Hear the Ring

Recognizing When Disruption May Be an Invitation to Pay Closer Attention.

What do you do when the words surrounding you name exactly what you feel, but the phone beside you suggests there may be more to understand?

You can see anxiety, fear, loneliness, and complex trauma scattered beneath your feet. Your boots are already in place, sturdy enough to move, protect, or leave. The phone rests close by, quiet but present, as though this season is asking whether you will keep walking over what hurts or pause long enough to hear what it has been trying to tell you.

You may know this posture well. You stay prepared. You keep functioning. You become so skilled at carrying pressure that no one notices how much energy it takes to remain composed. The boots may reflect the strength that helped you survive, while the phone reveals the tension underneath: part of you is ready to act, but another part may still be deciding whether your distress is valid enough to answer.

Perhaps you have been producing from vigilance, self-doubt, and the belief that capable women should be able to endure any environment without being changed by it. That can produce exhaustion, anger, confusion, and distance from your own discernment. Yet the phone is not asking you to abandon your strength. It may be inviting you to stop treating every internal alarm as weakness and begin listening for the information hidden inside the disruption.

Are you ready to hear what your distress may be asking you to notice?

This is for the woman who has remained productive while quietly questioning her own perception. Let’s dive into how disruption can become an invitation to pay closer attention instead of proof that something is wrong with you.

Scripture: Judges 5:6–7

Let’s Sit With This: Hear The Ring

I couldn't hear the ring until I was driving down the highway when the world inside my mind became a war zone.

Helicopters hovered overhead. Bombs dropped across the road in front of me. Slave hymns poured through the speakers while I kept driving toward an office I had never visited before. I did not have the route memorized. I was not following GPS. Yet somehow, I arrived.

For nearly a decade, I told almost no one about that drive. How could I explain it without people immediately deciding what it meant about me? I was already trying to survive a workplace that made me question my competence, my perception, and eventually my own mind. I did not need anyone else reaching for a label before they reached for compassion.

Before that day, I had survived a performance review that praised my leadership and communication in one breath, then criticized my critical thinking and execution in the next. Apparently, I could lead, but the thinking that shaped my leadership was a problem. I could communicate, but the conclusions I communicated were suspect. The contradiction sat in my body long after the meeting ended.

Years later, while reading Why Am I Like This?, I found language for experiences I had studied separately but never connected to the workplace. Childhood trauma. Post-traumatic stress. Survival responses. My brain has always enjoyed placing uncommon things beside each other until they suddenly begin speaking. So, in the middle of a book club led by one of the most prominent women in the room, I raised my hand and asked the question I had been carrying quietly:

“Is corporate trauma a real thing?”

The trauma therapist leading the conversation said yes and explained that harmful workplace experiences can affect a person psychologically. That answer did not diagnose my past or settle every question, but it gave me permission to examine what had happened with better support. I later received medical language for the episode I experienced, while also acknowledging that I personally understood parts of that season through the lens of faith. One explanation did not need to cancel the other.

Now, before we carry on, you should know something about me. I am kind, but I am also a deep thinker and feeler. I read between the lines. My discernment is sensitive, and my sanctification is still in progress. So tread lightly with the Twitter fingers in my camp, because you will get blocked. Got it? Good. Here’s the tea: sometimes the disruption we are trying hardest to hide is the ringing phone asking us to pay closer attention.

Now Look at the Word

Judges 5 records the song of Deborah and Barak after Israel’s victory over the army of King Jabin. Before that victory, Israel had endured years of oppression under Jabin’s commander, Sisera. Deborah describes the condition plainly: the highways were abandoned, travelers took hidden paths, and ordinary village life had ceased. The people had adapted to danger so thoroughly that disruption had become normal. Then Deborah says, “Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel.”

Deborah did not arise because she imagined danger where none existed. She had been judging Israel, listening to disputes, recognizing the condition of the people, and delivering God’s instruction. Her discernment moved her toward clear language and responsible action. She summoned Barak, communicated what God had commanded, accompanied him when he struggled to move forward, and helped call an entire community out of paralysis. She did not confuse enduring oppression with faithfulness, nor did she treat constant fear as the price of being useful.

For the woman reading today, Deborah’s story does not mean every difficult workplace is Sisera’s army or every distressing experience is a divine vision. It does remind us that wisdom begins by telling the truth about what has ceased. Perhaps your confidence has gone quiet. Perhaps you no longer trust your judgment. Perhaps the freedom to use your gifts has been replaced by constant scanning, masking, and self-correction. Before you decide that your sensitivity is the problem, pause long enough to ask what the environment, the experience, and your survival inside it may have shaped within you.

What Did This Shape in You?

The wound may have taught you:

If contradictory feedback repeatedly left you confused, the wound may have taught you to distrust your own understanding. You may have begun believing that truly capable women should succeed anywhere without being affected by the environment. You may have learned to overexplain, monitor every facial expression, rehearse conversations, or work harder whenever you sensed danger.

Anger may have taken over the head of your emotional command center because it felt more protective than grief, uncertainty, or disappointment. These responses may have helped you remain productive, but constant alarm can eventually produce suspicion where discernment is needed, hardness where boundaries would serve you better, and exhaustion disguised as excellence.

Restored character understands:

Your response was information, not your identity. Distress does not automatically prove that an environment is malicious, but neither does continued productivity prove that the environment is healthy. Restored discernment allows you to examine patterns without making fear your permanent interpreter. It understands that adaptability is not self-abandonment, humility is not shrinking, and peace does not require pretending that everything is acceptable. You can remain thoughtful without doubting every thought, cautious without living in constant alarm, and open to wise correction without surrendering your ability to recognize contradiction.

You do not have to dishonor what your mind and body survived in order to heal. They may have been ringing every available alarm because they did not yet have gentler language. You can thank those responses for trying to protect you without allowing them to govern every future room. The invitation now is not to keep producing from fear, anger, or the need to prove that you are stable enough to stay. It is to produce from grounded discernment: the kind that notices patterns, seeks informed counsel, protects what is tender, and responds before the sirens become unbearable.

Here’s How We Begin Again

• Write down what keeps repeating

Record contradictory feedback, shifting expectations, missing credit, repeated exclusions, and what happened before and after each incident. This is not automatically preparation for a confrontation or legal action. It is a way to give your memory somewhere safe to land. Reviewing the pattern later, when you are more regulated, can help you distinguish an isolated disappointment from a recurring condition and decide what support or change may be necessary.

• Choose support that sees the whole picture

Consider working with a qualified mental-health professional who understands trauma, workplace dynamics, identity, and cultural context. The goal is not to find someone who agrees with every interpretation you make. Look for someone who takes your concerns seriously, helps you remain grounded, and does not teach you that disappearing behind a mask is your only path to peace. It is appropriate to ask a provider about their experience, approach, and understanding of the issues affecting you.

• Prepare before the next alarm

Identify the changes that tell you your capacity is narrowing, such as severe sleep disruption, difficulty thinking, unusual changes in perception, escalating panic, or an inability to function normally. Write down whom you will call and where you will seek help. Your plan may include stepping away from work, contacting a licensed professional, asking a trusted person to stay with you, or seeking urgent medical care. You do not have to wait for another crisis before deciding that your well-being deserves protection.

Take This With You

Reflect

What have you been producing from in order to survive, what has that response produced through you, and what grounded character might God be restoring now?

Pray

God, thank You for meeting me in the places I did not have language to explain. You saw what happened, what I carried, and the ways I learned to protect myself when I did not feel safe. Help me surrender both the harm and the responses that can no longer lead me.

Cleanse my discernment from constant alarm without dulling the wisdom You have developed in me. Give me courage to notice patterns, humility to receive sound counsel, and restraint when fear wants to decide too quickly. Lead me toward qualified support, trustworthy community, and boundaries that protect my peace without hardening my heart.

Restore my confidence, steady my mind, and teach me to respond from wisdom rather than survival. When the phone rings, help me recognize what deserves my attention and answer with clarity. Amen.

Carry This

Disruption is not always dysfunction; sometimes it is the ring that calls you back to grounded discernment.

This devotional shares one woman’s experience and spiritual reflection, not medical advice. Sudden changes in thinking, perception, sleep, or functioning deserve prompt evaluation from a qualified mental-health or medical professional.