Day 30 - Moving Through Stress - Traffic, Political Letters, and Good Company with Food

Day 30 brought the perfect exclamation point to my nervous system challenge—a day that required moving in and out of stress with intention, care, and community.

The day began with a five-and-a-half-hour round trip to Westmont College to pick up Elisha from camp. These days traffic is mostly always bad - so even leaving to come back at 11:30 had us in bumper-to-bumper traffic turning a “no traffic” two hour drive into three.

At pickup, we sang worship songs together, and I enjoyed the profound fact about nervous system regulation: any vibration of air throughout your diaphragm, lungs, and airways helps your entire system remember "I'm okay right now in this moment." Singing became an active reset, a way to move stress through my body rather than storing it.

I needed this regulation practice more than usual. Living in Los Angeles, I'm surrounded by beloved friends and neighbors who are immigrants—dear relationships built over decades of mutual care and community. Recent events in our city have created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that affects us all, regardless of citizenship status. When communities live in fear, it impacts everyone's nervous system.

The drive home with Elisha became a gift of connection as we talked about what he'd learned about himself, community, and his faith during his five days at camp. There's something about long car rides that creates perfect conditions for the kind of meandering conversation that nourishes both parent and child.

Halfway home, we discovered Gama Grill, a Mediterranean hole-in-the-wall with 4.7 stars and only 100 reviews. We decided to take the chance, and it turned out to be some of the best Mediterranean food we've ever tasted—and we're serious connoisseurs of this cuisine. Good food became a delightful reset, refueling us for whatever the evening would bring.

The day concluded with seeing clients and writing letters of concern to senators about due process issues affecting our community. As someone who tries to follow the way of Jesus, I believe caring for the marginalized and powerless is foundational to faith, regardless of political affiliation.

This final day perfectly captured what the 30-day challenge had been teaching me: life requires us to move through stress rather than around it. The key is learning to regulate intentionally—through singing, through meaningful conversation, through discovering good food with people we love, through taking action that aligns with our values.

The nervous system expansion on Day 30 wasn't about seeking discomfort for its own sake. It was about building capacity to hold complexity—traffic frustration and worship songs, community fear and protective action, exhaustion and nourishment, concern and care.

Thirty days of deliberate expansion taught me that a regulated nervous system isn't one that avoids stress, but one that can move through it with intention, community, and practices that remind us who we are and what we care about, even in challenging times.

Sometimes the most important challenge is learning to hold both difficulty and delight, stress and care, concern and community—all at the same time, all in service of staying present to what matters most.