What If The Static Was Holy?

Learning to trust my sensitivity as sacred, not broken — a neurodivergent mama’s first breath in a new city

Jun 09, 2025

Hi to old friends and welcome to new readers —

I’m genuinely glad you found me here.

If this is your first time reading Unruly Grace, you should know: I’m a big fan of the in-between. I’m Kelly Liken Booker — a neurodivergent, queer, adoptive yogi-mama navigating life with my wildly magical kid Leo, my wife Molly, and a whole lot of unfolding. We recently moved to Pittsburgh, following a deep inner nudge to start again — this time, more honest and less performative.

This piece is part of my Living Between Worlds series — where I share real-time reflections on transitions that don’t come with a map. Things like identity shifts, new beginnings, sensory thresholds, and learning to listen to the body more than the noise.

Today’s essay is about the static — the kind that’s been with me since childhood. It used to feel like a glitch. Now? It’s starting to feel like guidance.

3 women doing yoga on blue yoga mat — Photo by Alen Kajtezovic on Unsplash

The Static Was Holy

The yoga studio smells like eucalyptus and breath. Not the artificial kind of breath piped into a spin class, but the slow, conscious kind that lives in a room full of people who are trying to come back to themselves.

I’m lying flat on my mat at One Point One Yoga—a small studio tucked into a corner of Bloomfield, Pittsburgh. Brick walls. Dusty plants. Kind eyes. Salt lamps. Floorboards that creak when the light shifts just right. It’s my first time here. My first class. My first breath in community in this brand-new city.

We just arrived—me, my wife, our kid, our hope. We’re trying to build something from the inside out this time. I chose this neighborhood because it feels like soft permission. There’s a quiet invitation here: to arrive—not just logistically, but somatically.

The teacher says something about softening the edges. I feel myself resist.

But I know this practice.

In Viniyoga, we begin where we are. We don’t force or rush. The breath leads. The form adapts. And every movement—every pause—is purposeful. There’s no performance. No need to be bendy. Just the truth of the moment, and the space to meet it with reverence.

I begin to breathe in rhythm with my body’s current. I listen inward.

The hum is still there. It always is.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like I was hearing something no one else could. Not voices. Not visions. Just… static. The fluorescent buzz of classrooms. The clatter of dishes. Certain fabrics. Sudden laughter. Too much eye contact. It all scraped against the inner membrane of my attention.

Before I knew I was Autistic. Before I had words like AuDHD. Before I understood anything about sensory processing or neurodivergence or the miracle of the vagus nerve, I just thought I was failing.

They told me I was dramatic. Oversensitive. Intense. So I tried harder. I watched how other kids existed. I practiced “just being” like it was a language exam.

I became fluent in fitting in.

But yoga teaches that how we breathe is how we live. And I wasn’t breathing—I was bracing. For decades.

These days, I recognize a flutter in my diaphragm that I once misnamed as anxiety.

Now I know it’s information. A low-voltage warning that I’m moving out of alignment—not morally, but somatically. It’s a breath-shaped whisper: Pay attention, this isn’t quite right.

My nervous system has always been telling me the truth. I just didn’t know how to listen.

This is pratyāhāra—one of the inner limbs of yoga.

The conscious withdrawal of the senses—not as avoidance, but as wisdom. It’s not about blocking the world out. It’s about knowing when you’re overstimulated and giving yourself permission to come home to the breath.

I felt that flutter last week at my parents’ house.

Rick had come over—my former husband, still beloved in ways I don’t have tidy language for. He sat at the table beside Molly, my wife, and Leo, our kid, and suddenly I could feel every frequency in the room like a low-grade fever.

My stomach pulled. My chest tightened. I missed him. But being near him was like trying to wear a coat I’ve outgrown—familiar and uncomfortable and impossible to ignore.

Still, we’re growing. That’s something.

The mat creaks beneath me as I shift to my side. The teacher invites us to feel the breath moving down the spine. I can. I do.

It feels like a river. Like truth.

Yoga was the first place where the static softened—not because it went away, but because I was given somewhere to offer it.

Movement as mantra.

Breath as broom.

Attention as prayer.

Viniyoga taught me to approach sensation with curiosity. To trust that moving with the breath, not against it, leads somewhere worth going—even if it doesn’t look like anyone else’s journey.

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Words still fail me often.

Or maybe it’s more true to say they show up late to the party. My body always knows first. But my mask is convincing—eloquent, steady, curated. I sound grounded. I look calm. People don’t see the years of rehearsal. The decoding. The looping. The constant effort it takes to come across as “just fine.”

I thought everyone had to practice being a person.

Turns out, not so much.

And so I trust my body now more than the scripts.

It tells me in freeze states. In fixations. In the need to go still or leave early or stim quietly with the edge of my sleeve.

It tells me in longing. In overwhelm. In awe.

There’s a card in the Be With Your Body tarot deck I pulled last week.

It was The Star.

The caption read: “You are not too much. You are a constellation.”

I held that card to my chest and exhaled like it was permission.

Because maybe I wasn’t made for ease.

Maybe I was made for truth.

Maybe my sensitivity is not a dysfunction—it’s divine design.

Maybe I wasn’t built to ignore the static.

Maybe I was built to hear it—to translate it into care, into boundary, into clarity, into art.

The world is too loud, too fast, too much.

So I go slow. I breathe deep. I listen inward.

This is svādhyāya—self-inquiry. Study. Listening for the teacher within.

And when the static comes, I don’t push it away.

I bow.

Because the static is holy.

Because it means I’m still listening.

Because it’s how I find my way back to myself.

And these days, I want to arrive whole.

Thank you for spending this moment with me.

I used to think my sensitivity made me broken. Now I think it just means I’m tuned in. And if you’re here reading this, chances are you are too. So here’s your gentle reminder: you’re not too much. You’re not alone. And you don’t have to explain your static to anyone for it to be valid.

If this essay stirred something in you — a memory, a question, a breath you didn’t know you were holding — I’d truly love to hear from you in the comments. That’s where the real magic happens: connection, reflection, resonance. I read every one.

And if you want to keep walking together, you can subscribe (free or paid), share this with someone who might need it, or just come back next time. I’ll be here — breathing, writing, listening.

With love + non-grasping hands,

Kelly 🌙