Unveiling What Hides In Your Blind Spots
Barnacles don’t look like a problem.
They’re small.
Quiet.
Easy to overlook.
They don’t crash into a ship or tear holes in the hull.
They don’t announce themselves.
They simply attach.
And slowly, the ship begins to drag.
It moves, but with more effort.
It burns more fuel just to stay on course.
It sits lower in the water than it should.
Nothing looks broken.
But everything feels heavier.
That’s how unresolved inner weight works.
Fear.
Anger.
Anxiety.
Confusion.
Doubt.
Unrelenting sadness.
These don’t always show up as obvious crises.
They don’t always feel dramatic or urgent.
Most of the time, they feel familiar.
Until one day you realize that life feels harder than it needs to be.
We often try to fix this by “doing better.”
Eating healthier.
Working harder.
Improving relationships.
Taking time off.
Searching for meaning.
All good things.
But effort alone doesn’t always restore momentum.
Because barnacles don’t attach to goals.
If they did, we’d spot them immediately.
They attach in our blind spots.
In the subconscious.
In patterns that run automatically, beneath awareness.
They don’t show up as clear thoughts.
They show up as reactions. Assumptions. Judgments.
As the discordant tone in your speech.
As mismanaged timing.
As the same situations repeating in slightly different forms.
They anchor themselves to the nervous system.
To the body’s memory.
To conclusions formed early in life, often before we had true agency.
Thoughts and feelings about safety, belonging, control, and loss.
That’s why surface reflections alone rarely removes them.
They were never living in the conscious mind to begin with.
Over time, the effects add up.
The rigidity and absence of flow in your gait.
Suboptimal health and vitality.
Unresolved disappointments and fear of abandonment corrode relationships.
Anxiety driven distractions drains our ability to truly rest and recover.
Doubt and fear quietly foul our work and ambitions, adding resistance and wasted energy.
And eventually, all of it erodes our sense of purpose and meaning.
We lose drive and direction.
We lose the lightness in our soul. We lose buoyancy.
And when progress slows, most people turn the blame inward.
They assume they’re outcasts, unmotivated, or broken.
They criticize the ship
instead of checking the hull.
Real change begins with attention.
I highlight the importance of awareness in my book Unself.
Not vague self-awareness, but intentional and precise noticing.
Paying close attention to patterns that repeat.
To moments of resistance.
To subtle shifts in the mind and body before reactions take over.
It’s less about force
and more about seeing clearly.
And over time, what no longer belongs can finally be shed.
Here’s the truth many of us miss:
We're not struggling because we're weak.
We struggle because we've been carrying unseen weight for a long time.
And here’s the quieter truth beneath that:
Some of that weight feels like identity. A part of who we are.
Letting go can feel unfamiliar. It certainly feels unsafe at first.
That’s why so many of us often cling to patterns we want to change
but never do.
You were built to move forward despite the presence of resistance.
To live with more ease than a lifetime of effort.
But first, you have to be willing to look beneath the surface
and notice what’s been quietly slowing you down.
Because the ocean was never the problem.
It was what was lurking underneath.
