Healing Isn’t the Absence of Stress: What Our Farm’s Ecosystem Taught Me About the Nervous System

By Wandering Willow Trauma & Somatic-Informed Therapy

We moved to this farm about six years ago now, and there is evidence everywhere that it was once a thriving, working farm — from the dates carved into the concrete more than a century ago, to the old bottles of medication we found buried under the collapsed barn. But by the time we arrived, it was clear the land hadn’t been used properly in years. The barn didn’t even have a roof. The ground was exhausted, depleted, and almost completely lifeless. It could barely sustain one goat, let alone the thirty we moved with.

As we began rotating the goats and adding more animals, the land slowly started to come back. Each year brought more biodiversity — more grasses, more movement, more signs of life. And then came the rats.

So. many. rats.

Rats are frustrating (and unsettling) to deal with. They carry disease, multiply fast, and, as the saying goes, if you see one, there are hundreds you don’t see. We tried every non-poison method we could. We made progress… but never solved it.

Barred owl named Artemis perched inside the barn, helping control the rat population during the farm’s regeneration

Then Artemis arrived — a barred owl who decided to live in our barn for three years. She was the true solution: safe shelter, endless food, and a perfect hunting perch. When Artemis eventually passed away on the property, another predator appeared to fill the gap — a fox who now follows us during chores, hunting the rats we flush out. She has lived here for over a year, raised her babies here, and coexists peacefully with all of our animals because the ecosystem is balanced.

Watching this cycle — prey returning, predators following, balance restoring — taught me something essential:

Healing isn’t about eliminating stress.
It’s about restoring balance.
Ecosystems recover by adding diversity, not by removing challenge (thoughh if you can remove a challenge why not start there!)
And your nervous system is an ecosystem too.

Your Body Isn’t Supposed to Be Stress-Free

We often think a “healthy” nervous system means:

• no anxiety

• no activation

• no overwhelm

• no uncomfortable emotions

But that would be like trying to create a farm with no prey and no predators — no movement, no reaction, no cycles.

That isn’t health.
That’s sterility.

Stress, activation, and even anxiety are not signs of failure.
They’re signs of life returning — the same way rats returning to the farm meant the soil was supporting life again.

A Regulated Nervous System Is Like a Balanced Ecosystem

In an ecosystem:

• Prey = activation, stress, energy, movement

• Predators = regulation, boundaries, containment

You need both for the system to function.

Too much activation (like too many rats) → chaos
Too much shutdown (too many predators means a quiet farm because everything is dead) → collapse
Balanced cycles → resilience

Your nervous system works the same way.
Healing doesn’t remove activation; it adds capacity, regulation, and adaptability.

Trauma Is Ecosystem Collapse

When you’ve lived through trauma or long-term stress, your internal ecosystem narrows. You lose flexibility, responses become rigid, and the system defaults to survival.

Just like our land could barely support a single goat, your nervous system can feel like it can barely support one more stressor.

Healing brings back:

• emotional diversity

• stress tolerance

• rest

• boundaries

• signals

• connection

It recreates the checks and balances that help you adapt.

Healing Isn’t Linear — It’s Ecological

Some seasons feel chaotic.
Some feel quiet.
Some bring old symptoms back.
Some bring new strength.

That isn’t regression.
It’s regeneration.

The return of “rats” in your healing — stress, activation, discomfort — often means the system is waking up, not failing.
And the “owls and foxes” — boundaries, self-compassion, co-regulation — arrive when your system has enough stability to support them.

You Don’t Need a Perfect Nervous System — You Need a Balanced One

Your body is part of nature.
It heals the way ecosystems heal: slowly, cyclically, in layers, with setbacks that are actually signs of progress.

If your system feels messy or unpredictable right now, it may not be breaking down.
It may be coming back to life.

And if you want support understanding your own internal ecosystem, therapy can help you rebuild balance, capacity, and resilience one step at a time.