What We Can Understand from the Invisible Hand

Why that feeling in your stomach is a blessing, not a curse.

Right now, a pressure weighs heavy on my body. I don’t know what it is I’d like to write, but I still can’t fight this overpowering sensation of needing to.

I think a lot of times in life you’ll find yourself in a situation just like this, coaxed by an invisible force; an almost physical sensation. It’s as real as the pebble rattling in the pit of a stomach or the stinging pressure behind the eyes. Like someone is pushing you deep and stern at the small of your back. Precise. Unwavering.

You’ll never quite be able to place what it is, or why it comes when it comes, but I’d like to think that they’re feelings struggling to be understood — ones you’ll never quite find the words to explain until you’re in the moment they truly surface, and by then it’ll be too late to turn back.

And even though you’ll never know why you’re feeling what you’re feeling and what that feeling is, I like to guess anyway. It could be stress, but stress is too simple of an emotion — too common, too predictable. I’m stressed all of the time and so I’m familiar with it’s power. It’s not strong enough to move me.

If not stress, is it fear? No, it can’t be. Fear and I are long-term acquaintances. We spend a lot of time trying to conquer each other. Fear is crippling. Fear is suffocating. But right now, I do not feel like I can’t breathe. I do not feel paralyzed. Just heavier.

Doubt, maybe. I’m getting warmer. What I’m feeling now and what I feel when uncertainty creeps up on me are very similar sensations. They both undulate beneath me like dense waves.

But it isn’t doubt, either.

It feels like glory, and it feels like destruction. So I know it’s a feeling not to be ignored. It feels mighty, and it feels shaky. So I appreciate its potential.

It feels like powerlessness.

That’s it — I might’ve just hit the nail on its head. How humbling a sensation, knowing that no matter your level of perseverance, there will come times where your life is not yours to control. And how funny, knowing that every emotion we mentioned plays its own part in powerlessness: stress, fear, doubt. We will fall victim, time and time again, to the will of the universe. Dreams will fall apart, paths will diverge, and trust will come and go. And we will cry. We will hurt. But we will also be prepared.

This feeling we’re feeling right now, this weighty pressure — it’s a warning. Nothing in life should ever catch us off guard. Surprise us, maybe, but never hit us while we’re down. The universe lets us know when things are coming. We just have to pay attention. Don’t be so quick to dismiss that feeling in your gut, or that rhythm in your head. That’s a distress call, the sound of war drums. Put on your war paint.

Understand this powerlessness and what it means. Why it’s shown up now, what it means for your future. Let it wash over you and seep into every pore, until it is no longer foreign. Powerless can be both derided and appreciated, because its often in times of great despair that we discover what our insides are made of, and why we will always be no one else but ourselves. Only then can you prepare, when you realize that.

There are many ways I can end this: words of encouragement, a manifesto of hope, a sermon of strength.

But sometimes in life the best remedy is to be present in what you are feeling. Be aware. Understand that something looms just on the horizon. Something big, something foreboding. But something to be respected.