Operation “Lion’s Roar” (Epic fury) speaks the language of power.
But at home, between the safe room and the kitchen, a different kind of power exists.
Not the one that roars, but the one that stays, which can inspire the audience to see strength in subtlety and steadiness.
The one that stays.
In this article, I share what happens to me when I don’t feel like a lioness, and how embracing quiet presence can foster genuine emotional resilience, helping the audience feel understood and less alone.
Existential anxiety during wartime is a full-bodied life response. Recognizing it as a natural reaction can help the audience feel understood and less alone in their experience.
In such moments, the future shortens. Thinking becomes functional. The system seeks certainty, control, and signs of stable ground. The pulse rises, muscles tense, and attention narrows and becomes focused. This is a precise biological mechanism designed to ensure life.
Existential anxiety is not just fear of the current alarm. It is the fear of losing stability. To cope, you can practice grounding techniques, such as deep breathing or mindfulness, which help your body ask: Does the world still hold me? Recognizing this question can help you manage prolonged alertness and internal erosion.
When the nervous system is activated, each of us leans on our primary regulation patterns-such as action or withdrawal-that we may not consciously recognize. Understanding these patterns can help you become more aware of your natural responses, improving your ability to manage emotions during wartime.
One person will go into action. They will organize, cook, arrange, and check the space again. Action creates an illusion of control and reduces helplessness. Another person will withdraw, go silent, or partially disconnect. Withdrawal reduces stimulation and minimizes overload.
In relationships, these differences can be perceived as criticism. The active one will see indifference in the withdrawn one. The withdrawn one will experience the active one as pressured or aggressive. In reality, both sides are trying to maintain stability.
The important insight here is the distinction: this is a system response. Not an intention to hurt. When we recognize that fear is speaking through the patterns, we restore choice. This is the beginning of differentiation within the storm.
Eating during anxiety is a physical attempt to create security, which can help the audience feel less guilty about this natural response.
Food signals resource availability. It marks to the system that there is enough to continue existing.
Chewing and swallowing activate the body’s calming system and slightly reduce hyperarousal.
Sometimes there is a deeper layer: the body is not only reacting to the current threat but also to older bodily memories—experiences of scarcity, family stories of wandering, of uncertainty. Even if we have not experienced hunger or direct loss, the body carries a systemic memory of insecurity.
When the hand reaches for the refrigerator during an alarm, it is not just looking for food. It is looking for continuity. It is seeking to ensure that life goes on. Instead of self-criticism, you can ask yourself: Which part of me needs to know right now that there is enough?
This question opens the possibility of conscious regulation, rather than automatic survival.
Emotional regulation is not an act of self-persuasion. It is not saying that everything is fine. Regulation is expanding the ability to hold a feeling without being swept away by it.
The first step is direct recognition: I am afraid right now. This sentence separates the experience from the identity. It creates a small but significant distance between “I” and “the fear.”
The next stage is working through the body. An exhale longer than the inhale signals to the system that this moment does not require escape. Stable touch on the body—hand on the chest, hand on the belly—creates a sense of internal boundary. Attention to actual physical sensations brings focus back to the present.
Regulation is not the elimination of fear. It is carrying it in a dose that can be contained. As capacity grows, alertness naturally decreases.
When there is no broad support network, partners become each other’s primary regulation system. Every emotional movement carries more weight. Silence is experienced as distance. Action is experienced as criticism. Sensitivity increases.
In such a situation, higher differentiation is required precisely when it is hard to achieve. Differentiation is the ability to stay connected without being absorbed by the other’s fear and without demanding they calm down at my pace.
The insight here is the understanding that the relationship is not meant to eliminate anxiety, but to carry it together. Caregivers and mental health practitioners can facilitate this by encouraging individuals to express their feelings in the first person—like ‘I feel overwhelmed’—which fosters internal clarity and shared resilience, even without external support.
Family resilience is not fake stability. It is not pretending there is no fear. It is creating an emotional backbone within a complex reality.
Children do not need a parent who is not anxious. They need a parent who can hold anxiety without falling apart, “Yes, this is scary, and I am here,”: “Yes, this is scary, and I am here“—they create safe ground even when there are alarms.
Partial routine, basic order, age-appropriate conversation—these are not techniques. They are signs that the family system continues to function. Life has not stopped.
Resilience is built on continuity. Even small.
(Written in the safe room)
I move between the safe room and the kitchen.
Between an alert and a pot.
Between hypervigilance and the smell of something cooking.
The alarm siren sends me to open the refrigerator door.
Grabbing something quickly to eat,
fruit, bread, cheese—I’m not picky
hearing an ancient voice inside me telling me to eat now because who knows what will happen later.
This voice is older than me.
It is not interested in balance—
It is interested in life.
In survival.
It has a European melody.
Good morning, Sion. Your anxiety is back.
Anxiety sends me to the refrigerator.
My existential anxiety is a need to do something to feel I have control.
To move.
To organize.
To cook.
To eat.
I cook a lot during the war.
Pots on the stove give me a sense of control.
Chopping vegetables gives me rhythm.
The smell fills the house and calms something I didn’t know how to calm with words,
creates a sense of order for me.
Noticing that I am overwhelmed, and choosing to stay.
A small movement from flooding back to the body.
One deeper breath.
One hand on the chest and the other on the belly.
Simple recognition of the voice: I am afraid right now, which helps me feel understood and gentle with myself.
Hearing the voice that tells me “eat and drink for tomorrow we die,” not fighting it.
Telling myself:
“Thank you, dear body, for wanting to protect me.”
Asking myself:
What will help me now?
Another bite, another pot, maybe a moment to sit and breathe?
Sometimes I eat,
sometimes I stand in the kitchen and breathe deeply,
feeling the cold floor beneath my feet
breathing again
and entering the safe room
regulated.
Resilience isn’t about never feeling fear. It’s about managing fear without blaming others or disconnecting from yourself.
It is the ability to feel alert and say, “This is my system protecting me.”
It is the ability to see your partner reacting differently and understand: this too is a way to stay alive.
It is the ability to recognize an old pattern emerging and not panic from it.
Between the safe room and the kitchen, quiet resilience occurs. Not dramatic. It’s the strength of a deeper breath, a gentle hand on the chest, or a pot quietly cooking-subtle acts of stability that foster hope.
A lioness does not always roar.
Sometimes she stays.
And that is a profound act of patience and stability, showing that resilience can be steady and enduring, not always dramatic.
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