Vachon Imagined

When my son was a toddler, I experienced something I had never fully recognized before.

My husband was out of town, and my son and I had already planned to attend a festival. Nothing extraordinary. Just a crowded place, a lot of people, and a normal day.

But the moment I stepped out of the car and began walking toward the crowd, holding my son’s hand so tightly that he looked up at me and said, “Ouch, mommy, that hurts,” a wave of nausea and fear came over me.

Panic.

It arrived instantly.

And yet, it was not unfamiliar.

I had lived much of my life this way—protecting myself, fearing what other people might do, avoiding crowds, turning inward when the world felt unsafe.

This was not just nervousness.

It was a way of existing.

Because when a person, whether logically or not, does not feel safe, they naturally begin to remove themselves from whatever creates that feeling. It might be a person. A job. A relationship. Even something meant to bring joy.

Many people live this way without realizing it.

But something about that moment with my son was different.

I was no longer only responsible for myself.

I had to protect him.

And for the first time, I recognized how much I had relied on my husband’s presence to create a sense of safety around us.

My husband is not generally a volatile man. By his own nature, he is calm. He has learned how to hold himself with steadiness. Anxiety does not move through him the way it moves through me.

The very reason I chose him is the very reason I had not often questioned whether I could protect my son alone.

Until that moment.

Until he was not there.

Suddenly, I felt exposed.

Like a waiting target.

It was one of the most vulnerable and painful moments of my life.

And it happened in a second.

But it did not leave in a second.

Protection is something we often do not learn when we have never experienced being protected.

The protection I speak of is not vigilance.

It is not endlessly strategizing, planning for every possible outcome, or placing ourselves into hypothetical situations that may never happen.

It is not the constant attempt to control outcomes, control people, avoid embarrassment, escape failure, or prove that we are enough—perfect enough, complete enough, prepared enough.

That kind of protection is not freedom.

It is fear asking us to stay on guard.

True protection arises from presence.

It happens, and then it returns to consciousness, because protection itself is already a part of consciousness.

But when we begin to stand in our own strength, something changes.

Something very real happens.

I have lived with depression, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. I have been diagnosed, treated, and medicated. I have spent more time and money in offices than I care to admit.

I am not denying suffering.

I am not denying mental illness.

I am not denying the reality of what the mind and body can endure.

What I am saying is that through surrender—not surrender as weakness, but surrender as a return—we begin to discover another kind of protection.

Not protection built from pride.

Not protection built from fear.

But protection that comes from standing within consciousness itself.

The part of us that does not need to fight to prove its power.

The part of us that does not need to announce its presence.

The part of us that simply is.

And from that place, we do not become less human.

We become more fully alive and something else through us is born.

Because we are no longer fighting life to prove we belong within it.