Maybe restlessness is what happens when the soul will not let us make peace with what should disturb us.
Restless. That is the only word I have for how I have felt this past year.
Like something had been tugging at me. Something would not let me fully rest or let my guard down. I could hear myself thinking, talking, doing my work, moving through my days, but underneath all of it was a steady hum. Restlessness. Not sadness exactly. Not even anxiety in the usual way. Just this sense that something in me would not settle.
My husband would check on me and say he could feel it too—the restlessness. Honestly, that is not the kind of thing you want confirmed out loud, but he was right. It was there. I was carrying it. Living with it. Trying to work around it. Trying to explain it. Trying not to make too much of it. And failing at that part.
Maybe it came from the last few years of my life. There has been so much packed into them—chaos, joy, loss, death, illness, trauma, new life, love, grief. Not in any neat order. Not one thing politely finishing before the next began. Just all of it layered together, beauty and heartbreak somehow living under the same roof.
Then there is the deeply personal privilege of my work, of walking with people through their lives for years at a time. In this last year, I have lost several patients I had known for many years. It would be impossible not to be touched by that. To witness people’s courage up close—the way they keep going when their bodies, minds, families, or lives have gone sideways—reminds me again and again that many of us are holding more than the world can see.
And on top of all of that is the larger world around all of us, chaotic and divided, so often rewarding noise over wisdom and cruelty over care. Maybe that is what I was feeling, and maybe many of you are too. Layers on layers of life, loss, responsibility, and the effort of trying to hold on to hope while still finding our place in the middle of it all.
And still the restlessness continued to hum.
Then, slowly, something began to shift. Not in some dramatic divine-intervention way, although I would have preferred that. I have asked God more than once to ring a bell or send some unmistakable sign to get my attention. But apparently Spirit does not take orders—or even polite suggestions—from me.
Instead, unexpected events happened. Conversations happened. Silence happened. Solitude happened. Life kept unfolding, but somewhere in the middle of it, the restlessness began to settle, like the swirling of leaves on a windy day finally falling still.
And what became clear was that this feeling was not just stress or the wear and tear of life. It felt deeper than that. More urgent.
In a world where the most vulnerable are hurting, I kept coming back to the same questions: What can I do? What do I need to do? How do I answer to the voice of my soul, to my God, to what I know is asking something of me?
I know that may sound heavy. Maybe even a little too spiritual for some people. So be it. It has become less vague to me, not more. The voice has grown louder, but also steadier. Clearer. And I believe that voice lives in all of us. We are just often too scared to hear it, too busy to listen, or too overshadowed by the demands and voices of others to recognize it.
And as I kept listening, I realized this was not just about me. It was also about what women are taught to do so early and so well: override ourselves, stay likable, stay quiet, and look outward for permission to speak or stand up.
What became clear to me is that answering that voice requires staying close to yourself. It means staying close enough to hear what is true, to recognize what is yours, and to stop handing your life over to the expectations, commands, and beliefs others have decided should define you. It means refusing to confuse other people’s expectations with truth.
Many of the messages women have been handed about goodness, likability, humility, obedience, worth, and physical appearance were never designed to help us become fully ourselves. They were designed to keep us manageable.
We see it everywhere—women injecting themselves, starving themselves, reshaping themselves, trying to earn worth through visibility, desirability, and approval.
But that need to be accepted can quietly rule a life. And just because a message has been repeated for generations does not make it true. Just because a role has been handed to women over and over again does not make it sacred.
Many of the beliefs women have inherited about who we are supposed to be—smaller, quieter, more pleasing, less direct, less powerful—were never neutral or harmless. They were shaped inside structures that benefited from women doubting themselves.
There comes a point when we have to name that for what it is. What has been passed down is not always wisdom. Sometimes it is fear. Sometimes it is control. Sometimes it is an attempt to keep women away from their own power because women’s power unsettles the world around them.
But we do have power. The real question is what we will do with it. Will we use it for good, or will we keep imitating a version of power built on control, hardness, and self-interest?
For me, this restlessness has turned me inward, back to the source of my own power. And it has forced me to confront something I can no longer ignore: I cannot keep looking at suffering and then move on as if it is just one more story in the news.
Starvation of children.
Families carrying trauma from what they are suffering, witnessing, and living through.
Children separated and locked in detention centers—how will they ever come back from this trauma? We know that many will carry that fear and disruption in their bodies and minds for decades.
It is frightening to see how quickly we have normalized all of this. How fast human pain became a political argument, another chance to be right or stay loyal to the party line. Of course, it is easier to argue about the problem than it is to solve it. But the most vulnerable are suffering and dying while we argue or debate it on social media.
Stories of suffering have become background noise because, in some ways, that feels easier on us. I understand that. I really do. It is hard to continue witnessing pain and still care for ourselves.
I have asked myself the same question so many of us ask: What can I do?
As I have sat with that question, I keep coming back to women. If part of who we are, deep in our core, is to nurture, protect, teach, and help shape what gets passed on, then maybe we do carry a particular responsibility not to look away.
For me, the restlessness has started to feel less like something to manage and more like something to listen to. More like God in me, not letting me make peace with what should disturb me. Not letting me look away. Not letting me hand my voice, my conscience, or my power over to fear, exhaustion, or the hope that someone else will take care of it.
I am not talking about saving the world by myself. I am talking about refusing indifference. Refusing to normalize cruelty. Refusing to keep betraying what I know.
And I do believe women have a unique place in the answer. We shape what gets carried forward. We teach. We protect. We nurture. We hold families, communities, stories, and values together. We are often the first ones helping children make meaning of the world. We are often the ones deciding what gets normalized and what does not.
If that is true, then this is not the time for women to keep shrinking. This is not the time to keep chasing some distorted version of power built on approval, performance, hardness, or silence. And it is not the time to keep abandoning ourselves or each other.
For me, this is the deeper call: to stay close to myself. Close to what is true. Close to what God is asking of me. Close to the power already inside me, power that does not need permission to exist or to be used in service of what protects life and pushes back against suffering.
Maybe that is where I want to leave this.
For me, the restlessness was never just restlessness. It was a call to stop looking away. To stop waiting. To stop pretending that I don’t already know and see something, I have accepted my next steps.
And maybe for some women reading this, the question is not whether that same power is in you. Maybe the question is whether you are ready to trust it.
Because the world is hurting. And women have a place in the healing.
