I saw it in passing.
A one-star review on The Gatehouse Google profile. No comment. Just the star.
Normally, I don’t go digging. Reviews are what they are. But something nudged me, so I clicked the profile.
In the span of a couple of hours, this person had left one-star reviews, also with no comments, on a string of women-focused social service organizations across Toronto’s west end. Government ministries too. Then, almost as a punchline, a five-star review for a neighbourhood pub.
Pattern spotted.
Intellectually, that should have been the end of it.
“This isn’t about us.”
“This isn’t feedback.”
“This is someone having a day, or a pattern, or a grievance they’re working out sideways.”
And yet, it landed.
Not in a dramatic way. Not rage or panic. More like a small drop in the chest. A quiet tightening.
Part of that, I realized later, had nothing to do with the review itself.
Last fall, we went through a website hack that ultimately resulted in our Google Ads for Nonprofits account being suspended. It was disruptive, stressful, and full of invisible consequences, the kind where you’re constantly scanning for the next shoe to drop.
When you’ve lived through something like that, your system learns.
A small anomaly doesn’t register as “small.”
It registers as potential signal.
So when I saw the one star, my body didn’t think, “annoying.”
It thought, “Is this another thing?”
That’s the part I want to name.
Because the sting wasn’t the review.
It was the role I was in when I saw it.
When you’re holding stewardship for something that matters, a place built on care, safety, and trust, you get a little porous. You have to. You don’t relate to it as a brand asset or a metric. You relate to it as a living system that people rely on.
Add prior harm to the mix, and vigilance sneaks in quietly. Not as fear, but as readiness.
I noticed something else too.
I didn’t spring into action.
I didn’t draft a response.
I didn’t escalate it.
I didn’t turn it into a story about bad actors or bad faith.
I paused.
I noticed myself noticing.
Why did this get under my skin?
What part of me tightened?
What did my nervous system think it was protecting?
That half-second mattered.
Inside Out Healing, for me, often looks like this. Not big insights. Not dramatic breakthroughs. Just catching the moment where I could harden, spiral, or override myself, and choosing not to.
I didn’t tell myself it shouldn’t bother me.
I didn’t inflate it into something bigger than it was.
I held it, named it, and let it pass without demanding resolution.
Sometimes that’s the work.
Especially for people in caretaking or stewardship roles, there’s a pull toward either numbness or over-functioning. Toward cynicism on one end or constant vigilance on the other.
But discernment doesn’t have to turn into armour.
This moment reminded me of something simple:
Not every sting requires action.
Some just need witnessing.
If you’ve ever felt unsettled by something small and impersonal that still hit close to home, especially after you’ve already been burned, you’re not fragile or overreacting. You’re human.
This wasn’t really a story about a bad review.
It was about how past disruption primes the body to scan for threat, and how choosing to pause, even briefly, is a way of caring for what we’re responsible for without letting it harden us.
I’m still practicing that balance.
