False Fires: When hyperfocus becomes compulsion, urgency feels like purpose. But your body knows better.

It didn't feel like urgency at first. It felt like inspiration and aliveness.

That electric pull when an idea grabs you and won't let go. I sat down to solve one small sound issue with an audio I was creating. Just a quick fix, I told myself. Hours dissolved. Then days. Little Lucy would worm her way beneath my arm, head emerging, looking up at me, the only thing that could break the spell. Only then would I notice my hips aching from sitting too long, the hot flashes from overriding my body's signals, the way I'd forgotten to eat regularly and move.

This is hyperfocus. For those of us wired this way, it's both a superpower and a trap. Everything else falls away. The world narrows to this one thing that feels so important, so urgent, so close to being solved. Just one more tweak. One more attempt. One more hour.

But my body knew better. It kept whispering: This doesn't need to be finished today. You can trust yourself to come back to this. You can step away, and it will still be here.

I ignored it. Because hyperfocus feels like purpose. It feels like you're finally doing what matters. Until you realize you've been chasing a ghost.

When Flow Becomes Flood

There's a difference between riding momentum and being swept away by it. I know this intellectually. I teach this to my clients. Yet here I was, day after day, believing the lie that if I just solved this one technical problem, everything else would fall into place.

The high-achievers I work with know this pattern intimately. They are visionaries, quick-starts, people who can see three moves ahead and feel the pull to make it real right now. They mistake the adrenaline rush of constant motion for productivity. They confuse the drug-like high of hyperfocus with being in flow.

But flow doesn't leave you depleted. Flow doesn't demand you sacrifice sleep, ignore your body, or abandon everything else that matters. Flow is sustainable. This other thing, this compulsive urgency masquerading as inspiration, burns through you like wildfire.

What's happening beneath the surface is a neurochemical hijacking. Hyperfocus floods the brain with dopamine, creating a reward cycle that can become genuinely addictive. Our nervous systems aren't designed for the chronic activation we've normalized in this culture. We're built to flood with stress hormones when there's a real threat - a mama bear with cubs in the forest, an actual emergency, as her priority is to protect her babies. I need to move away, and quickly. Then we're supposed to discharge that energy and return to baseline. Instead, we live in a state of manufactured crisis, treating every project deadline like a matter of life and death.

The Seduction of Now

The most insidious part isn't the physical cost, though that's real enough. It's how urgency hijacks our judgment. When I'm locked in that hyper-focused state, everything feels critical. The sound issue that's been nagging me becomes the one thing standing between me and success. The project that could wait becomes the project that must be finished tonight.

This is where trauma patterns masquerade as productivity. The nervous system, dysregulated from chronic stress, interprets any unfinished task as a threat. The mind creates elaborate stories about why this particular thing must be completed now, why waiting is dangerous, why stepping away means failure.

I see this with my clients constantly. One entrepreneur spent a solid year trying to fix something that needed to be let go of, convinced that if it had worked before, it would work again, and that changing course would be disastrous. By not pivoting sooner, he wasted a ton of money and energy.

I see them burning through weekends, chasing solutions to problems that aren't actually urgent. They'll sacrifice relationships, health, and perspective for the illusion of progress. They'll mistake exhaustion for dedication and call it success. All while this culture applauds them for their grinding.

When Urgency Is Real

True urgency exists, of course. When your child is hurt. When someone is attacking you. When the house is on fire. These moments demand immediate action, and our bodies know the difference. Real urgency has a clean quality to it - sharp, focused, temporary. It doesn't last for days or weeks. It doesn't require you to override your basic needs.

For visionaries and quick-starts, there's also the urgency of inspiration; those moments when an idea lands and momentum is everything. The difference is in how it feels in your body. Inspiration energizes. False urgency depletes.

Real urgency moves through you and resolves. False urgency becomes a loop, feeding on itself, creating the very stress it claims to be solving.

The Body Knows

My body tried to tell me. The tight shoulders. The shallow breathing. The way my eyes burned from staring at the screen too long. The sleep that wouldn't come because my mind was still racing with solutions.

When I override these signals, I know I'm out of alignment. When I ignore my dog's needs for attention. When I eat while working, when I tell myself I'll rest after this one thing is finished, these are red flags, not dedication.

The body doesn't lie. It knows the difference between sustainable engagement and compulsive pushing. It knows when we're running on stress hormones instead of genuine energy. It knows when we're using productivity as a drug to avoid sitting with what's actually here.

The Medicine

My antidotes are simple but not easy to implement when I'm in that hyperfocus, urgent mode. Walking in the forest with little Lucy. Stretching my body out of its computer-hunched position. Cooking a delicious meal and enjoying it undistracted on my porch. Drawing something with my hands instead of solving problems with my mind.

Lucy enjoying the forest. ©2025. Carla Royal.

The most radical medicine is trusting that it doesn't need to be finished today. That I can step away and return. That my worth isn't tied to how much I complete or how fast I solve things.

Some problems only resolve when you stop trying to force them. Some breakthroughs come in the shower, on a walk, in conversation with someone you love. The very thing you think you need to push through might be asking you to slow down.

The forest teaches this. Things grow in their own time. Seasons can't be rushed. What wants to emerge will emerge, but not on the timeline your urgency demands.

Your body knows this, too. It's been trying to tell you all along.

When Self-Reliance Becomes a Cage: The Hidden Cost of Going It Alone

I've always been extremely individualistic. This isn't the same as being independent—far from it. For much of my life, I was caught in a painful contradiction: knowing intellectually that nobody could "save" me, yet unconsciously hoping someone might. Meanwhile, I had a tendency to make it difficult for genuine support to reach me.

This paradox created a particular kind of suffering. I felt alone with burdens I couldn't carry, yet struggled to authentically receive the help that was sometimes offered. Outside of therapy—which I'd started at 25—I had convinced myself I had to figure everything else out on my own, while simultaneously feeling resentful when support didn't materialize in the way I wanted it.

This cost me dearly. Years of unnecessary struggle. Physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from carrying weights never meant for one person. Opportunities missed because I was reluctant to reach out, connect, or simply ask.

Years of therapeutic work slowly transformed me. I began to understand the difference between healthy independence and destructive isolation. That inner transformation eventually allowed me to take other risks, like hesitantly joining a business mastermind in midlife, which profoundly changed my career trajectory. It also influenced my decision to finally put down roots. After moving up and down the East Coast for my entire adult life, I chose to settle where many of my friends had landed, recognizing my need for community.

I still value my autonomy, but I no longer carry the crushing weight of believing everything depends solely on me. The therapeutic work didn't just help me understand myself better—it fundamentally changed how I relate to others and to the possibility of genuine support.

This transformation showed me something crucial: what I had experienced as isolation wasn't a choice I was making from power, but a prison I was trapped in—one built from the belief that no one could truly show up for me in the way I needed. And this same pattern shows up everywhere in our culture.

The Internal Dialogue of Isolation

In my work, people describe their experience with strikingly similar language: "No one's got my back. It's all up to me. If I don't do it, it won't get done. I can't get it all done, but I can do it better than anyone else, so I just have to push through."

This isn't drive or ambition talking. This is a nervous system trapped in chronic activation, convinced that survival depends on doing everything alone. The consequences show up in their bodies, their relationships, and their capacity for clear thinking.

We live in a culture that worships this myth. The self-made individual. The person who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. But research confirms what many of us feel daily: this approach is destroying us. It costs us our well-being, our relationships, our capacity for joy, and the collective toll is staggering.

When Your Body Stays in Crisis Mode

Our culture misses the point entirely: our bodies weren't designed for this level of chronic isolation and self-reliance. Stephen Porges's research reveals that our autonomic systems evolved for co-regulation—the ability to borrow calm from each other when our own systems are overwhelmed.

Before your conscious mind understands what's happening, your body has already assessed the situation through what Porges calls neuroception, an unconscious surveillance system scanning for safety or threat. When you're constantly operating in isolation, convinced you must handle everything yourself, your internal alarm system never truly settles. It stays in protection mode, scanning for dangers you'll have to face alone.

Your body gets stuck in chronic fight-or-flight activation. This leads to exhaustion, inflammation, rigid thinking, and emotional volatility. Your mind becomes narrow. Your creativity suffers. Your capacity for clear decision-making diminishes just when you need it most. What feels like autonomy is actually your system slowly burning itself out.

Research shows that daily stressors impair our ability to mentally and emotionally reset, which reduces our well-being the following day. It's a vicious cycle: the more overwhelmed we become, the less capable we are of stepping back or seeking support.

The Difference Between Toxic and Nourishing Connection

The costs of going it alone become clearer when we understand that not all connection is created equal. Here in western North Carolina, I watch two very different types of relationships play out in nature. There's kudzu—an invasive vine that grows aggressively, overwhelming and choking the life out of the trees it attaches to. But there's also native Virginia Creeper, which grows in partnership with trees, each supporting the other's growth without harm.

Virginia Creeper. © 2025. Carla Royal.

This distinction shows me something essential: too many of us have learned that all connections are like kudzu—invasive, draining, dangerous. So, we cut ourselves off entirely, convinced that isolation equals safety. But what we actually need is to learn the difference between toxic dependence and healthy interdependence, between relationships that suffocate and those that nourish.

The people who come to me aren't failing in conventional terms. Most are highly successful in their fields, with impressive achievements, recognition, and financial rewards. But they're burning out because their demands exceed their internal resources. Mental exhaustion compounds when they refuse to delegate or seek help.

I watch them achieve external success while destroying their health and relationships in the process. Their families suffer. Their teams suffer. They make poor decisions from a place of depletion and struggle with emotional regulation under pressure.

This isn't just about work. It shows up everywhere in our disconnected culture. People across all areas of life—whether building businesses, raising families, or pursuing meaningful work—carry this same burden. They withdraw from the very people who could provide support, creating exactly the isolation they fear.

What Becomes Possible When We're Not Alone

Healthy interdependence doesn't diminish our autonomy. Instead, it creates what researchers call a foundation for collaboration. When we feel genuinely safe in connection with others, our bodies can focus on growth, restoration, and creativity. We gain access to higher brain functions that enhance learning and innovation, capacities that become unavailable when we're stuck in survival mode.

Social interaction functions as a biological regulator, optimizing our emotional and physical state. We're mammals. We evolved to derive biological benefit from relationships. Fighting this design doesn't make us more capable, it makes us sick.

The most effective people I know aren't the ones who never need help. They're the ones who've built robust networks of mutual support and learned to distinguish between healthy independence and destructive isolation. They understand that accepting help doesn't diminish their agency—it amplifies their capacity.

Taking the First Steps

You don't have to overhaul your entire approach overnight. Start by paying attention. Notice when you're carrying unnecessary weight alone. Pay attention to your body's signals when you're overwhelmed.

Ask yourself: what one area of your life could benefit from an outside perspective or collaboration? What fear keeps you from reaching out? Often, it's not the fear of being rejected, but the deeper fear of being seen as anything less than completely self-sufficient.

Practice regulating your system through connection. When you're stressed, instead of isolating, reach out to one trusted person. Notice how your body responds to genuine care.

The goal isn't to become dependent on others for your sense of self or security. It's to recognize that we're wired for relationship, and that isolation, while sometimes necessary, is meant to be temporary, not a permanent way of operating.

The Paradox of True Independence

Those who truly change the world don't do it alone. They build from a foundation of genuine collaboration and mutual support, allowing their nervous systems to settle enough for real innovation and growth to emerge.

Your independence is valuable, but it doesn't require you to carry everything alone. The most autonomous thing you can do might be recognizing when you need help and having the courage to reach for it.

I spent decades learning this slowly through therapeutic work. The shift didn't happen overnight, but it changed everything: my work, my relationships, my capacity to show up fully in the world. What I had thought was necessary self-reliance was actually limiting my potential. Learning to accept support opened up possibilities I hadn't imagined.

I had created isolation from old patterns for so long that it felt like the only safe option. I had forgotten there were other ways to be. Real freedom isn't the absence of connection; it's the ability to choose when and how to connect from a place of wholeness rather than desperation or fear.

You don't have to take as long as I did to discover this. Your greatest capacity might lie not in what you can carry alone, but in recognizing that some loads were never meant to be carried by one person. The willingness to share them, to invite others into your challenges, is where growth begins.

The Parts of You You’ve Rejected Hold the Power You’re Looking For

What Happens When You Stop Fixing Yourself and Start Listening Instead

I used to be a terrible procrastinator who couldn't get started on projects until the deadline loomed dangerously close. I tried everything—planners, productivity systems, accountability partners, even bribing myself. Nothing worked. I'd still find myself in the final hours before a deadline, heart racing, fingers flying, cranking out what needed to be done.

All the while, a relentless inner critic would narrate my apparent failure: "Why can't you just start earlier like normal people? What's wrong with you? You're going to crash and burn one of these days."

Then, several years back, I took the Kolbe Index, which measures our instinctive ways of taking action. My results showed I'm a 9 on Quickstart. In other words, I'm wired to wait and then race the clock. That's not a weakness—it's a superpower!

I’m still a procrastinator, but that simple shift in perspective from weakness to superpower changed everything for me. The energy I'd been using to fight against myself was now channeled into creativity. I'd been rejecting a fundamental aspect of how I'm designed to work in this world. Once I embraced it instead, everything shifted.

The Parts We Push Away

We all do this. We take certain qualities within ourselves and label them as unacceptable. Maybe it's the part that needs deep solitude in a world that celebrates constant connection. Maybe it's the sensitivity that feels emotions intensely in a culture that values stoicism. Maybe it's the wildness that wants to create when the pressure is on, rather than planning everything out neatly in advance.

Whatever those rejected parts are, they don't disappear when we disown them. They go underground. They operate outside our awareness, often sabotaging the very goals we're trying to achieve. All while draining our energy through the constant effort of pushing them away.

This inner war is exhausting. And unnecessary.

Many of the high-performance entrepreneurs I work with struggle with this same pattern. One client felt deep shame about taking risks that others labeled "too big." When a big risk didn't pay off, he'd wrestle with crushing self-doubt. People around him reinforced the idea that something was wrong with his approach. His body would contract, his breath would shallow—all the physiological signs of a nervous system in protection mode.

What I pointed out was simple: This is who you are! This risk-taking nature is precisely why you've created so much value in the world and achieved remarkable success. Yes, when you take big risks, the fall is further if things don't work out. But when they do, the gains are immeasurable.

This level of risk isn't for everyone, nor should it be. Different people are wired to work in different ways. For him, though, it's natural—even necessary. He has the remarkable resilience to absorb setbacks, learn from them, and create something even better. Now, without the shame of being a risk-taker, he moves with more confidence and clarity, embracing this core aspect of his nature rather than fighting it.

The Shadow's Hidden Medicine

What if the qualities we reject often hold essential wisdom and strength? What if the very aspects of ourselves we've been taught to hide or fix are actually keys to our most authentic expression?

I think of the forest behind my home. The decaying matter on the forest floor—what appears to be death and breakdown—is precisely what nourishes new growth. Nothing is wasted. Everything serves the whole.

Common blue violet. © 2025 Carla Royal.

Our inner landscapes work the same way. The parts we label as weaknesses often contain hidden gifts. Our sensitivity might enable deeper empathy. Our intensity might fuel our greatest creations. Our need for solitude might protect our most original thinking.

We're so quick to clean everything up, to get rid of what's ugly or awkward. We want things neat and tidy, even when we're falling apart inside. We don't trust decay. We forget that decay feeds the soil.

The shadow isn't only about negative qualities, either. Sometimes we reject positive aspects of ourselves because they weren't safe to express in our families or communities. Maybe your boldness was labeled as arrogance. Maybe your joy was dismissed as frivolity. Maybe your intuition was dismissed as irrational.

When we reconcile with these disowned parts, we don't just reduce suffering—we reclaim energy and capacity that's been locked away. We become more whole.

The Body Never Lies

I notice it first in the body—a tightness in the throat, a knot in the stomach when someone displays a quality we've rejected in ourselves. That flash of judgment that feels disproportionate to the situation. "Why can't he just make a decision already?" or "Her constant optimism is so irritating."

These reactions are gold. They're signposts pointing directly to our own disowned parts. The body knows before the mind catches up.

Carl Jung said that what irks us in others might be carrying a shadow message for us. The qualities that trigger us most intensely are usually aspects of ourselves we've tried to bury or deny. Our judgment is a spotlight, highlighting exactly what needs attention and integration.

One entrepreneur I work with couldn't stand "indecisive people." He prided himself on making quick decisions and moving fast. Yet he found himself increasingly stuck when facing complex strategic choices for his growing business. As we explored his frustration with others' indecisiveness, he recognized that he'd rejected his own contemplative nature in his drive to be the decisive leader.

His decision-making improved when he began to make space for reflection, even short periods of stepping back from action. His irritation with others' deliberative processes diminished because he was no longer at war with that quality within himself.

The Cost of Rejection

Think about how much energy it takes to constantly push away parts of yourself.

I see this with the high-achieving entrepreneurs I work with. They're exhausted not just from their demanding businesses, but from the constant vigilance required to maintain their carefully constructed identities. Always needing to appear confident when they feel uncertain. Always needing to seem in control when they feel overwhelmed. And it’s not just entrepreneurs. Take a look around.

As a teenager, I played this ridiculous game at summer camp. Two teams in a lake, wrestling with a greased watermelon. The goal was to get it to the opposite shore, but the strategy always involved trying to push it underwater, out of sight from the other team. We'd duck down, arms wrapped around that impossible-to-grip melon, desperately trying to keep it hidden. But no matter how strong you were, that watermelon would eventually slip free, shooting up with surprising force, often bonking someone in the chin before being frantically grabbed by the opposing team.

That's what happens with the parts of ourselves we try to submerge. No matter how much energy we expend keeping them hidden, they're going to surface—often at the most inconvenient moments and in ways we can't control.

What these leaders don't realize is that vulnerability—that quality they work so hard to hide—might be the very thing that would deepen their leadership and connection with others. Their questions might spark more meaningful innovation than their answers. Their visible humanity might inspire more trust than their polished perfection.

The Journey of Integration

So, how do we begin to reclaim these disowned parts?

It starts with curiosity rather than judgment. When we notice ourselves having a strong reaction to something, we can get curious. "What's being triggered here? What part of myself am I seeing reflected that I've tried to push away?"

Sometimes, it helps to personify these qualities. I'll ask clients to imagine having a conversation with their procrastination, risk-aversion, or people-pleasing parts. "If this part could speak, what would it say? What is it trying to accomplish or protect?"

This approach often reveals surprising wisdom. The procrastinating part might be protecting creative flow. The risk-averse part might be trying to prevent repeating a painful past experience. The people-pleasing part might be ensuring connection and belonging.

When we approach these disowned qualities with curiosity instead of condemnation, they begin to transform. Not by disappearing, but by unburdening and finding their right place and proportion in our whole being.

The Freedom of Wholeness

The entrepreneurs I work with are discovering that the qualities they've rejected might be exactly what they need for their next evolution.

My risk-taking client still takes big swings that make others nervous. But without the weight of shame, he's more discerning about which risks to take. He's more resilient when they don't pan out. And when they do succeed, his innovations create ripples that benefit many.

There's a profound freedom in this reconciliation with our shadows. Not the freedom of escaping parts of ourselves, but the freedom of embracing all of who we are. The freedom of having all our energy available rather than tied up in internal conflict. The freedom to show up authentically rather than partially.

The forest doesn't reject the decay that feeds new growth. The sky doesn't banish the clouds that bring rain. The night doesn't fight the darkness that reveals the stars.

What if we, too, could welcome all of ourselves? What if the very qualities we've been rejecting hold gifts we've been seeking? What if wholeness isn't about fixing or removing parts of ourselves, but about allowing all parts to find their rightful place?

This isn't easy work. It asks us to question deeply held beliefs about who we should be and requires courage to face what we've kept in shadow. But on the other side of this reconciliation is a more spacious way of being—one where we waste less energy fighting ourselves and have more capacity for what truly matters.

So I'll ask you: What part of yourself have you been rejecting that might hold wisdom you need? What would change if you approached that disowned quality with curiosity rather than condemnation? What might emerge if you allowed all of yourself—messy, complicated, contradictory—to have a seat at the table? Not to run the meeting, mind you, but to be heard, to contribute their perspective. There's a spaciousness that comes when we can listen to all our parts while remaining grounded in our deeper wisdom.

The parts of yourself you've been taught to reject might hold exactly what you need for your next level of development. They might contain the missing elements not only for your own growth, but for the innovation and leadership our world desperately needs.

The Expanded Field: How Shifting Your Focus Creates Breakthrough Insights

My front porch is surrounded by forest behind and beside me, with ancient mountains before me. Now that spring has arrived in full glory, there's a cacophony of bird song each morning. The Merlin bird app, which I love, helps me identify these winged voices that fill the air around me.

This morning, I found myself trying so hard to hear one bird, I missed several others. Realizing this, I relaxed my eyes and ears so I could take in the beauty of all the bird song at once. I was overwhelmed by the bounty surrounding me. Black and White Warbler, Worm-Eating Warbler, Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, Brown Thrasher, Indigo Bunting, Bluebird, Carolina Wren, Blue Jay, American Crow, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Wood Thrush, Ovenbird, Eastern Towhee, and more!

The forest is alive with voices I would have missed in my narrow pursuit of the single voice.

The Mountains before me and the Forest surrounding me. © 2025 Carla Royal.

The Tunnel Vision Trap

When we think of focus, we often default to tunnel vision—that narrowing that excludes everything but the target. So much of our culture celebrates this kind of laser focus. There's a time for this kind of seeing, but not as often as we believe.

I see my clients sometimes get so focused on a particular way of doing things that they become trapped, unable to pivot when necessary. They dig in, throwing more energy, focus, and money toward something that isn't working. They think it should work—in fact, it has in the past—but it no longer does. Now, they're locked in. Possibilities narrow. Creativity withers. The very tunnel vision that once drove their success becomes the thing that imprisons them.

This tunnel vision isn't just affecting individuals. Look at our politics, where we've reduced complex issues to simplistic talking points, or religious institutions clinging to rigid interpretations rather than embracing mystery. We're unable to see the complexity or the wider field of possibility.

But isn't laser focus necessary for achievement? In some contexts, yes. The problem isn't focus itself, but our inability to shift between focused and expanded awareness when appropriate. Like any tool, tunnel vision serves us until we forget it's just one way of seeing.

One of my clients became extremely successful using strategies that worked brilliantly for years. When things started falling apart, he couldn't figure out why. He got stressed and doubled down on what had worked before.

In our work together, I introduced the idea of living in the questions as expressed by Rilke. Though he was skeptical, he committed to not making any firm decisions for six months. As he opened his vision to the wider field, new ideas began to drop in. Rather than jumping on them as was his tendency before, he left them scattered to see which might take root.

After six months of living in the questions, it became clear to him that he had to go in a completely different direction with his business. Now, everyone who encounters what he's doing says it's brilliant and commends his courage in doing something no one has ever done in his industry.

This is what a relaxed, wide view can allow.

What Animals Remember That We've Forgotten

I think of the animals on the African savannah, grazing with relaxed awareness. They know the predators are in the bush. They aren't hiding. They aren't trembling. They are grazing.

They maintain relaxed bodies, eyes, and ears, taking in the entire field around them. They aren't in denial about the dangers. They trust the wisdom within their bodies. They trust they'll engage immediately if a predator leaps from the bush.

What I find most remarkable is how quickly they return to relaxed grazing after the chase. They shake off the adrenaline and continue grazing within minutes.

We don't shake it off.

These unresolved experiences live in our bodies, generating painful stories about why the danger came for us, what we did wrong, what they did wrong, and when we'll be threatened again. We tend to live in this state, locked in hyper vigilance, unable to return to rest. We've forgotten how to trust our bodies' natural wisdom to respond as needed.

Learning to Trust Again

My little dog-friend, Lucy, came to me after two years of trauma. Her eyes bulged from her head for months after she arrived. She lived in a hypervigilant state 24/7. She even had nightmares that continued for over a year.

Lucy Pecan. 7.5 lbs of canine goodness! © 2025 Carla Royal.

As we've connected more deeply and as she races through this forest day after day, feeling her little animal body again, she’s relaxing. The nightmares have vanished. The bulging eyes are rare. She still has moments of overreaction, but they are less and less as she experiences safe connection.

As she runs through these woods, her whole being shifts. Her eyes soften. She's no longer locked in that frantic scanning for the next threat. She takes in the whole forest now.

Our bodies work the same way. When we drop out of our racing minds and back into our bodies, something opens up. Our vision literally expands. We see more. The narrowed focus that once helped us survive gives way to a wider awareness that lets us truly live.

That's why safe connection matters so much. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory shows us that our nervous systems attune to one another, constantly scanning for safety or danger. Similarly, research from interpersonal neurobiology reveals that our brains are literally wired to regulate with others. We can't regulate in complete isolation. That's not how we're created. We are social creatures.

I know how difficult this shift can be. We live in a world that celebrates the individual hustlers and grinders. We're bombarded with information from every direction. Our nervous systems are constantly on alert. The idea of relaxing our focus can feel terrifying when we've been conditioned to believe that constant vigilance is the only way to survive.

The Wisdom of Seeing Differently

I've found that relaxed, open focus gives me a greater sense of connection to myself, to others, and to the world around me. What I'm exploring in my own life, and what I invite my clients to explore, is finding the edge between focus and freedom. Not an undisciplined letting go, but a relaxed awareness that can respond to what's actually emerging rather than what we expect to find.

Try this: When you next feel stuck, take three deep breaths while softening your gaze to take in the periphery. Notice what's been just outside your attention. Or during a difficult conversation, relax your throat and belly while listening, creating space for what's being said beneath the words. With practice, these micro-practices can begin to shift your habitual patterns of attention.

It's about cultivating a presence that allows for both responsiveness and rest, like the animals on the savannah who can graze peacefully one moment and sprint for their lives the next.

The wonder is that this relaxed awareness often opens doors that remain closed to a narrow, intense focus. Our most meaningful insights come during periods of relaxed attention—when we're in the shower, taking a walk, or doing something unrelated to the problem at hand. The relaxed mind makes connections that the striving mind misses.

The Freedom of Relaxed Awareness

The world we're navigating is complex and constantly changing. The old maps no longer serve us. Our default is often to grip tighter to what we know. But what if the wisdom we need now isn't about seeing more clearly in the usual sense but about seeing with a softer gaze that takes in the whole rather than just the parts?

When I sit on my porch and listen to the birds, I'm practicing a different way of knowing. I'm remembering what it feels like to be part of something larger than my own striving mind. I'm reclaiming a birthright that belongs to all of us—the freedom to simply be while still moving with what life asks of us.

The next time you find yourself locked in tunnel vision, try relaxing your focus. Not abandoning it, but softening it. See what comes into view when you stop straining to see.

Listen for the symphony when you stop trying to isolate a single note. There might be wisdom waiting at the edge of your attention—wisdom you'll miss entirely if you remain too focused on what you think you're looking for.

Like Lucy shaking off her trauma and beginning to trust again, we can reclaim our capacity for relaxed awareness. We can remember how to move between focus and freedom, between action and rest. We can relearn what those animals on the savannah never forgot: that our bodies know how to be both alert and at ease, that we belong to each other, and that sometimes the wisest response is simply to graze in peace, trusting that we'll know what to do when the moment calls.

Where Real Growth Begins | The High Cost of Skipping the Dark—and Why Depth Is the New Power

I've been working in my garden. It's a terraced garden held by ancient rocks, the kind that have accumulated massive wisdom. When I first moved here, it was early autumn. The herbs were still wild and fragrant, the flowers hanging on. Then winter came, and everything died back. Stalks went dry, petals crisped. The whole thing turned a brittle brown. I waited.

I thought the beginning of spring meant time to clear. I was ready to strip away the mess. But not being a gardener (yet!), I called my sister. She told me to wait. "The bees are still sleeping under there," she said. "Some of those plants might return. The decay is protecting and nourishing them." She told me to give it at least another month. Let the rot stay awhile longer.

So, I waited.

This past weekend, I tended the garden. I removed enough of the old decay to make room for new growth, but left what still served a purpose. I moved through slowly and carefully. I noticed how the green was coming up through the brown. How life doesn't replace death—it emerges through it.

Drawf Crested Iris. © 2025 Carla Royal.

We're so quick to clean everything up. To get rid of what we think is ugly or awkward. We want things neat and tidy, even when we're falling apart inside. We don't trust decay. We forget that decay feeds the soil.

Real growth isn't neat and clean. It's tangled, dark, and slow. It happens underground. In the unseen. Roots deepen in the decay long before the crown appears.

This is the part most people avoid. I see it in high-achieving entrepreneurs and leaders, the kind I work with every day. They spend most of their energy on the crown of their achievements—visible, brilliant, impressive—and they attempt to avoid the decay and the roots that need that decay. They neglect them. Because roots aren't sexy. They're gnarly, twisted, covered in the old stories we'd rather not tell. But without them, everything topples.

When these leaders finally come to me, it's often because something has begun to shake. The crown has grown too heavy for shallow roots. Or life has handed them a storm that exposed what lies beneath. They're ready, finally, to tend to what they've avoided.

Quick-starts can build fast, but if they don't build deep, they don't last. One of my clients built an eight-figure coaching brand in under two years. Sleek brand. Endless content. Then the stress and overwhelm cracked him. He crumbled. Everything he hadn’t tended underground came calling. It wasn’t failure—it was a reckoning. In our sessions, he did the courageous work to attend to the decay. From the roots up.

Roots and Decay. Douglas Lake, Tennessee. © 2015 Carla Royal.

Everyone wants to be an expert now. A thought leader. Everyone wants the mic. But no one wants to sit in the dark long enough to know what they really think. Everything's speeding up. There's pressure to speak before you've listened. To share before you've integrated. To teach before you've learned.

So, we get hollow authority. Half-digested insight. Shiny strategies with little soul behind them.

Even my new washing machine is falling apart. It's four months old. The repair tech has come out four times already. She’s been doing this for twenty years. "They're not built to last anymore," she said. "It's all plastic and speed now." I could hear the frustration in her voice. Things used to be built differently. Built for care. Built to endure.

And it's not just machines. Our relationships, our businesses, our bodies—we've absorbed this rush. We've learned to optimize instead of metabolize.

The Hunger for Depth

But under the speed and urgency, I see people starving for depth.

They want something that holds. Something that doesn't break when the winds come. Something that doesn't collapse when no one's watching. They may not know how to name it, but they want roots. Real roots. Not a curated persona of wisdom, but the kind that comes from sitting with your own dark mess until it reveals its medicine.

This hunger isn't just a personal longing; it's a collective ache. I see it in my clients' eyes when they finally slow down enough to feel what's been calling to them. I hear it in private conversations, beneath the polished social media profiles and carefully curated articles and essays, where people confess to being exhausted by the endless, draining performance. The constant pressure to be visible, to be relevant, to be ahead.

And some are afraid to speak at all. They’ve been told not to share until it's perfect. So, they stall. They stay in the cave, not from a genuine commitment to mastery, but from raw fear of being seen mid-process. We forget there’s a sacred middle: not performance, not hiding, but honest, in-process offering. Contribution that’s still forming. Wisdom that still smells like soil.

What we're really longing for is substance. The kind that can only come through allowing ourselves to be humbled, broken open, and transformed. The kind that Francis Weller calls the "fertile dark." He writes about grief work as a necessary composting of our experience, a transformation that can't be rushed or optimized. He tells us, “Our task is to enter the ground of our grief and trust that something will emerge."

That something is substance. And it doesn't come quickly.

Our emotions need time to metabolize, just as our gardens need seasons to cycle through growth and decay. Lisa Feldman Barrett's research shows us that our emotions aren't just automatic reactions; they're intricate constructions our brains create from bodily sensations, past experiences, and cultural context. Integration takes time. That takes compost. We must give ourselves back to the earth of our own lives if we want to lead with anything that lasts.

Potentilla Canadensis. © 2025 Carla Royal.

The Balance of Speed and Depth

Of course, not all speed is hollow. Sometimes urgency is real. There are bills to pay, launches to meet, people depending on us. The world doesn't always pause so we can compost our pain. Sometimes we have to build while grieving, lead while unraveling, but perhaps not as often as we think.

But that's exactly why roots matter.

Because when the storm hits—and it will—it's not your polish that holds you steady. It's the unseen depth you build when no one is clapping. It's the inner scaffolding you grow in the quiet, in the mess, in the wait.

We live in a world that worships the visible: the metrics, the followers, the outward signs of success. But there's a wisdom in what lies beneath, in developing what Stephen Porges might describe as a well-regulated nervous system that can stay grounded even when external conditions signal threat. A sense of safety that comes from knowing who you are beyond the metrics. Something that can't be taken away by a bad review, a failed launch, or a shifting market.

Slowness isn't a luxury. It's a strategy for resilience.

You don't have to choose between motion and meaning. But if you're not careful, speed will steal your depth. And you won't even notice until the whole thing breaks.

This is the wisdom my garden is teaching me. That life emerges through death, not despite it. It is decay, essential decay, creating protection and nourishment for what is trying to be born. That patience—that much maligned virtue in our accelerated world—is the soil from which real strength grows.

The Leaders Who Last

The leaders who endure are not the ones who sanitize their struggles. They're the ones who sit with discomfort. Who let it teach them. Who let the grief have its full cycle. Who tend to their roots when no one is looking.

In a culture that prizes confidence over competence, that rewards the appearance of wisdom over its embodiment, simply admitting that growth takes time becomes a radical act. The bravest voices today aren't the ones with ready answers, but those who say, "I don't know yet" or "This is still forming."

So I'll ask you:

• What challenges in your life might be serving as protection for something that's not yet ready to emerge?

• What deserves your patient attention rather than your immediate action?

• What are you trying to clean up too quickly that might actually need more time?

• What would change if you invested as much energy in your roots as you do in what's visible?

The ones who journey through the depths and don't hurry toward the surface—they're the ones who develop true wisdom. The ones who don't just shine but stay. The ones who aren't afraid of their own dark places.

That's where genuine wisdom lives. Not in quick answers, but in patient questions. Not in rapid growth, but in what emerges after necessary decay. In the crown that rises only because the roots run deep.

Holding Time: What Ancient Stones Remind Us About Ourselves

Reclaiming A Deeper Perspective In A World That Feels Like It's Falling Apart

Today, while wandering in the forest behind my home, I was drawn to some stones on the trail. I picked up a couple of sparkling flecks and a small rock to bring home. When I researched them, I discovered something that blew my mind: these small fragments I held between my fingers were 300-500 million years old! Mica and quartz. Metamorphic rock that formed when tectonic plates collided to create these ancient Appalachian Mountains.

Metamorphic means changed by heat, pressure, and mineral-rich fluids deep within the Earth. These mountains have slowly worn down over hundreds of millions of years, revealing these small treasures that have endured unimaginable forces.

500 Million Years in My Palm

I sat with one of these stones in my palm, trying to comprehend its journey. What does it mean to exist for 500 million years? To endure such pressure and heat, to be compressed and transformed deep in darkness, to eventually be revealed by time and the slow erosion of everything around you? The stone felt both unremarkable and extraordinary – a small piece of eternity I could hold in my hand.

Holding this stone somehow relaxed and reassured me. I suddenly felt firmly planted on this beautiful earth. My perspective shifted, and the anxieties of all that is happening in our world began to drain away. I recalibrated to a vastly different timescale.

Mica flakes and quartz-rich metamorphic rock. © 2025 Carla Royal.

Metamorphic Pressure, Human Transformation

I've known these mountains are ancient, but holding this small piece of metamorphic rock—such a perfect word for what happens when we undergo pressure and heat—I feel it deep in my soul. Five hundred million years. This small stone has witnessed it all and still exists. My current anxieties—even the deep ones about where we're heading as a society—suddenly appear as just one brief moment in an unimaginably long story. These small stones offer wisdom that our bodies can feel… if we allow it.

How many of us move through life taking everything so seriously? We spend so much of our time this way, giving enormous weight to our thoughts, our wounds, our fears about the future. We move through the world as if everything depends on us, as if our worries are the center of the universe. But holding a small ancient stone offers a shift in perspective we all sometimes need. I know I do.

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The Eternal Thread Within Us

Most wisdom traditions point to something within us that endures beyond our physical form. The Upanishads speak of Atman, the eternal self. Christians talk of the soul that transcends death. Indigenous traditions often speak of a spirit that continues beyond our brief time in these bodies.

I don't know exactly what all this means, but I've learned to be comfortable with mystery, with not knowing. The older I get, the more I recognize how little I understand about the vastness of existence. And there's a relief and freedom in that admission.

What I felt in the forest today, stone in hand, wasn't a theological certainty but rather a visceral recognition that whatever I am, at my core, is connected to something much larger and more enduring than my individual worries and struggles. Perhaps you've felt this, too, in moments of quiet connection with something ancient or vast.

This body that houses me is temporary, yes. But there's something here that participates in the same timelessness as these ancient stones. Something that knows what it means to undergo pressure and heat, to be transformed, to endure.

The mountains themselves are a testament to this paradox. From our limited human perspective, they appear solid and unchanging, but they flow like water in geological time. They rise and fall. They are both eternal and constantly changing.

Aren't we the same?

The Long View

Something shifts when we remember this longer view and feel it in our bones. The foundations of our world may be shaking. The news may be full of crisis and collapse. Our personal challenges may feel overwhelming on any given day. But the small stone in my palm reminds me that there is something in each of us that knows how to witness change without being destroyed by it. Something that can hold the paradox of impermanence and continuity.

I wonder if this forgetting, this disconnection from our deeper, more enduring nature, lies at the heart of our collective struggles today. When we forget who we are beyond our separate selves, we grasp and cling. We fight against change rather than moving with it. We treat the Earth as a resource to be used rather than a living system we belong to.

We forget that, like these mountains, we are both ancient and new in each moment.

Remembering Our Place in Deep Time

There's a humility that comes with touching something 500 million years old. We are so small. Our concerns, while real and valid, are just a tiny part of what's unfolding. The divides that seem so insurmountable all exist within a much larger context.

The challenges we face are real and require our attention and action. But maybe we can meet them differently when we remember the deeper currents that run through all things, including ourselves. Holding the perspective of the stone could help us act with less desperation and more wisdom. With less fear and more trust in the resilience of life itself.

The next time you feel overwhelmed by the news or your personal struggles, I invite you to find something ancient to hold – a stone, a shell, even the soil beneath your feet. Let it remind you of the longer story you're part of.

My view of the ancient mountains. @ 2025 Carla Royal.

The Stone on My Porch, and What Endures

The small metamorphic stone and mica flecks now sit on my porch, where I see them every time I step outside. They remind me that pressure and heat don't destroy everything. Sometimes, they create something that endures, and sometimes, they reveal hidden beauty.

I don't know exactly what it means that we are eternal beings. I don't claim to understand the mystery at the heart of existence. But I know that when I touch something that has witnessed 500 million years of Earth's story, I remember that I belong to something vast and ancient. We all do.

In that remembering, we can breathe more deeply, hold our concerns more lightly, and trust the wisdom that runs through all things, including us.

Maybe that's enough for today: to hold a small piece of mountain in your palm and remember your place in this grand, mysterious unfolding. To feel both your insignificance and your belonging. To know that whatever happens, something endures.

In the Midst of the Unraveling | An Invitation To Return To What Steadies, What Heals, And What Makes Us Whole

We are living through challenging times. There is much at stake. Uncertainty reigns. It's difficult to find anything stable to grab hold of. Our moorings seem to be giving way. What we trusted and believed in are fraying at the seams. Many don't know where to turn or what to do. Confusion and overwhelm are rampant.

While I don't have the answers, I can offer a kind of balm. It may seem superficial or too little. It may seem unimportant in the face of the unraveling. But this balm is powerful. I know because I return to it again and again, and I experience its magic. And it's not just me; studies have repeatedly shown this balm's power.

This balm is available to everyone, despite your situation. It's always on hand. The problem is that we can easily miss it. Our brains don't naturally orient toward it. We must intentionally turn toward it, but the moment we do, the balm goes to work.

We may believe that we don't have time for it. It may feel unimportant in light of what's happening in our world, yet the balm is a gift from the world itself. A gift we often take for granted. A gift we often reject. We suffer as a result.

Beauty, Presence, and Awe: A Revolutionary Practice

What is this gift? Beauty, presence, and awe. A bundle of goodness offering healing properties that can transform your life. I mean it. Please don't brush this off. I understand it would be easy to do. It can feel so trite and even out of touch, but I promise you, it's not.

Bloodroot Bloom. Early spring wildflowers in WNC. © 2025 Carla Royal.

Studies show the power of this bundle of beauty, awe, and presence. Neuroscientists have discovered that when we experience beauty, it activates the same reward centers in our brain as love. Experiencing wonder has even been shown to reduce inflammation in our bodies, the very inflammation I wrote about in "When Everything Burns."

This is far more than just science; it’s about our survival.

Taking time to seek out beauty and awe can feel self-indulgent when the world is rocking beneath us. I understand, but I realize that noticing beauty and seeking out awe isn't frivolous; it's revolutionary. It's not a distraction from the work; it's part of the work.

Nelson Mandela said that moments of beauty helped him maintain his conviction and compassion. He wrote, "A garden was one of the few things in prison that one could control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend it and then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. The sense of being the custodian of this small patch of earth offered a small taste of freedom."

Maya Angelou, who survived childhood trauma, racism, and poverty, wrote about beauty and wonder as forms of resistance. "If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb."

When systems of power want us numb, exhausted, and despairing, accessing joy and beauty becomes an act of resistance. Beauty and awe awaken us, sustain us, and remind us of our humanity when everything around us conspires to make us forget. It’s a fundamental way of resourcing ourselves when so much is trying to drain us.

A Ritual of Remembering

I have a practice that helps. I read the news in the morning, and then I step out on my porch to shake off the doom. The ancient Appalachian Mountains loom in front of me, steady, almost eternal, having survived centuries of storms. The bright green of spring growth greets me as trees shake off winter. I watch for a moment, soaking the beauty and reassurance into my bones. I feel my body begin to relax and my breath deepen. I recognize, even if only for a moment, that I am part of these ancient mountains and that there is something eternal and untouchable in me, too.

This isn't spiritual bypassing. I don't pretend the problems aren't real or that beauty would magically solve them. But in those moments of presence, I remember that what we're fighting for is not abstract. It's this very capacity to be present, to experience wonder, to belong to each other and this earth. It's the right of all beings to flourish.

The Courage to See the Good, True, and Beautiful

Beauty doesn't negate our pain; it gives us the strength to bear it. Awe doesn't solve our problems; it reminds us why they're worth solving. Beauty isn't just in sunsets and mountain views. It can be found everywhere, even in unexpected places.

I watched our community here in western North Carolina come together after Hurricane Helene, neighbor helping neighbor regardless of politics or various worldviews. I saw the same thing when I lived in Florida. Neighbors helping neighbors through the storms. There is beauty in the human capacity to come together in our darkest moments. It’s in our DNA.

There's beauty in the grief that shows us what we love, in the rage that shows us what matters, and in the vulnerability that connects us even across our differences.

What Might Emerge From These Flames

Even as systems crumble, even as we face the consequences of collective blindness, seeds are waiting to sprout through the ashes. Remember the Table Mountain pine I wrote about? Its seeds need intense heat to release. What if our most beautiful possibilities are like this, waiting for the very fires we fear?

Noticing beauty and seeking out awe isn’t meant to be a one-time event or occasional luxury. It's an essential practice. And like any practice, it requires intention and commitment.

When I wake in the morning, I step out on my porch and welcome the morning, mountains, trees, birds, and Greta groundhog. Throughout the day, I take small moments to touch into the good, true, and beautiful, what poet Mary Oliver calls "the endless opportunities to be astonished."

Beauty Is How We Stay Human

This isn't about toxic positivity or forced gratitude. It's about developing the capacity to hold the beauty and the brokenness, the wonder and the worry, the pain and the possibility. When we’re burned out and despairing, our capacity to help a world in need diminishes. When we’re connected to beauty, to purpose, to the miracle of existence, we find reserves of energy we didn't know we had.

This isn't about hope in the conventional sense—the expectation that things will necessarily get better. It's about being present to what is, including the wonder that persists alongside the heartbreak. As Francis Weller writes, "The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them."

When we can hold both grief and gratitude, we develop what Stephen Jenkinson calls "a love of what is" that requires neither optimism nor pessimism. We act not because we're certain of outcomes but because action rooted in beauty and presence heals and restores.

Here is my invitation to you amidst all that is uncertain and unraveling: Notice one beautiful thing today. Really notice it. Let yourself receive it fully, if only for a moment. Tomorrow, notice another. And the next day, another.

In times like these, beauty isn't a luxury. It's an essential balm. It’s evidence that we belong to a world of astonishing wonder despite everything.

That belonging cannot be taken from us unless we forget it. And as long as we remember to look up, to notice, to receive the gift that is always being offered, we carry with us the seeds of what might yet emerge from these flames.

The Trap of Becoming Better | When Personal Growth Becomes Just Another Performance

Lately, I've been feeling uneasy about so much of the personal development world. It's the world that saved my life and gave me my career—work I believe in deeply. But something about the way it's unfolding doesn't sit quite right with me.

We live in a time of mounting pressure. Underneath the headlines and noise and algorithms, many of us feel a subtle, persistent ache… or maybe not so subtle these days. A knowing that something is off. We can feel it in our bones. In the first moments we wake each morning, a sense of dread often creeps in. In the loneliness that somehow lingers, even in a crowded room or a successful life. This dread and disconnection drive us to reach for ways to feel better and regain a sense of agency amidst the chaos.

St. Joseph’s Sound, FL. © 2017 Carla Royal.

When Tools Become Traps: The Shadow of Optimization Culture

Many have learned all the tools and techniques, especially my high-performance clients: the mantras, the mindset hacks, the productivity systems, the breathwork routines, the rewiring strategies. There are countless ways to optimize our lives these days. When practices like meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and journaling get repackaged as productivity hacks, we lose sight of their original purpose, depth, and richness. Rather than tools for liberation and self-understanding, they become just another way to hustle harder, to tolerate circumstances that maybe shouldn't be tolerated.

The writer Denis Bischof put it plainly: much of what passes for personal growth today has little to do with becoming more fully human and more to do with becoming more marketable. I see this play out with many of my clients who are driven entrepreneurs. They come to me burnt out, anxious, and disconnected from themselves after years of chasing external success. The practices they thought would bring them freedom have instead become just another box to check, another way to grind themselves into exhaustion. It's a trap. It’s a troubling pattern I see everywhere: the hijacking of personal development by a culture obsessed with performance, grind, and external validation.

From Authenticity to Branding: A Crisis of Depth

We meditate to get more done. We regulate our nervous systems not to rest but to tolerate more pressure. We curate our emotional lives into something clean and palatable enough to post online. Authenticity goes out the window. Self-knowledge is unimportant. We become a well-coiffed but superficial version of ourselves.

There's a difference between doing the work to be seen and doing the work to see ourselves more clearly. There's a difference between genuine spiritual development and the spiritual branding that often masquerades as growth while actually enabling us to bypass the real work. Much of what I see today isn't people going too deep into their inner world; it's people staying just deep enough to function, to manage, and to make it all look okay from the outside.

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Coping Is Not Living: Why We Need to Go Deeper

But we weren't meant to simply manage. We weren't built to cope our way through life. As I wrote in my last essay, we're in the middle of a global storm. Everything around us feels chaotic and unmoored. Turning inward can seem like a luxury we can't afford. But what if it's the very thing that will help us move through these chaotic times, come together, and thrive again? The anxiety, numbness, and fragmentation so many are experiencing aren't just personal problems; they're appropriate responses to a world out of balance. They're showing us what isn't working, not just inside us but around us.

You Are Not Broken—You're Responding to a Broken System

We've been taught to internalize dysfunction as personal failure. But as Krishnamurti said, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." So no, it's not all your fault. And no, you're not broken. But if you've been living inside systems that reward disconnection, grind, and the kind of self-sacrifice that leaves you depleted rather than fulfilled, then of course you're going to feel off. Of course, you're going to reach for ways to feel better.

And yet, amidst all this dysfunction, there's a quiet wisdom whispering in our discomfort, inviting us to see it not as a problem to be solved but as a path to be walked.

The Wisdom of Discomfort: An Invitation to Remember Who You Are

What if the discomfort is here to wake you up? Not to punish you but to invite you to slow down. To turn inward and begin the difficult and rewarding journey of remembering who you are at your essence before this culture covered you with all its corrosive crud. And as you do this deep inner work, you simultaneously turn toward the world with greater wholeness, wisdom, and compassion to serve a world in need.

If something inside you is tired of just managing, tired of curating a version of yourself that looks like it has it all together, and if you long for something more honest, more alive, more meaningful, then maybe you are at a turning point.

The world we're living in is unsustainable, but there is a different way to live, love, and lead. It starts by being willing to turn toward what's been buried rather than polishing what shows on the surface. It's slower. And harder. And far more beautiful.

This is the excavation work I wrote about in “When Everything Burns”, the sometimes painful but ultimately liberating process of facing our shadows, feeling our grief, and letting the flames of transformation burn away what's no longer serving us. It's the deep transformation of my other essay, “Every Storm Runs Out of Rain,” which invites us to trust and come home to ourselves, not by resisting discomfort but by allowing it to move through and teach us.

Healing Is Leadership: A New Way to Live, Love, and Lead

When we commit to this inner transformation, we begin to heal ourselves, and we also begin to heal the collective. The two are woven together, inseparable. We remember we belong to each other and the earth. We start to embody a different way of being in the world. One rooted in wholeness, compassion, and connection. This is the kind of leadership our times are calling for. Not leadership that comes from a place of grind and performance but leadership that flows from an integrated heart. Leadership in how we live, how we love, and how we create community in a world of polarization and fragmentation.

This isn't just a personal invitation, it's a cultural necessity. The more of us who are willing to slow down, feel deeply, and show up fully and authentically, the better chance we have of ushering in a world where our institutions and societies reflect the depth of our humanity, not just the surface.

This Is the Great Work of Our Time

Change starts within, but it can't stop there. How we unburden and transform ourselves ripples out in ways seen and unseen.

If enough of us are willing to walk that path, we may just find ourselves ushering in a more grounded, wholehearted way of being, not only for ourselves but for a world hungry for realness and connection amidst the noise and chaos.

May we all find the courage to go beneath the surface and listen to the wisdom of our unease. May we do the slow, unglamorous, but utterly vital work of becoming more than optimized, but truly whole. And from that place of wholeness, may we each do our part to help heal a world in need.

Every Storm Runs Out of Rain: The Art of Allowing Difficult Emotions

How Fighting Your Feelings Keeps Them Trapped, and What Happens When You Finally Let Go

I woke up irritable today. Achy. Overwhelmed. A vague sadness settled into my bones. The collective weight of the world pressed down on me, and everything felt like too much.

There was a time when days like this would send me spiraling. I'd launch into an exhaustive investigation: What's wrong with me? Why can't I just be okay? Or I'd turn my irritation outward: Why can't they see they've got it all wrong? What’s wrong with people?!

This overanalyzing and judging would inevitably drag me deeper into the mire. A difficult moment would stretch into days, weeks, and sometimes months of struggle. I'd become tangled in my own emotions, unable to recognize they will naturally pass if I leave them alone.

When the Pain Feels Endless: How to Trust It Will Pass

I had a session with a client today who has been struggling to have difficult conversations. He had an aha moment during our session. He realized that difficult conversations become easier when he reminds himself that the pain won't last forever. We talked about Maya Angelou's wisdom: "Every storm runs out of rain."

There’s something liberating in knowing this. Storms, whether literal or metaphorical, follow natural patterns. They gather, intensify, release, and dissipate. No rainstorm in history has continued indefinitely. No emotional state, however powerful, remains permanent. Yet, how often do we treat our difficult emotions as if they're forever?

Dunedin, FL. © 2018 Carla Royal.

Emotional Healing Starts Here: How to Stop Resisting and Start Feeling

I've discovered that the less I fight against difficult emotional states, the more quickly they change and move along.

I used to treat my irritability and sadness as problems to solve, something to expel or collapse into. I assumed that something was wrong and needed to be fixed. My meddling created a paradox. The harder I tried to escape my emotions, the more persistent they became.

The Paradox of Emotional Resistance: Why Fighting Feelings Makes Them Stronger

Our bodies register our resistance as a threat. When we fight our emotions, we actually make them stronger. Our nervous system feels the struggle and responds with more protection, activation, and resistance, which fans the flames rather than resolving the distress. Stephen Porges' research on polyvagal theory confirms this. When we resist emotions, our nervous system interprets that resistance as danger, triggering additional defensive responses. Lisa Feldman Barrett's work on constructed emotion shows the same pattern: attempts to suppress feelings often intensify them, creating precisely what we're trying to avoid.

If you find this helpful, please share to support my work and someone who might need these words today.

The Neuroscience of Letting Emotions Move Through Us

Our emotions need to move freely. They go underground if we suppress them rather than letting them move through us. Eventually, they find a sideways exit that can be damaging, such as suddenly blowing up at someone we love or even manifesting as physical illness. We also don't want to wallow in them or let them dictate our behavior. There is wisdom in simply acknowledging their presence without pushing them away or becoming consumed by them.

When I feel that irritability or sadness now, I note it: I'm irritated. I'm sad. I'm overwhelmed. It's OK. It'll pass in time. Even better, I’ll say: I see that you’re irritated, Carla. I see that you’re sad, Carla. This creates a little space between me and the emotion. I don't rush to analyze or fix it. I don't judge myself for experiencing it. I don't amplify it with elaborate stories about what it means. I let it be.

Acceptance vs. Resignation: The Active Wisdom of Emotional Awareness

This isn't resignation. It's an active form of wisdom. It's recognizing the impermanent nature of all emotional states and choosing not to make things worse by resisting or fighting against them.

Acceptance simply means acknowledging what is already here.

We're not just experiencing personal storms now. We're weathering collective ones—Tsunami-sized storms! Political divides, ecological crises, and social fragmentation create cumulative stress that seeps into our individual experiences.

Collective Storms: Why Your Difficult Feelings May Be an Appropriate Response

As humans with permeable nervous systems, it would be strange if we didn't sometimes feel overwhelmed, irritable, angry, or sad. These responses aren't personal failings. They're appropriate reactions to the world we're navigating together.

Jiddu Krishnamurti reminds us, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." His words offer a more realistic perspective that can free us from self-blame when we struggle in times such as these.

When I acknowledge this, I'm able to lighten up on myself. The question shifts from What's wrong with me? to What if my difficult emotions are a natural response to a challenging world? This wider perspective creates space for both personal responsibility and compassionate understanding.

Building Trust in Your Emotional Resilience

Over the years, I'm learning how to trust that my emotions will move through me in their own time. I've learned that when I don't amplify difficult emotions through resistance, over-analysis, or judgment, they tend to move through more quickly. Almost every time.

This trust hasn't come easily. It's the result of countless experiences observing emotions rise, peak, and pass. It's come from witnessing how my overanalysis and judgment often prolong rather than resolve emotional discomfort. And it's come from studying how our nervous systems actually work, rather than how we think they should work.

Through this process, I've come to see our challenging emotions as meaningful aspects of our shared humanity. There is a line in an Over the Rhine song I love: "Pain is our mother, she helps us recognize each other." Our vulnerability to difficult emotions is part of what connects us to each other and to life itself.

A New Relationship with Difficult Emotions

The invitation isn't to get rid of or collapse into these emotions but to develop an easier relationship with them. Can you recognize when you're adding to your suffering through resistance? Can you allow difficult emotions to be present without either suppressing or amplifying them? Can you remember, even in the midst of emotional storms, that these feelings will run their course?

This practice doesn't promise a life free from these emotions. It offers the capacity to move through them with less struggle, more grace, and deeper trust in your own resilience.

So, the next time you wake feeling irritable, achy, or sad, or the world feels too much, try letting those feelings be. Not pushing them away. Not pulling them closer. Acknowledge their presence and remember they are visitors, not permanent residents. When you do, your next right action will reveal itself.

The storm will pass. It always does. And when it does, you might find yourself standing in unexpected sunshine, willing and able to show up in the ways the world needs now.

When Everything Burns: Tending the Fires Within and Around Us

Reflections on grief, inflammation, and the courage it takes to heal in a world on fire

Wildfires are burning all around me here in the Asheville area. Smoke hangs in the air like a warning. When the wind is just right, ash swirls around my home as if the sky itself is grieving. I have no evacuation orders currently, but I'm staying vigilant. Six months ago, Hurricane Helene destroyed over 400,000 acres of forest in western NC. Millions of trees were destroyed or damaged. All the resulting debris is a tinderbox for fire. High winds and low humidity spread flames fast. All hell breaks loose.

All hell has been breaking loose, but we've turned away. We pretend it's not so. We pretend until the flames are at our own back door. It's not just the forest fires; it's the uncontrolled fires that rage within and between us. Our politics rage as we forget how to come together and work for all, tearing at the very fabric of our society. Our climate is raging in an attempt to come back into balance. Our emotions rage as we've forgotten how to regulate ourselves, resulting in an outbreak of internal and external conflict. Our bodies are full of inflammation creating all manner of illness.

One of many fires in western North Carolina. © 2025. Citizen Times.

The Inflammation Epidemic

My body has been overly inflamed for years, resulting in chronic pain and chronic itching, burning, and stinging all over my body, at times almost unbearable. I searched for a simple fix but didn't address the underlying issues for way too long. The difficulty of addressing underlying issues is that it takes time to sus out and unravel. I'm talking about years.

We live in a culture that wants relief from symptoms immediately, without dealing with the underlying issues. We come by that innocently in many ways. Think fast food chains on every corner promising meals in minutes, overnight shipping that delivers almost anything to our doorstep with a single click, and microwaveable everything. Western medicine, too, is all about treating the symptoms, but it's not so good at finding the underlying issues, often exacerbating them. If we don't get instant relief, we move on quickly to the next thing. If nothing gives us the relief we want, we turn to numbing agents such as alcohol, drugs, constant scrolling, overeating, or overwork. Anything to give us a moment of reprieve.

The fires we see raging in our forests are a visible form of something that's been building for generations. The climate crisis isn't new. It's been growing beneath the surface while we've been attempting to treat the symptoms or looking away entirely. Our social divisions didn't appear overnight. They've been smoldering, fed by unresolved historical wounds and systems designed to separate us. Our bodies aren't the only things inflamed. Our economy burns through resources faster than the earth can replenish them. Our communities have been breaking down for decades, leaving too many people isolated and alone. Our relationships with the natural world have become increasingly distant as we spend more time with screens than with trees.

All of these fires are different expressions of the same deep imbalance. We've forgotten how to live within limits, how to tend to what matters most, and how to care for the whole.

We want quick fixes. We want technology to save us from our climate crisis without changing how we live. We want political leaders to heal our divisions without doing the difficult work of facing our collective shadows. We want peace without the messy process of reconciliation. We want a pill to make our pain disappear rather than exploring what our bodies are trying to tell us. I get it. The deeper work is harder. It takes longer. It asks more of us. But in the end, it's the only thing that truly heals.

The Courage to Face What Burns

Addressing the fires and inflammation takes time, energy, focus, and deep, unwavering commitment. As a culture, we don't cultivate any of that, so our world burns. We are on the brink now. The burning will continue. We've waited too long.

I know this pattern intimately. We want to look away, to run, to find any escape from what feels too overwhelming to bear. I've done it, too—still do at times. When the inflammation in my body became unbearable, my first instinct was to find something, anything, to make it stop. I bounced from treatment to treatment, practitioner to practitioner, seeking that magical solution. But the real healing only began when I stopped running and turned to face what was happening within me. I've had to do things I wasn't so keen on doing, such as giving up alcohol, sugar, and other foods that aren't good for me, as well as dealing with old family trauma that contributes to my chronic symptoms. And, yes, I also work with excellent practitioners. It’s not either-or, but even the most excellent practitioner won’t help if we don’t do our part in facing the underlying causes.

The philosopher Bayo Akomolafe says, "The times are urgent; let us slow down." This paradox holds profound wisdom. When everything is burning, our instinct is to rush, to solve, to fix immediately. But what if the rushing itself is part of what feeds the flames?

Healing didn't begin until I stopped fighting the symptoms and started listening to the fire. That's when the real work began. And this work isn’t easy, linear, or clear much of the time. And it isn’t just about me.

In their powerful book Inflamed, Rupa Marya and Raj Patel write, "Your body is a map of your world." They draw the connection between personal inflammation and global systems of oppression and extraction, how colonialism, capitalism, and disconnection set everything ablaze: our immune systems, our ecosystems, our nervous systems. The burning in our bodies is not separate from the burning of the world.

Transformation Through Fire

Yes, the world is burning. But listen. Listen. Can you hear the call of something wanting to rise from the ashes? Be still and listen.

You may not hear it right away. You may have to move through your rage first, that fierce, protective anger that rises when you truly see what's happening to our world, to each other, to yourself. Move through it, not around it. Feel its power and let it fuel your commitment to change.

You may feel your despair, that sinking recognition that we can't go back, that some things are already lost, that the world as we knew it is passing away. This is the dark night that precedes any meaningful transformation. As Francis Weller reminds us, this despair isn't something to pathologize. It's the appropriate response to loss.

And your grief. Grief acknowledges all that we love and are losing. Your grief is evidence of your connection, caring, and deep belonging to this world. We grieve because we love.

On the other side of all that, you can hear the call—not bypassing the anger, despair, and grief, but moving through it. The call will be faint at first. If you keep listening, it will grow. It will speak to you. It will ask something of you. "Do you want to help usher in what wants to rise from the ashes?"

If you do, you'll be asked to attend to your own burning. It's not a small ask. In fact, it will likely be the most difficult thing you've ever done. It's like my friend who woke from her coma into terrible agitation and pain—the first step in her healing. It will be uncomfortable, frightening, and painful at times, but necessary to heal and help usher in something new.

What Rises from These Flames?

Fire destroys, but it also makes way for new life. I've read about how forests recover after wildfires. The ash fertilizes the soil. I was surprised to learn that some pine trees right here in the Appalachians need fire to reproduce. The Table Mountain pine, which grows on our ridgetops, has cones that stay sealed with resin until fire melts it away, releasing the seeds. Their cones won't open fully until they feel intense heat! Right in the middle of all that destruction, the seeds for what comes next are there waiting.

I've also seen images of forests after fires. The devastation is shocking. Blackened tree trunks against scorched earth. The loss is palpable. Ancient trees are gone, habitats are destroyed, and the landscape is fundamentally altered. We have to grieve what's gone, deeply grieve. And yet, given time, green shoots push through the ash. Seeds that need heat to germinate begin to sprout. Life finds its way back, not as it was before, but in a new expression. The forest doesn't simply recover; it transforms through loss. Grief and renewal are part of the same process.

Our human journey follows similar patterns. I've seen people, myself included, emerge from personal devastation, loss, illness, and profound disillusionment changed, yes, but renewed in ways they couldn't have imagined before. When the old falls away, something new has room to grow. I've watched this happen again and again. After the burning comes new life. Vicktor Frankl said,

What is to give light must endure burning.

We’re feeling the intense heat. Do we dare draw close enough to let the heat release our seeds of renewal?

Thomas Hübl's work on collective trauma suggests that healing happens not by erasing our wounds but by developing the capacity to be with them, to witness them without turning away. In that witnessing, something shifts. Integration becomes possible, and new patterns can emerge.

I don't think what's trying to emerge from all this burning is asking us to go back to how things were. I don’t believe we can; I wouldn’t want to. I believe we’re being asked to step into something we haven't fully imagined yet – a different way of living with each other and with this earth. A way that remembers we're all connected. A way that understands there are limits we need to honor. A way that helps all of us – people, trees, rivers, creatures – actually thrive together.

We’re not just experiencing collapse. We are in a rite of passage. And like all rites of passage, we must let something die. We must shed old skins, outdated myths, and the illusion that we are separate from the earth and from one another.

The world is burning. Yet, beneath the smoke, I hear a quiet voice calling us toward something new. Not as a return to "normal" (normal was never working), but as a collective remembering. As a commitment to tend this earth, these bodies, and our relationships as sacred again.

Will you answer? Will you tend your own flames, facing what burns within you, and will you help bring forth what wants to be born in the world? Will you join with others, creating pockets of possibility where new ways of being together can take root?

Let the smoke teach you. Let the grief break you open. Let the fire show you what matters. This is not the end. It is a moment of profound choice.

The fires will continue. But what rises from them is partly up to us.

Are We Blackout Drunk as a Society? A Dream That Shook Me Awake

A Raw Look at Shadow, Denial, and What It Really Takes to Wake Up—In Ourselves and Our World

I often have rich, vivid dreams at night, and they’ve proven to be informative and helpful. I pay attention to them and take them seriously. Over the years, I've even had precognitive dreams. When I was living in Vermont, I dreamed I would be taking care of my dad as he aged. I woke up from that dream mortified. I was not close to my dad, and the last thing I wanted was to care for him in that vulnerable way.

Vermont Pond Reflection. © 2009 Carla Royal.

A year and a half later, I moved to Georgia, an hour and a half from my father, not for him, but for a job. The day after I arrived, I went with my dad to a doctor's appointment and found out he had cancer. For the next two years, I stayed with him every other week until he died. It ended up being an incredibly healing time for our relationship.

The other night, I had a very disturbing dream: Apparently, I’d been doing terrible things and was discovering this. I found out that I had been blackout drunk when I was doing these things, so I had no memory of it. What I was hearing was not at all who I believed myself to be. I had done harmful things. I felt such remorse. I was trying to make sense of it all. Who is this person who would do such things when unconscious?

When I awoke from the dream, I was reminded once again that I don't know what I don't know. That there are vast parts of me that are still unconscious—maybe even doing harm. I've worked hard to become conscious. I'm proud of the work I've done and continue to do, but there is plenty more I still can't see. I trust myself to continue this work and to continue to be open to what I can't yet see.

But the dream's message seemed bigger than just personal. I felt strongly that the dream was pointing to what’s happening collectively. Huge numbers of people are walking around in what looks like a collective, drunk blackout - unable to see the harm they're doing. Unable to sober up and face what we have created.

I get it. Decades ago, when my life was falling apart, I was literally going into blackout binges because I couldn't face the despair I was feeling. It felt safer to be drunk. But slowly, my life was ebbing away. Fortunately, I was able to stop the madness before I destroyed myself.

I believe that's where we are collectively at this moment. Our life is ebbing away. We are at that moment when we better wake up, or we won't make it. Perhaps I sound melodramatic to you. So be it. I feel it in my bones. Now is the time to wake up, or we may not make it. I want us to make it!

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Why We Resist Awakening (Even When We Long for It)

Awakening is natural, but it's not easy. We resist it because it's uncomfortable and painful. We'd rather stay comfortable. I've spent decades committed to this journey and know the challenges. It's painful, but not as painful as staying stuck in a way of being that harms me or the world around me.

We also resist because it’s too hard to do without support. There was a time when cultures had elders and guides who helped people navigate the disorienting process of seeing more clearly. Today, many of us stumble through it alone or with self-proclaimed guides, gurus, influencers, and religious leaders who haven’t done the work themselves. Too many don’t have the maps or healthy mentors to help them make sense of what they're experiencing.

Yet, despite all this, we can sometimes hear the faint call. Something in us wants to wake up. Our dreams can serve as a doorway, showing us what our conscious mind works hard to avoid seeing.

When a Whole Society Operates from Shadow

It can be profoundly disorienting when we glimpse parts of ourselves we've kept carefully hidden. Carl Jung called this our "shadow", the aspects of ourselves we've disconnected from or pushed away. My dream showed me that no matter how much inner work I've done, more shadow parts are always waiting to be recognized and brought into the light.

But what happens when an entire culture operates from shadow? What happens when systems, institutions, and whole societies organize themselves around collective blindness?

We don't need to look far to see evidence of this collective trance. Our current political climate grows more destabilizing by the day. Our social fabric tears along lines of difference rather than weaving together our shared humanity. Our economic systems continue to reward extraction and exploitation while ignoring their long-term consequences.

We act as if the rules of nature that show that all living systems have limits and require balance somehow don't apply to us. We keep pushing against reality, shocked when it finally pushes back.

When Dreams Speak for the Collective

Dreams can be messengers to help us hear things our waking minds might not be willing to. The dream about my father seemed to be preparing me in some way for the role I’d have with him at the end of his life. My recent disturbing dream woke me up just a little more. And the alarm is not just for me but for all of us moving through this uncertain, chaotic time in history.

Many Indigenous peoples have always paid attention to dreams. They believe dreams aren't just personal but can warn or guide entire communities. I've been working with dreams long enough to see this truth.

The blackout drunk is a powerful metaphor for what's happening collectively right now. We keep acting in ways that harm each other and this world while pretending, or simply unable to see, that we are causing great harm.

Coming Out of the Coma: The Agony of Waking Up

I remember when someone I loved was in a car accident. She was in a coma for a while, and we didn't know if she would make it. The first time I visited her in the hospital, she looked so peaceful in that coma. I prayed hard for her to wake up. Then she did. I remember how agitated and disoriented she became. Her pain levels were sky-high. Oh, how I wished she'd go back into the coma! But I knew she had to go through all the pain and agitation if she were ever to recover. Thankfully, she did.

That's where we are as a culture. If we are to come out of our coma, we're going to feel pain, anguish, and shame for all the harm we've caused others and this beautiful planet. Maybe that’s why so many choose to stay in the blackout. I understand. I really do. But damn, we've got to wake up. The future of this planet, of our precious children, of countless marginalized people depend on it.

How to Create the Conditions to Wake Up

While awakening is natural, we need to create conditions that support it. The caterpillar knows to go into the dark cocoon. The snake, shedding its skin, knows to rub against the rocks. The seed knows to drop into the dark soil. The seed requires soil, water, and the right temperature. Our consciousness naturally expands when given a supportive environment.

Often, it begins with slowing down and getting quiet. It's hard to notice what's happening beneath the surface when we're constantly distracted and stimulated. Simple practices like mindfulness and meditation, spending time in nature, or turning off our devices can go a long way in helping us wake up to what we've been blind to.

We also need honest conversations and communities where we can speak truthfully about what we're experiencing without fear of judgment or rejection. When even one person shares their experience, it gives others permission to do the same, enabling new perspectives and understanding to spark. Little will change if we have no empathy for what our neighbor or planet is going through.

The Brave Work of Staying Awake Together

I've learned that transformation happens when we're willing to face what we've been avoiding – not to punish ourselves, but to become whole. This work isn't just about feeling what we've suppressed; it's also about unburdening parts of ourselves who are still stuck in old survival patterns and still living from outdated paradigms and belief systems.

The same is true collectively. Waking up as a group isn't about forcing ourselves to dwell on what's wrong—though we do have to look—it's about healing our capacity to respond intelligently and honestly to what's happening. We are being called to take responsibility, make amends, and reclaim our ability to face reality together, no longer numb to the consequences of our actions.

It means doing what it takes to stay present—present to the pain, beauty, fear, joy, anger, despair, and hope. Meditation, mindfully and gratefully wandering the woods, doing somatic work to ground myself in my body, and paying attention to my dreams help. These practices aren't luxuries but practical necessities for creating the conditions to keep waking up.

It involves seeking out others who are willing to see clearly with me. The work of awakening was never meant to be done alone. We need each other to help us navigate the complexity of what we're facing.

My disturbing dream left me shaken but also curious. It reminded me that staying unconscious—personally or collectively—always catches up with us. The longer we avoid waking up, the harder it becomes to face what we've been ignoring.

What might be possible if we found the courage to wake up together? What wisdom and creativity might emerge if we faced our shared reality with open eyes and hearts?

I don't have all the answers. But I know in my bones that now is the time—past time—to wake up, see clearly, and act with the full awareness of what's at stake. Though difficult and painful, our collective life depends on it.