Not All Stress Is Personal: The Body on Alert in a World That Doesn’t Feel Safe

When we talk about stress and mental health, we often treat it as a personal issue.

Did you meditate today?

Are you drinking enough water?

Have you tried journaling?

And while those are supportive tools, they don’t tell the whole story—especially for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities. Because for many people, stress doesn’t begin with a single bad day. It’s chronic. It’s inherited, and it’s systemic.

It’s walking into a room and being the only one who looks like you.It’s being hyper-aware of how you speak, dress, or move in certain spaces. It’s hearing “you’re so articulate” and knowing what’s underneath it. It’s absorbing the fear or trauma that your parents never got to name. It’s knowing your lived experience often isn’t reflected—or protected—by the systems around you.

This kind of stress isn’t in your head. It’s in your body. Your nervous system is constantly scanning for threat or rejection, even when you’re “fine.” Shoulders tighten. Breath shortens. Muscles stay guarded. And over time, your body adapts by bracing itself—even during rest.

At CrashBell, we see how this kind of tension shows up in the body: tight jaws, chronic fatigue, clenched fists, pelvic pain, or racing thoughts. And we believe naming it is part of healing it.

Because when you realize that not all stress is personal, something powerful happens—you stop blaming yourself for feeling overwhelmed, and you start making space for real compassion.

You deserve peace not because you’ve “earned” it—but because your body was never meant to carry this much, this long. And sometimes, what your body is responding to didn’t even start with you.

Next week, we’ll explore how inherited stress, emotional patterns, and even physical tension can pass through generations—and what it means to finally release what was never yours to carry.