When the World Feels Loud, Listen for the Whisper

Yesterday I sat with a client who couldn't stop crying. Not because something terrible had happened, but because for the first time in months, she'd gotten quiet enough to hear what her soul had been trying to tell her. "I didn't know," she kept saying. "I didn't know it was this simple."

It is, though. And it isn't. Because between us and that holy whisper stands every noise we're afraid to live without.

The Static We Call Thinking

I used to think worry was preparation. I thought if I rehearsed disasters enough times, I'd be ready when they came. I thought examining my fears from every angle was wisdom. But worry doesn't prepare us for anything. It just exhausts us before anything actually happens.

I watch this in my clients all the time. They come to me wound so tight with planning and predicting that their bodies have forgotten how to soften. Their shoulders live up by their ears. Their breath barely makes it past their throat.

And underneath all that grinding mental machinery?

God is trying to get a word in. Spirit is trying to offer partnership. Their own soul is trying to say: "Beloved, you're working so hard at the wrong things." But we can't hear any of it over the sound of our own trying.

When Control Becomes Our False God

There's this moment in almost every session where someone says some version of: "If I could just figure out the right strategy..." And my heart breaks a little. Because I remember being there. I remember thinking that if I was smart enough, spiritual enough, healed enough, I could architect my way into a life without uncertainty.

The ego loves this game. It whispers: You should know better by now. You should have this figured out. Everyone else seems to know what they're doing. If you were really connected to Divine guidance, you wouldn't feel lost.

Lies. All lies.

Here's what I know now: The Divine doesn't speak through our perfectionism. It speaks through our surrender. When I finally learned to say "Show me" — really say it, not as a demand but as an exhale — everything changed. Not because life got easier. But because I stopped fighting life so hard.

The Noise We Choose Because Silence Feels Too Unsettling

We've gotten so good at numbing out. At filling every pocket of quiet with podcasts and posts and other people's problems. We call it staying connected, but really?

We're hiding from our own knowing.

Because in the quiet, things rise: The grief we've been postponing. The anger we've been swallowing. The longing we've been denying. The truth about what needs to change.

I've learned to recognize this in my body now. When I start reaching for my phone without thinking, when I suddenly need to reorganize something that doesn't need organizing, when I find myself creating emergencies where there are none —That's when I know something holy is trying to emerge. And I'm trying not to let it.

The Children Inside Us Just Want to Be Held

Here's something I've discovered in the years of sitting with people's pain: Our feelings aren't trying to hurt us. They're trying to heal us. But we treat them like enemies instead of messengers.

That knot of anxiety in your chest? It might be saying: "Something here isn't aligned with what is best for you." That bone-deep exhaustion? It might be whispering: "You're trying to earn what's already yours." That flash of rage? It might be your soul saying: "This boundary has been crossed for the last time."

But we don't listen. We medicate, meditate it away, positive-think over it, stay busy enough to outrun it. Until one day we can't anymore. And that's usually when people find their way to my practice. Not because they need fixing. But because they need someone to sit with them while they finally listen to what's been trying to be heard.

The hurting parts of you will keep getting louder until you listen. They start as whispers, then become shouts, then become breakdowns. The sooner you turn toward them, the gentler they can be with you.

The Place Where God Lives in You

There's a place inside you where the noise can't reach. I learned to find this place several years ago, when my own therapist saw through all my busy-ness to the terror underneath. 'You're so afraid of what's in there,' she said gently. 'But what if those parts of you aren't angry? What if they're just lonely?' She taught me to put my hand on my heart — not to calm myself, but to make contact. To let those hidden parts know: I'm here now. I'm listening.

At first, all I felt was my own racing fear of what might surface. But over time, the process became familiar and I learned to stay with myself.

Underneath the fear, beneath the lifetime of looking away, I found it:

Stillness. Not empty stillness. Full stillness. Like a lake so deep that storms can't touch the bottom. All those parts I'd been terrified to meet? They weren't waiting to punish me. They were waiting to come home.

This is where the Divine whispers. Not in our heads where we do all our figuring out. But in this quiet chamber where knowing lives. You have this place too. You've always had it. It's never been damaged, never been lost, never been too far away. It's just been waiting. Waiting for you to stop trying so hard. Waiting for you to remember that you don't have to earn your way to peace.

What the Whisper Sounds Like

People ask me: "How do you know it's Divine guidance and not just your own thoughts?"

Here's how I know:

Divine guidance feels like coming home. Even when it's asking you to do something terrifying. Even when it makes no logical sense. Even when everyone else thinks you're crazy. It arrives with spaciousness, not urgency. It feels like your whole body saying "yes" even when your mind is scared. It doesn't argue. It just knows.

And here's the thing that took me forever to understand: The Divine isn't trying to be mysterious. We're just trying too hard to hear. It's like trying to see stars in the city. The stars are always there. But we need darkness to see light.

We need quiet to hear the whisper.

An Invitation, Not an Assignment

I'm not going to tell you to meditate for an hour. I'm not going to suggest you need another practice or technique. You've probably got enough of those already.

Instead, I'm going to share what I do when the world gets so loud I can't hear my own soul: I put my hand on my heart. Right now. Wherever I am. In the grocery store. In traffic. In the middle of an argument. I breathe once. Just once. All the way down to my belly.

And I say — sometimes out loud, sometimes just in my heart: "Show me."

Not "Show me the answer." Not "Show me how to fix this." Just "Show me."

And then I listen. Not with my ears. With that place in my heart where the quiet lives.

Sometimes I hear nothing. Sometimes I hear everything. Sometimes I just feel my shoulders drop and realize I've been holding them up for hours.

That's enough. That's everything.

The whisper is always there. It was there before the noise started. It'll be there when the noise stops.

And right now, in this moment, with your hand on your heart...

It's saying: "Welcome home, beloved. I've been waiting for you."