Series Zero: Root Work

This Arc Isn't Redemption

It's a record. The foundation most people never see.

Before Series One-Four, these three essays trace the original fault line: the collapse, the wiring, the body that never returned to baseline.

Each stands alone. Together, they anchor what came after.

Act Zero: Prologue

The night the body quit pretending. ICU. 4:27 a.m. A lifetime of pushing through, cashing its debt.

What kept me present wasn't training—it was breath practices inherited from strangers on trails decades earlier.

Content note: Brain bleed, ICU, organ stress, chronic conditions (RA, Lupus). Non-graphic medical themes.

→ Read: Act Zero

Root Work: Healing That Starts Below The Surface

Trauma that doesn't heal builds architecture. The nervous system learned danger before language and never forgot.

This is the work beneath the work.

Content note: Childhood trauma's effects on the nervous system, survival patterns, early harm and adaptations.

→ Read: Root Work

What The Body Remembers: Letters Never Sent

The body keeps the letters we never send. Seven and a half years off the trail. A return not to who I was, but to what's left and what still moves.

Healing isn't resolution. It's coexistence.

Content note: Trauma stored in the body, family patterns, illness after ICU, nature-based tools.

→ Read: What The Body Remembers

Closing Note

I didn't arrive here by adopting a method. I stayed with my own experience long enough to recognize what was true.

Clarity came slowly. Not as certainty, but as capacity—the ability to choose what fits and move at the pace my body allowed.

This isn't an application of a system. It's the record of a path that took as long as it needed.

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Still Rolling Outdoors is a blog of peer perspectives and reflections. Your healing journey is uniquely yours. Nothing here should be confused with medical or therapy advice. (More about this approach)