THE NINETY SECOND RULE

The first response is rarely the best one.

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Something I wrote last week spoke to me,
as if the wisdom was coming from a different source [because it was],
as if the source was asking me to take a deeper look at who I am.

There was a revelation wedged between what I thought was the “bigger idea.” Yet, there it was, this one insistent sentence that revisted me during the quiet hours of my week—

“No immediate assumptions.”

Re-reading what I’d written, it feels like an otherworldly command. Like there’s something greater I am to draw from this, than the initial intention that poured from brain to hand.

Over the last six days I’ve been fixated on the vaster truth of it—
how quick we are to respond with negative emotion,
and how rarely we question the thought that gave it birth.

We don’t just feel and then allow it to wash over. We rehearse it.
Not always out loud, with others,
but in the quiet chambers of ourselves.
A look, a word, a silence—
we write entire chapters from scraps of moments,
pen whole books from a single spark.

This is the loneliest journey taken,
the one I traverse inside my head.
It’s impossible for my loved ones to lock step with where I am headed with this internal conversation. But my body has no trouble keeping up.

The longer I choose to hold onto the emotion,
the more emotional I become.
Even long after the mind has forgotten the truth of the situation,
the feeling lingers, flooding even the sweet moments that come after
with waves of anger, disappointment, regret.

Here’s what I’ve gathered from studying my Creator’s design:
We are engineered for ninety seconds of emotion to wash through our system— A surge, a crest, a fall.

But it is likely we give it more.
Ninety minutes.
Ninety days.
Ninety months…a lifetime… if I let the story retell itself.

What I chose, the body follows.
[Read that again].
It’s not only that my body keeps the score but it’s struggling to keep up.
It fails to distinguish between memory and moment—
floods again at the reverb,
rushes again at the ghost,
until the echo is louder than the original sound.

What should have passed in less than two minutes
becomes an atmosphere I bathe in.
This is how sorrow roots,
how anger outlives its occasion.
how illness finds a home.

This is not abstract—
it is cellular. The stories we rehearse are etched in tissue and blood.

When feelings are chosen [even revered] above healing,
the body listens.

When I decide to carry what should have been released,
the body bends beneath the weight.

Anger rehearsed becomes bitterness.
Wound rehearsed becomes grudge.
Regret rehearsed becomes defeat.
Each repetition gathers force,
until the body is humming a melody it was never meant to know.

Can this be how disease infiltrates—
not as punishment, but as a body faithful to my cause?
Too many hurts unburied.
Too many floods given free rein.

Cells multiplying the stories I hold like worship,
rooms for sorrow in places meant for joy.

And still, mercy lingers.

The same cells that bent to storm can bend to clearing.
The same body that learned to echo harm can learn the rhythm of release.

There is grace in the wave that is temporary—
a holy reminder to let go.

The ninety seconds belong to the body — a rush of chemicals, a tightening of the chest, a surge of tears. Everything after that belongs to story. When we replay, retell, and re-justify, we restart the clock. What should have been a tide receding becomes a storm system. This is where suffering multiplies.

To allow the wave its ninety seconds.
To trust the rhythm written into our DNA.
To allow the surge its rise, crest, and fall.
This is holy.
Release is the making room for what comes next—
for healing,
for clearing,
for the quiet revelation of peace.

There is no shame in emotion. Every surge is a kind of prayer. In ninety seconds, the body cries, rages, shakes, and then quiets itself. It knows how to let go. When we override that rhythm, we build our own liturgy of harm — rehearsing bitterness, nursing wounds, multiplying unforgiveness. The ninety seconds is sacred design.

NOTES:
The Neuroscience
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor first named the “90-second rule”: when an emotion is triggered, the body floods with chemicals like adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine. If left alone, the biochemical surge is processed and cleared in about ninety seconds.

Resetting the Clock
Each time we re-trigger the story with thought, the clock restarts. The body cannot distinguish between a remembered event and a new one, so it responds the same way. This can mean:

• Elevated blood pressure and heart rate

• Suppressed immune response

• Digestive and sleep disruption

• Chronic inflammation with long-term health risks

• Brain changes (shrinking of the hippocampus, imbalances in reward systems)

The Simple Truth
Emotions are waves. They are meant to move through us.
When we rehearse them endlessly, they become storms.
When we let them run their intended course, we reclaim the body’s design for release and renewal.

Closing thought:
The gift is not to stop the wave, but to let it move.
To trust that ninety seconds is long enough to feel it,
and then to set it free.
The same cells that once obeyed the echo of harm
can be taught the cadence of peace.

Jill Bolte Taylor’s 90-second rule reminds us that the body is designed to metabolize an emotional surge quickly. It isn’t about cutting off feeling; it’s about giving permission to feel fully, and then let it pass.

The ninety-second rule is not a limit but a mercy.
It is a holy reminder that release is written in us.
To trust the brevity of the wave
is to allow the body to return to quiet,
and to let healing have its place.

 Image: Me. Sitting on a chair in a field. The intention is to put me squarely in the center of Creation, to put my words in context of His bigger wisdom, larger plan. I was prompted five years ago to write and publish every Saturday. So, far, I haven’t run out of things to say. Our journeys are endless and endlessly provocative. The truth is, we learn not only from others but from the wisdom embedded in ourselves. If there is something that sticks with you—a thought, a moment, something written by you or someone else—examine it from every angle until its message sinks in. If I am ever redundant, it’s an indication that I’m not done with an idea yet…and I think that’s a very good thing.