Have you ever noticed how quickly anxiety can take over when life feels out of sync? When we’re rushing, striving, or constantly second-guessing ourselves, we lose touch with something deeper, the sacred pattern God wove into our lives. That pattern, what theologians might call Divine order, isn’t some abstract concept. It’s simply the way God designed the world to work: with rhythm, harmony, and purpose.
The sciences might refer to this sense of being off as ‘poor vagal tone’. There have been many books on this subject; what to do to get into the ‘rest and digest state’. You can gargle all you want; nothing is going to change until you understand what I am about to explain.
I came across Father Dominic on social media. He reminded me the other day of a beautiful truth rooted in classical philosophy and Catholic teaching: Act follows being.
In other words, what we do flows out of who we are.
A bird builds a nest because it is a bird. A mother nurtures because she is, by design, a giver of life. But when we forget who we are or try to become something we’re not, our actions follow that confusion. And that’s when disorder seeps in: in our homes, our marriages, and our mental health. I can certainly provide you with numerous personal examples I’ve experienced of this – it seems so clear now! I was so off…
We were never meant to carry the weight of the world alone. Yet when we step outside God’s rhythm and design for life, we start acting from anxiety instead of peace, from scarcity instead of abundance, from control instead of trust.
That’s why so many of us are tired, not just physically, but spiritually. We’ve become disconnected from a deeper framework that brings clarity and direction. When we realign with that framework, when we anchor ourselves in the truth of who God made us to be, we begin to experience something that no to-do list or self-help strategy can offer: peace.
But there’s a second truth that Father Dominic shared—one that feels especially hard to accept in a world obsessed with fixing and optimizing everything.
We grow closer to God when we participate in His suffering.
This is not about glorifying pain or romanticizing hardship. It’s about recognizing that some things in life are not meant to be solved; they’re meant to be surrendered to.
I see this often in women navigating midlife. The instinct is to fix: “My body is changing. I’ve gained weight. My hormones are out of control.” So the default response becomes: restrict, diet, try harder.
- But what if instead of resisting that shift, we honoured it?
- What if menopause is not a signal of decline, but a rite of passage?
- What if it’s time to stop producing life physically and begin nurturing it spiritually?
That simple shift, saying yes to God’s timing, restores a sense of harmony.
Even our relationship with food, rest, and our bodies begins to heal. Because peace doesn’t come from understanding everything. Peace comes when we surrender to what is. When we remember, we are not just bodies, but instead bodies and souls.
So much of the emotional turmoil we see today, anxiety, confusion, self-doubt, isn’t just about life being hard. It’s about life being out of order.
Father Dominic put it plainly: Insanity is the result of disorder. Not just a psychological disorder, but a spiritual disorder, when we forget the order between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Son obeys the Father, not because He is less, but because love has an order. The Holy Spirit proceeds from that love. There is dignity, glory, and equality, but there is also direction.
The same is true in our homes. We need to keep things in ‘physical’ order. But children need to obey their parents, not because they are ‘less than’ but because they need structure and order.
When we dishonour that order, whether in our thinking, our relationships, or even our rhythms of rest and work, our minds begin to fragment. We try to become everything. We try to understand everything. However, the mind wasn’t meant to lead alone; it was created to serve the heart, which listens to the Spirit.
That’s why so many are unravelling, not from weakness, but from disconnection. They’ve lost touch with what is vertical. They no longer recognize that order brings peace, and peace restores sanity.
We need to stop trying to ‘figure it out’. Stop ‘bio-hacking’ our health. This is not giving up but instead stepping up to the truth. Acceptance. Fiat.