been any.

I want to say something before we get to the practice.

The flood was dramatic. An obvious, external, undeniable thing. But I think we do this to ourselves with smaller things too.

A forgotten birthday that mattered but that we brush off.

A run-in with a colleague at work.

An argument with a parent who has dementia.

An outburst from the kids that escalated and then evaporated as suddenly as it arrived.

These things are a lot for a nervous system to absorb. And it takes longer than five minutes — sometimes much longer — for our systems to find their way back to balance.

You are not being dramatic. You are not overreacting. You are not making it up.

The hole in the road is still there. Your experience was real.

One Thing For You — Two things, actually

First:

If tears came at any point while you were reading this — let them be there.

No apology. No defending it. No telling yourself you're being silly or that it wasn't even that bad.

Just let it be okay that you needed to let them go.

That is not weakness. That is your nervous system doing exactly what it is designed to do.

Second — two minutes, whenever you're ready:

Set a timer for two minutes.

Sit comfortably. Let your hands rest in your lap or on your knees.

Take three breaths at your own natural rhythm — noticing the air coming in through your nose and leaving through your nose. Not forcing anything. Just noticing the sensation.

On your third exhale, drop your right ear toward your right shoulder.

Inhale back to centre.

Exhale, left ear to left shoulder.

Inhale to centre.

Exhale, right ear to right shoulder.

Keep going until the timer stops.

I'll warn you now. You won't want to stop.

This is vestibular work. Gentle, accessible, and available to you right now, wherever you are, whether or not you have a gym or a bar or a set of rings. Your nervous system doesn't need you to be upside down to start the conversation.

It just needs you to move. Slowly. On purpose.