We are living in a time of heightened global tension.

War, division, and human suffering are no longer distant realities. They are part of our daily awareness. And as exposure increases, many people are noticing something unexpected: the more they care, the less capacity they seem to have. The more they try to stay engaged, the more overwhelmed they feel.

This creates a difficult internal conflict, especially for those who want to remain compassionate and present in the face of what is happening.

In this post, we explore why this occurs and what it reveals about how we are meeting the world.

Through the story of Margaret, a 64-year-old Jewish woman living in Canada, we walk through a very human experience of overwhelm. And a new way of finding steadiness without disconnecting from reality.

Here is her story.

…

Margaret sits at her kitchen table, the morning light just beginning to stretch across the floor. The coffee in her mug has gone lukewarm, untouched. Her phone is still in her hand.

It started the way it always does. A quick check. A headline. Then another. A video she wishes she hadn’t watched. A comment thread that spiraled into something sharp and unforgiving. Names she recognizes. Places that feel both far away and uncomfortably close.

Protests in the streets. Accusations flying from all side. Images of war she can’t unsee.

At sixty-four, Margaret has lived long enough to know that the world has always had its share of conflict. She remembers other times. Other headlines. Other moments when it felt like everything was unraveling. But something about this feels different.

She thinks of her grandchildren. Their small hands. Their laughter. The way they run toward her without hesitation, assuming the world is a place that will meet them gently. She wonders what they will grow into. What they will have to face. And her chest tightens a little more.

As a Jewish woman, the weight is not abstract. History is not something she reads about; it lives in her bones. In stories passed down and names remembered. She holds a quiet, ever-present awareness that things can change quickly, that safety is not guaranteed and that belonging can be incredibly fragile.

She scrolls again, even though she feels she shouldn’t. She should stay informed, right? It feels almost uncaring not to. How could she look away when so many people are suffering? Who am I to feel okay right now?

The weight of this question lands so heavy that for a moment, she wants to shut it all off. Shove it down, not feel it, not think about it. Just step outside and feel the air and carry on as if nothing has changed.

She slams the phone face down on the table, as if that might release this pressure that has built up inside her. It doesn’t. The noise isn’t coming from the screen anymore. They are inside her. The fast-moving thoughts, images replaying, a low hum of urgency to move, but in what direction? How am I supposed to live a centered life in a world like this? How do I stay open without breaking? How do I care without collapsing? How do I meet all of this without losing myself in it?

…

When we ask, “How do I stay centered in a world like this?”, the assumption is that the problem is the world.

But what if how we experience what is happening in the world isn’t about what is actually happening, but the state from which we are meeting it? In the model we use, this distinction is everything.

How we would describe Margaret’s inner state right how is contracted or Misaligned. This is the state of self-protection.

In this state, thoughts become urgent and repetitive and emotions intensify quickly. A nervous system has been activated that prioritizes safety. The body braces, even in the absence of immediate danger, and the world begins to look more extreme, more divided, more threatening, as the mind scans for danger. The system is doing exactly what it was built to do: protect you from perceived threat.

But here’s the part that often goes unrecognized: when we are in this state, we are not just reacting to the world but seeing the world through it.

…

Margaret opens her eyes and something has shifted, just slightly. Instead of being consumed by the problem, she has started to observe herself in it. For a few moments, Margaret just sits there. She doesn’t reach for the phone again - not yet. She has been learning how to observe her inner state and she stops to notice: what is actually happening in me right now?

Her breath feels shallow. Her chest feels constricted. There’s a subtle pressure behind her eyes, a tightness, like she’s holding something in place but doesn’t know what. Her head feels buzzy, trying to make sense of what she just saw, and trying to anticipate where things might go next. Everything she just read feels heavy. Absolute. People aren’t just people: they’re right or wrong. Situations aren’t just complex, but dangerous or out of control! There’s no space in it. No room to breathe.

She hadn’t questioned it before. It just felt like reality. But sitting here now, she can feel the difference between what she saw… and how it’s moving through her.

…

In a contracted, self-protective state, the mind does something very specific: it tries to solve for safety. It scans for patterns and predicts outcomes. It pulls from past experiences and overlays them onto the present. This is what keeps us in loops. In this state, the brain is not asking ‘What is true right now?’ It is asking ‘What have I seen before that looks like this, and how did I protect myself from it so I can do it again?’

This is why we can feel overwhelmed by situations that don’t directly affect us, become reactive in conversations that don’t require urgency, or lose clarity even when we are just trying to be informed. The nervous system is no longer responding to the present. It is responding to perceived threat filtered through past experience.

…

Margaret exhales slowly.

This part just feels so familiar: needing to stay on top of things, to understand everything, to not miss something important. She is just being responsible, right? Isn’t this how caring feels? But right now, it also feels like it’s pulling her further away from any sense of steadiness. And the more she tries to understand, the more bogged-down she becomes.

…

In the paradigm we work within, human experience is not organized around what is happening, but around our inner state of either Misalignment (contraction) or Alignment (expansion). We recognize that his is not a small adjustment, but a different orientation entirely.

We have already touched on the contracted state. It is the stressed state most of us know all too well. The one we see Margaret in right now.

Again, when the nervous system perceives threat, whether immediate or indirect, actual or imagined, current or remembered, it prepares to mobilize the body and mind for survival.

In contrast, the aligned state is a different internal state with which we meet circumstantial challenges. In this state, the nervous system settles, the body softens and perception widens. Clarity arises without force. Emotional steadiness is present without suppression. Compassion becomes available without overwhelm.

So… if both these states are part of your design, and if states can shift… then your experience of the world can shift also, without the world needing to change first.

…

Margaret has been learning to shift her inner state in a group setting, but can she walk herself through it here? Now? When things feel this intense? When hopelessness feels consuming?

She sits back in her chair, slowly this time. Her hands rest loosely on the table. Her feet are anchored on the floor.

With a willingness to simply witness what is present, her contracted state becomes tangible. She sees it in her emotions, she hears it in her thoughts, she feels it in her body. And then with a breath, she lets go.

In that small opening, clarity starts to return.

Again, she observes what’s there. Again, she releases… and even more insight comes. She sees even more clearly that it wasn’t just what she had seen on her phone, but what happened in her as she saw it.

As she lets that distinction settle, something else follows. Those two things are not the same… but maybe she has been treating them as if they are.

As she closes her eyes again and checks in with herself, she notices that her breath has deepened slightly and her shoulders have dropped a fraction. The urgency has softened and her thoughts have shifted. They have just slowed down, without any effort at all. And she releases again.

As she opens her eyes, the world doesn’t look as sharp. The events are not less important, just less… absolute. And there is space again.

…

This is the shift. Margaret has not changed the circumstances she is witnessing, she has changed her inner state, and from that shift, everything begins to reorganize.

This is why, in this model, we do not begin by asking: ‘How do I fix what I’m feeling?’ or ‘How do I make sense of everything that’s happening?’.

We begin here: Where am I relating from right now?

From the contracted state, even the best intentions can become distorted, but from the aligned state, something else becomes available – capacity.

Margaret’s eyes drift back to her phone. She doesn’t pick it up, but she feels it there.

She thinks of the images again and her stomach turns. Who am I to feel calm right now?

The question lands harder than anything that came before. This isn’t about fear anymore but about something else. Something moral. If she relaxes, is she disconnecting? If she softens, is she turning away? If she feels okay, does that mean she doesn’t care enough? For a moment, it pulls her right back in. The urge to pick up the phone again. To re-engage. To feel it fully. Because somehow that feels… more honest. More appropriate.

…

This is one of the most important, and most misunderstood, moments in this work.

What Margaret is encountering is not just emotional, It’s identity-based.

Most of us have learned to equate suffering with caring. If we feel bad, it means we really care. If we feel overwhelmed, it means we’re fully engaged. If we carry the weight, it means we’re compassionate. But this is not actually how compassion works. It’s how self-protection responds to perceived threat and moral responsibility.

Contraction does not deepen compassion. It reduces capacity. From this state, we may feel more intensely, but we are actually less able to respond meaningfully.

The Aligned state is different. It does not remove awareness, or caring, or create an internal distance from what is happening, but restores the conditions required for true compassion.

…

From alignment: you can feel without being overwhelmed, you can see without collapsing into what you see, you can hold complexity without needing immediate resolution, you can respond from clarity rather than reactivity

And this is where your actions begin to carry real weight.

…

Margaret exhales slowly. She thinks back to the way she felt twenty minutes ago: tight, urgent, pulled in every direction. Trying to take everything in, but unable to make sense of any of it. That didn’t make her more helpful, it made her more overwhelmed. But now, even with everything still present in her awareness, she is just… steadier.

She looks at her phone again and wonders – can I stay here while I look at this again?

…

At this point, the question becomes practical. If this is true… if the state you are in shapes how you meet the world… then what does this actually look like in your life? Because this is where the work either stays as an idea… or becomes something you can live.

The shift is not about withdrawing from the world. It’s about changing the place from which you engage with it.

…

Margaret picks up her phone again. The same headlines are there - the same images, the same intensity - and so, she checks in.

She notices her body first. There’s still a response – a tightening in her chest when she reads certain words, a heaviness when she sees certain images - but this time, it doesn’t take her over.

She stays aware of herself while she takes it in - her breath, her body, her thoughts. And when she feels the familiar pull away from her center, she pauses, she breathes, she releases, and she comes back.

…

In contraction, we are pulled into what we are seeing and lose awareness of ourselves in the process. In alignment, we remain in relationship with ourselves while engaging with the world.

…

Now, in calm mindful contemplation, new thoughts emerge. There are things she could do: places she could donate, organizations she could support, conversations she could have.

Earlier that day, the thought of action felt frantic… urgent. She felt driven by the need to do something just to relieve the feeling. Now, it feels different: clearer, quieter, and somehow, more hopeful.

…

From contraction, action is often driven by the need to discharge discomfort. We feel we need to do something in the face of overwhelm. From alignment, action becomes intentional. It feels stable, sustainable, and not distorted by urgency.

This is where clear, grounded action begins to carry real impact.

…

The house is quiet now.

Margaret sits at the same kitchen table where the day began. The light has shifted. The air feels different. And her phone is still there, within reach. The world is still what it is. Nothing out there has changed, but maybe she has.

She picks up her phone again and scrolls. She reads the headlines, the comments. She sees all the images. There is still a response in her body. That’s normal, natural… human, even. But she notices it now and stays with herself while she takes it in. She observes the moment where the pull begins: that familiar tightening, that urgency…

Instead of following it unconsciously, this time she pauses. She lets herself see it fully… and then lets go, returning to presence, returning to her center. And from there, she continues on.

…

You are not here to carry the weight of the world in contraction, but to meet it from alignment. This is not a passive stance, but a form of participation that most people have never been shown.

When you return to alignment: you see more clearly, you respond more effectively, and you contribute differently to the people and environments around you.

And you become a stabilizing force in an unstable world.

…

Monique Peck is author of The How and a Co-Founder of The Expansion Project

At The Expansion Project, we work with people individually and in groups, in person and virtually, to help them shift their ‘stuckness’, no matter how old, reconnect to their own inner wisdom for a truly centered sense of self, and reach into what’s possible for an expanded life experience.

If you resonated with this post and would like to learn more: www.theexpansionproject.com

To have an experience of The Presence Protocol: www.theexpansionproject.com/pp-audio