Life Hack(ed)

On choosing presence when life ambushes you

When my email got hacked, I was flooded with anxiety. It reminded me of the years I spent waiting for the phone to light up with news of my son’s struggles. Both times, I learned that blame only weakens the nervous system. The real work is learning to contain fear until reflection is possible.

Sometimes life hands you surprises, and today one landed right in my lap. Unfortunately, it was not a good one. My email got hacked.

I may not be the most tech-savvy, but I usually know how to look out for scams. I do not open attachments from strangers, and if something suspicious comes from someone I know, I double-check before clicking. Yesterday, though, a strange convergence of events left me vulnerable. I was expecting an email from someone I trusted, and what looked like an email from her was not the document I anticipated but a virus. Before I realized what I had done, it spread to everyone in my contacts.

At the time, I was in the middle of a full clinical day. I see patients part time, which means the days I work are stacked, eight patients in eight hours. Therapy days run on rhythm: fifty minutes of session, five minutes to write a note, and maybe five minutes to get water or breathe before the next person arrives. That balance works for me, but it also means any disruption can feel like a crack in the container I try to hold steady for my patients.

In the early afternoon, the texts and emails started flooding in. My phone stays on silent during sessions, but in the gaps between patients I saw messages piling up. Friends, family, and colleagues were asking if I had really sent them a DocuSign.

My nervous system briefly exploded. My email is more than email. It is where I store important non-clinical documents like my memoir draft and my Substack essays. And for a few frantic minutes I did not know if it was only my email account or my whole computer. God forbid anything connected to my practice became compromised. Between patients, I called IT, reassured people as best I could, and reminded myself to breathe before opening the door for the next person waiting for therapy.

That feeling of being ambushed at work was familiar. Years ago, before my husband and I made the painful decision to send our fifteen-year-old to residential treatment, every day carried a similar edge. His struggles had overtaken our family life. Calls from school came without warning. My husband reached me with urgent updates that left me shaken. I never knew when the next disruption would land, only that it would.

I remember sitting in my office then, waiting for the phone to light up, bracing myself for the next crisis. My nervous system lived in overdrive, ricocheting between fear and guilt. I blamed myself constantly: maybe if I had parented differently, maybe if I had caught the signs earlier, maybe if I had been stronger. Work became my one escape. For fifty minutes at a time I could immerse myself in someone else’s world and put my worries aside. And yet it was also hard. My nervous system was already on high alert, which meant I had to work at being present in a way that usually comes naturally to me.

At home, my fear often spilled over. I tried to keep steady, but more often than not I was hijacked. I often abandoned myself in order to manage my son, which only left us both more unmoored. I am not sure why it felt so different in the therapy room than at home, but I suspect the stakes felt too personal with my son. There, I lost my footing.

At first, yesterday’s hack jolted that same anxious part of me. I was flooded with fear and self-criticism: I should have known better, I should have caught it. Then I tried to slow myself down. The truth is, yes, I clicked the wrong link. But I also did the best I could with the information I had at the time. That did not erase the mistake, and it certainly did not erase the need to deal with it, but it did soften the shame.

It is the same process I had to learn when I was parenting a child in crisis while still showing up for my patients. Each crisis made me doubt myself. I made mistakes with my son, mistakes I needed to learn from. But I was also doing the best I could with what I knew then. Blame only added weight to a nervous system already carrying too much.

What helped me then, and what helped me yesterday, was containment. When my fear surged, I had to remind myself to keep it in its place long enough to stay present with the person in front of me. If I let fear run wild, I could not show up for anyone.

Over time, I realized I needed to learn how to contain fear everywhere, not just in the office. With my children, with my husband, with anyone standing in front of me. Now I want to be clear: containing fear does not mean abandoning myself. If I simply abandoned my own needs to show up for others, as I often did at home, I could not show up well for anyone at all.

Instead, I had to learn how to stay connected and still find a way to return to myself. What I learned, with a lot of hard work, was that once my nervous system finally settled and I felt space inside again, that was when I needed to slow down and reflect. That was when I could return to my own feelings and needs, not with a critical voice but with fresh eyes. Looking back with compassion and intention helped me carry forward what I had learned instead of punishing myself for not having known it sooner.

One thing I am sure of is that life will keep handing out surprises. Yesterday it was my email. Years ago it was my son’s struggles. The best hack I know now is this: if I can meet these disruptions without blame, contain fear long enough to choose presence, and return later with reflection, then even the worst disruptions can turn into the best teachers.