The Night Watcher- When Fear Finds You at 3am

The quiet hour between fear and faith — where the soul learns to listen.

The Hour of the Pit

They say nothing good happens after midnight—but I’ve found that’s when the real work begins.

When fear visits in the middle of the night, it doesn’t knock softly.It hits before I’m even awake. I come to with that old, familiar feeling—a pit of impending doom already alive inside me.

It’s as if I wake mid-freefall from a dream I can’t quite remember, and my mind instantly starts scanning both past and future for proof of danger—old stories I’ve already lived through, or new ones that haven’t even happened yet.

It rushes in like a storm—uninvited, all-consuming, relentless.And though there’s rarely any logical reason for it, my body braces as though a bomb is about to drop from the sky.The muscles in my legs seize.My hips ache with a density that feels bruised from the inside out.The fascia around my thighs grows tight, almost uninhabitable.

I used to call it anxiety.Now I know it’s fear—ancient, cellular, and intelligent.

When Fear Lives in the Body

Last week, I told my Zero Balancing practitioner, Jenn, that my legs felt like tree trunks—heavy, tight, aching all the way to the bone.We always begin by talking about what’s coming up in my life and setting an intention for the session.

I told her that lately I’d been able to witness the fear when it arrives and say, almost proudly,

“Nope, we don’t think those thoughts anymore.”

She smiled gently and said,

“That doesn’t sound very comforting, Lis—does it?”

And that’s when it hit me.

My mind flashed to the night Charlie came to me scared after watching too many Halloween videos on YouTube.I’d told her, “Sweetheart, you’re fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

But I hadn’t really mothered her. And in that quiet moment with Jenn, I realized I hadn’t been mothering myself either.

To be completely honest, I was tired that night. I just wanted Charlie to go to bed. But as Jenn began working on my body, I could feel the fear I’d pushed aside rising again through my legs—the very places it had taken root.

We did two long, back-to-back sessions to help release what my body had been holding. For a few days afterward, the tightness eased, the ache softened, and I could move freely again.

But this morning, standing in the shower, I struggled once more to lift my left leg onto the bench to shave.The fear had returned—gentler, but still whispering:

“I’m not gone. I’m waiting for you to listen.”

Listening for What Still Hurts

In that space of humility, I reached for what always brings me home—the practices I somehow always abandon when fear takes over.

The Celestial Rose of Ma — a gift from the Divine Mother, opening the heart beyond self-imposed limits and into trust.

Writing.

Reading.

Prayer.

The quiet reminders of truth that I am loved, guided, and safe.

That’s when the passages from Paul Selig and Rumi's The Celestial Rose of Ma found me again.

Paul’s message—about choosing to disengage from the frequency of fear and anchor instead in love—feels like an initiation that never ends. And Rumi’s rose reminds me that the Divine Mother’s love is always offering to lift us beyond our self-imposed limits, to breathe us open to a life so sacred and ecstatic we can scarcely imagine it.

I want that. I want to live from that flame. To feel every breath as a caress from the heavenly lover. To trust the unfolding completely.

And yet, some nights I still wake at 3 A.M.,clutching the thorns instead of receiving the rose.

Love Is Older Than Fear

But when I pause to breathe, to write, to listen, the fear begins to soften. Gratitude tiptoes in. And I remember that love is older than fear.

I roll over, place my hand on my husband’s side, feel the steady rise and fall of his breath, and think, What a miracle this man is. What a miracle this life is.

Fear doesn’t disappear because we fight it. It dissolves when we mother it—when we remember to come home to ourselves.

Trust.

Surrender.

Breathe.

And maybe laugh a little, too. (Shit- I haven’t slept through the night since 1995—the year I became a mama!)

Let’s Talk About It

We’ve all met fear in the night.

What helps you come home to yourself when it visits?

If these words spoke to you, tap the heart below and share a few words in the comments — I’d love to hear your reflections.