There’s a heaviness that’s lurking with a pressure that’s growing, telling us something bad is about to happen. But there’s something else hiding beneath it all. It’s quieter than the headlines, harder to name, but impossible to ignore once you feel it. 

Something is shifting, not suddenly or dramatically, but just enough that things no longer feel as stable as they once did, even if we keep pretending they do.

Learning how to pretend and power through have always been key aspects of the American life. It’s deeply embedded in our DNA. It’s in everything we’ve created. It is also, however, a mindset that originated–and was nurtured from–a place of collective devastation, survival, and fear. 

Our fears of uncertainty have been so intricately passed down, that each and every one of us can instinctively feel fear without ever knowing where it came from, or why it’s there in the first place. 

If we’re bothered, we react. No questions asked. It helps us choose sides faster, listen less carefully, and hold tighter to whatever feels certain. Not necessarily because it’s true, but because it’s easier than not knowing. 

It allows avoidance to appear noble and productive; unbothered by opposition due to a stonewall sense of certainty.

Yet, what goes unacknowledged is that building awareness requires the very thing we have been wired to resist: intentional stillness and humble reflection. 

Growing up in East Tennessee, we called this prayer. Now folks feel more comfortable calling it meditation. Either way, it almost always starts by honestly naming what is being felt. 

So if we eliminate the unseen and the unspoken from our perspectives of reality, are we living a lie? Or do the forces of truth have a way of making sure that doesn’t happen?

I guess only time will tell.