When Stillness Feels Heavy

Lately, I’ve been feeling still. Not the kind of stillness that feels like rest or peace, but the kind that sits on you. The kind that lingers. The kind that makes you feel like everything inside of you has slowed down, but not in a way that feels safe. It feels like something is building, like I’m on the verge of an implosion, and I don’t even know what needs to come out. 

I’ve always been someone who finds comfort in quiet, but this feels different. My mind is quiet, but not clear. My heart is there, but it doesn’t feel connected. And my soul feels heavy, like it’s carrying something I haven’t fully acknowledged yet. It’s hard to explain, but I know I’m not fully aligned with myself right now. 

I’ve pulled away from so much noise. I barely watch TV anymore, an hour a week if that. The only place I’ve been able to find a sense of peace in reading, sitting with words that feel like they understand me more than I understand myself right now. But even in that, there’s this quiet voice that keeps whispering to me that I haven’t done enough. That I should be doing more. That I’m falling short. 

But deep down, I know that’s not true. 

I’ve accomplished a lot. I’ve been showing up. I’ve been pushing through my days, especially during the week when everything feels so fast and so demanding. But somewhere in the middle of all that doing, I stopped tending to myself. Not just on the surface, but deeply. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. 

And now I feel it. 

I feel what it’s like when your mind and heart disagree. When your spirit feels distant. When you can’t quite hear yourself the way you used to. It’s like all the parts of me that used to flow together have slowly drifted apart, and now I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to bring them back into one place. 

There’s a void. A quiet one. And it doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels heavy. 

I’ve been trying to write through it. Trying to put words to what I’m feeling, hoping that if I could just get it out, it would make sense. But nothing has been landing. Nothing has felt true enough to share. And I realize now that it’s because I haven’t been fully connected to myself. I’ve been trying to create from a place of disconnection, and that just doesn’t work. 

It brings me back to something I shared in my last post, “The Quiet Car Ride Home,” when I talked about that moment in the shower where I finally let go. Recently everything I had been holding in came pouring out of me. And in that moment, when I didn’t have anything left to say, I felt the Lord speak so clearly to my spirit. 

Pray. 

Not write. Not figure it out. Not fix it. Just pray. 

And the truth is, I didn’t have the words then, and if I’m honest, I still don’t have them now. But I was raised in a church. I know what it means to go to God even when you don’t have a polished prayer. I know what it means to cry out, to sit at His feet, to come just as you are. 

And His word reminds me in Romans 8:26 that even when we don’t know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes us. That means I don’t have to get it right. I just have to come. 

And another thing I’ve been sitting with is Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Growing up, I heard that scripture so many times, but nobody really tells you that stillness can feel uncomfortable before it feels peaceful. Nobody tells you that sometimes God will quiet everything around you just so you can finally hear what’s going on within you. 

Maybe that’s where I am. 

Not lost, but being called inward. 
Not empty but being emptied out. 
Not disconnected, but being invited to reconnect the right way. 

So instead of trying to force words that don’t feel true, I’m choosing to do what I know to do. 

I’m going to God.