I had a conversation recently with a man who, by any external metric, has won the game. He has had a tremendous career run. He has the title, the reputation, and the financial security that most people spend their lives chasing.
But as we sat together, he confessed something that many of us feel but rarely say out loud: He no longer felt challenged. The work had lost its edge. The fire was gone.
The logical next step would be to leave—to step off the path and find something true. But he told me that every time he got close to taking a step toward a new path, he felt a wave of paralyzing anxiety.
As we broke it down, he realized why. He had been riding a “Jet Stream” for decades.
That stream provided financial safety, yes. But more importantly, it provided a calendar that filled itself. The endless meetings, the travel, and the commitments gave him the illusion of being needed. It provided a structure that held him upright so he didn’t have to hold himself.
He looked at me and acknowledged a brutal truth: The unease of being unfulfilled seemed to be a better option than the terror of an empty calendar.
I could see the realization in his eyes. He saw the “merry-go-round” of his life playing the same tune over and over, hypnotizing him into sleep as the days, weeks, and months rolled by. It was like watching a reel of film where he was the main character, yet he was completely dissociated from the scene. He was “in” the movie, but he wasn’t inhabiting his life.
The Trance of Velocity
It is not just a career path that holds us in this trance. It is the screens. It is the notifications. It is the constant stimulus that demands our attention and pulls us out of our bodies.
We are engaged in a trance induced by “input” rather than the practice of “presence.”
We have convinced ourselves that as long as we are moving, we are safe. We treat momentum as a proxy for meaning. We tell ourselves, “I am busy, therefore I matter.” This is the lie of the Scaffold. The Scaffold is built for climbing, fixing, and doing. It is not built for sitting.
So, what happens when you stop climbing?
Consider this: When was the last time you chose to sit in quiet silence?
I don’t mean reading a book, or listening to a podcast, or watching a show. I mean silence. Either alone, or in the presence of another person without speaking.
When you did that, what was the quality of that time? Were you able to drop in and be fully present? Or did your mind immediately start zooming around a myriad of thoughts?
For most of us, silence does not feel like peace. It feels like danger.
The moment the external noise stops, the internal noise begins. The incessant churning of thoughts—worries, concerns, to-do lists, regrets—rushes in to fill the vacuum. It occupies your attention specifically so you cannot “be-come” here.
The Diagnosis: Withdrawal
If that churning of the busy mind is your experience, you are in good company. I suspect that 95% of people are caught in some form of this.
We are either pedaling faster and faster to appease the voice that drives this experience, or we are using substances—alcohol, scrolling, food—to numb it out. However you may be coping, it is likely not improving your experience. At best, it is buying you a “time out” from the realization that speeding through life is its own drug.
We have normalized momentum at the expense of dropping in.
If you find yourself in some version of this, and if there is any part of you that realizes there must be a better way... then yes. Let me assure you: that part of you is begging for your attention. It may be a “just in time” moment, should you choose to give that voice some air to be heard.
But first, we must reframe what is happening to you.
When you try to sit still and you feel that agitation, that urge to check your phone, that feeling that you are “wasting time”—that is not a spiritual failure. That is withdrawal.
Your nervous system has been programmed for velocity. It has been trained for decades to process data, solve problems, and manage threats at high speed. What has been sacrificed in that training is depth.
When you stop the input, your system panics. It is looking for the “Jet Stream.” It is looking for the Scaffold.
Three Practices for the Descent
So, how do we climb down? How do we interrupt the forward inertia long enough to drop into presence? It is only in presence that we can really feel how we are doing—and how those around us are doing.
We do not need to quit our jobs tomorrow or move to a monastery. We need to reclaim small pockets of ground. Here are three practices to help you navigate the withdrawal and find the silence.
1. The 7-Minute Reset You do not need an hour. Start with seven minutes. Sit in a chair. Close your eyes. And simply allow yourself the gift of doing nothing. The mind will churn. It will tell you that you have emails to send. It will replay a conversation from yesterday. Let it churn. Do not fight it, but do not buy into it. Just watch the thoughts go by like traffic on a street you are not walking on. Seven minutes of “non-doing” interrupts the trance. It reminds the nervous system that you are safe, even when you are not “useful.”
2. The Beauty Anchor Find a place where you can sit in presence. A park bench. A gallery. A quiet corner of a coffee shop. Anywhere that holds beauty. Go there without a device. No headphones. Allow yourself to be fully present to the nature of the art, or the specific way the light hits the trees in the city park. Let the beauty anchor you. The “Scaffold Mind” wants to analyze the beauty; the “Ground Mind” simply receives it. Practice receiving.
3. Loving Kindness This is perhaps the greatest gift of all, and often the hardest for high-performers. Send yourself some loving kindness for all that you have been through. For all that you have said and done, regardless of how it turned out. For the years you spent running on the treadmill because you thought you had to. Forgive yourself for the addiction to speed. You were doing what you thought was required to survive. After you have allowed yourself to experience that loving kindness, you can then extend it out to the people in your world—both those you know, and even the strangers on the street.
The Invitation
However you choose to show up for this, make it a regular practice.
The Jet Stream is powerful. It will always try to pull you back into the current of “doing.” It takes repetition to build a new habit of “being.”
It may take a while for your inner world—your heart, your mind, your body—to adapt to such an experience. But over time, the benefits will become so obvious that you will wonder how it was that you ever forgot to allow this experience to happen.
The scaffold is shaking. The ground is waiting. It is good to be home.
Thank you for listening and now, cue the silence…
