What a Wasp Sting Taught Me About Nervous System Safety
For about 12 hours, I couldn’t recognize my face. The left side looked remotely familiar but the right half appeared like it had lost a fight with a bee-sized boxer. My eye was so swollen, I couldn’t pry it open. My mouth was almost immobile, like a claymation character frozen between frames.
The day started innocently enough with my usual morning walk, meandering along a chaparral-lined trail. Before I knew it, a buzzing, stinging creature flew into my cheek bone, just below my eye. Wham—and then a sharp, piercing pain.
Oh no, something stung me! What was it? It was big. Maybe a wasp. This is my third sting this year. How could this be?
My mind spun as I hurried home. The insides of my body itched and burned like an internal inferno. I started feeling lightheaded, dizzy, breathless. It was hard to think, like someone had unplugged my prefrontal cortex.
🐝 When a Wasp Sting Became a Medical Emergency
Quickly, I logged onto ChatGPT. This sounds like a systemic allergic reaction since it’s affecting multiple systems of your body. If untreated, it could affect your airways. Call 911 right away, it beseeched me.
Soon, eight paramedics descended on my couch. They promptly administered an epinephrine shot to treat the anaphylaxis and raise my concerningly low blood pressure. Between that and four times the normal dose of Benadryl, I started shivering profusely from the inside out. All these stress hormones rushed around my body yet I couldn’t move!
As I watched my neighborhood pass by from the back window of an ambulance bed, a soft presence overcame me. I observed the whole scene as if I were a bird or an angel. I’d been steeping in the practice of embodied presence as a theme in my membership community. It showed up when I most needed it in the midst of a crisis.
🏥 Feeling Unseen in the ER Doesn’t Engender Safety
When we arrived at the hospital, no one looked me in the eyes or told me what was happening. I felt invisible and confused. I wrapped my arms around my chest and consciously felt the hospital bed beneath me. I took long deep belly breaths and orientated myself to this sterile, blinking ecosystem.
Thankfully, my sweet mama arrived. Her loving, familiar presence offered me comfort. Several hours later, she drove me home.
As I tried to sleep that night with my head raised at a 60-degree angle—not a recipe for sleep at all!—I felt my face bulging as if it were an overinflated balloon. Around 4 am, I looked in the mirror and gasped at my contorted form.
I had no idea a face could swell like a puff of pink cotton candy with mere traces of facial features. My left eye was slivered like a new moon, while my right eye had vanished into the swollen landscape of my face. It was hard to talk as my mouth was stiff as rubber.
No ChatGPT needed this time. The allergic reaction wasn’t over. I had to go back to the emergency room ASAP!
🫶🏽 the medicines of Co-Regulation and Kindness
Thankfully, on this second trek to the ER within 24 hours, I was met by an angelic nurse. LaChelle came to my bedside to console me, “It’s a lot, isn’t it?” She asked what my concerns were about a steroid IV the doctor wanted to administer. LaChelle stayed by my side until she answered my every question.
All the while, she was present. Her nervous system was calm. She looked directly in my eyes, despite the fact that my face resembled a marshmallow. There was no rushing—simply being with me patiently and kindly. My whole system started settling in her company.
What a stark reminder that our nervous system affects everyone we encounter. This is pivotal in a health crisis but it’s true all the time. LaChelle was my co-regulating presence in a scrub!
Despite my initial reservations, I embraced a short-term round of steroid medication, giving thanks I have access to health care. Towards the end of the day, I could look out of both eyes again! I could speak with ease! I looked somewhat like myself, albeit with misshapen features. I felt relieved.
But as the rush of stress hormones subsided, exhaustion washed over me. I felt like I was floating outside my body—like my point of consciousness was somewhere above my head.
🙇🏻♀️Using Mind-Body Tools to Return to My Body
For several days, I meditated on my feet—sensing them from the inside, feeling my contact with the floor. I grounded, I oriented, I breathed long slow exhales. I practiced somatic tracking with the cascade of unusual sensations.
As my awareness slowly came back into my body, there was numbness. I saw this as a defense mechanism to protect me from feeling overwhelming sensations, a sign that my nervous system was still in threat mode.
I kept reassuring my scared self, “The emergency has passed. We are safe. I’m right here with you.” Self-compassionate dialogue and soothing touch were my constant companions.
Unlike what happened to me in two early adult traumas, I acknowledged that this was traumatic. The medical system and society often ignore the emotional toll of stressful events. From all my healing work, I’ve learned it’s vital to tend to our emotions with care in order to prevent lasting symptoms.
I couldn’t feel it yet but I knew there was a storehouse of feelings in my trembly body. I began writing, tapping and moving with an intention to allow emotion. I went to the ocean and yelled my frustration into the sea’s roar. I let my animal body thrash and shake. Then, I held my heart and whispered loving assurances.
The tumult stirred up old mind-body symptoms, but that didn’t scare me. Hello insomnia, fatigue, burning brain. I knew these old synapses were trying to protect me and I simply needed extra tender care. As I offered that each day, I started feeling like myself again!
I also met with a somatic therapist I used to see—a 70-something woman with the skill of a master and the touch of a grandmother—to let my body discharge further. After I breathed and cried on her table, Carole said, “You’ve learned how to take care of yourself and get help when you need it.” Yes, I have!
🚑 Trauma, chronic Symptoms and our Nervous System
It’s been 20 years since a sexual assault that toppled my life. In the aftermath, I lived through almost 15 years of ME/CFS, migraines, insomnia and interstitial cystitis. My healing lessons have been long and arduous. But in this acute health challenge, I had tools and support that younger me never had.
Back then, I held it in. I was frozen in terror and shame. I grew in a culture that doesn’t treat rape as the crime it is, and often blames the victim. This backdrop made me feel like I had nowhere to turn for safety and support. This is a tragedy many people face, with grave consequences.
With great care and awareness, I’ve connected the dots between trauma and chronic illness, emotional stress and physical symptoms. I’ve grown my capacity to digest emotions and return to regulation. Every one of us has this potential, and I’m passionate about helping people learn the language of their unique nervous system.
🛟 What an Allergic Reaction revealed About somatic Safety
❤️🩹 Feeling out of control is a normal nervous system response to trauma, not a sign that you’re failing. We can consciously harness our agency, somatic safety and self-compassion as buffers.
🫂 It’s normal to become dysregulated from stressors, but we can return to regulation! Our nervous system is designed to employ fight, flight or freeze with stress. We must actively cultivate cues of safety to move towards regulation.
🕯️As we inhabit our body, we open to more life force, creative intelligence and energy inside us. Embodied presence is the felt sense of being present to what’s happening in our inner and outer world in the present moment.
👩🏽🤝👩🏻 A caring, regulated person can be a co-regulating presence that brings our system back to safety. We can be that person for someone else, too! Pets are awesome co-regulators as well.
🗣️ You’re allowed to ask for what you need—a blanket, an attentive nurse, a pause, a different medication. We have to be our own best advocate.
🧘🏻♀️ Mind–body practices work in a crisis, as well as with chronic symptoms. I believe that my allergic reaction fallout would have been much worse without the tools I have!
I tell my students that I most want to teach them how to sense and meet their deepest needs with compassion. In doing so, each of us can become our own caregiver. As I experienced, it’s possible to weather traumas and return to safety.
🩸Is There Medicine in the Venom?
In my Be Your Own Medicine course, I read a quote by Hector Aristizábal: “The medicine is in the wound.” I’ve been reflecting on that question since the sting—the third in a few months, which made my immune system mount a mightier response. I’ve also been asking “Is there medicine in the venom?”
Yes, yes there is medicine in the wound and in the venom. Something that could have been life-threatening has grown my gratitude for the daily blessings in my life. It’s shown me how far I’ve come in my ability to experience and process frightening experiences. It also brought me close to my own vulnerability, showed me that I am both fragile and resilient, and deeply interconnected with people around me.
We can look at everything that ails us as an imposition or an invitation. At times, I fall into the first camp, feeling annoyed by one more sensation or stressor. But, when I accept the invitation, I discover medicine in the wound itself and inside my very own self.
If this story touched something in you, I’d love to hear. Share your reflections in the comments below!
Learn more about mind-body healing in these blogs:
My Beautiful Life after Chronic Fatigue, Insomnia & GI Issues
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: My 13-Year Crash to Cure Story
Mind Body Study Offers New Hope for Long Covid Patients
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