THE DEEP BRIEF

Week of August 11, 2025

For a week, my left eye looked like I’d been in a bar fight with someone twice my size. It was swollen, red, and increasingly tender. I thought it was a classic allergy flare-up. I’d also switched from contacts to glasses more often just before it started, so that seemed like reasonable cause and effect.

But it kept getting worse. 

Every morning, I’d wake up hoping for improvement, and every morning, my eye looked angrier than the day before. I tried everything: eye drops, cold compresses, avoiding my usual suspects for irritation, but nothing worked.

Two nights ago, while streaming the latest episode of The Gilded Age (my current favourite drama about surface glamour hiding ruthless power plays), I absently reached up to rub my increasingly miserable eye and felt something that shouldn’t have been there.

I pulled out a rogue contact lens. 

Yup. It was one that had apparently been hiding in the deep recesses of my eye for well over a week, camouflaged under every new lens I’d put in and taken out. It was the real source of all that inflammation, invisible and causing havoc, while I kept treating the symptoms.

My relief was instant. OMG. But the symbolism was… fascinating.

This week, as we move through a cosmic shift that’s all about surfacing what’s been hidden beneath our attempts to keep things smooth and harmonious, we’re going down the rabbit hole in the art of finding the actual source of our irritation instead of just managing the inflammation. (You can’t make this stuff up!)

THE WEEK’S ENERGY

The peculiar quality that’s moving through the collective field right now is as though the universe is done letting us get away with surface-level solutions to deep-rooted problems. The universal weather is shifting in a way that brings hidden tensions, buried resentments, and unaddressed conflicts bubbling up to where we can actually see them.

Now, I don’t see this as creating drama or picking fights. It’s recognizing that what we think is “keeping the peace” is probably allowing irritants to fester out of sight. Our commitment to harmony might be enabling situations that are slowly poisoning our well-being.

Think of it as cosmic X-ray vision for your emotional world. 

All those places where you’ve been managing symptoms instead of addressing root causes are about to become glaringly obvious. The relationships where you smile while your soul screams? Yup. The work situations where you bite your tongue until it bleeds? Definitely. The family dynamics where everyone pretends everything is fine while resentment builds like sediment? Hell ya.

This week is asking, ‘What have you been carrying that you’ve forgotten is even there? What’s causing inflammation in your life that you keep treating with band-aids instead of extraction?’

WHAT IT MIGHT FEEL LIKE

You might notice a sudden intolerance for situations you’ve been putting up with for months or years. Things that felt manageable yesterday might feel absolutely unbearable today. Your capacity for carrying hidden irritants has reached its limit.

There could be moments of clarity so sharp they feel almost violent, sudden recognition of patterns you’ve been blind to, or dynamics you’ve been unconsciously enabling. There might even be ways you’ve been betraying yourself in the name of keeping others comfortable. (You know who you are.)

You could find yourself having conversations you’ve been avoiding for way too long. And head’s up, the words might tumble out before your diplomatic filter can catch them. It’s your system finally refusing to carry what was never yours to hold.

Relationships or situations you thought were “fine” might require major adjustments, like realizing that what you thought was compatibility was actually just mutual conflict avoidance. Or that what felt like consideration was actually fear of authentic expression.

Physical symptoms that have been… hanging around… might suddenly shift or resolve when you address the underlying emotional irritants. We all know the body keeps the score, and when we finally extract what’s been festering, the inflammation usually follows suit.

SOUL PERSPECTIVE

So, here’s what I’m sensing from the field: we’re being asked to distinguish between genuine harmony and artificial peace, between collaboration and capitulation, and between consideration and self-abandonment in the name of keeping others comfortable.

Remember, true harmony isn’t the absence of conflict. It’s the ability to manage differences without losing yourself in the process. It’s also learning to be simultaneously diplomatic and authentic. Or said another way, considerate and boundaried.

The energy moving through right now is teaching us that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is disrupt dysfunctional peace. Real care for others includes not enabling their unconscious patterns. And genuine consideration means being honest about what isn’t working instead of pretending everything’s fine.

I’m not giving you permission to become a bulldozer in your relationships or start unnecessary fights, but to become curious about where you’ve been sacrificing your truth on the altar of artificial harmony. Ask yourself where you’ve been managing other people’s emotions at the expense of your own well-being.

The intelligence behind this shift is helping us understand that unaddressed irritants don’t just disappear. They accumulate, cause inflammation, and eventually create much bigger problems than if we’d just dealt with them when they first appeared. 

Like my contact lens. What started as a minor foreign object became a week-plus of genuine misery because I kept treating the symptoms instead of investigating the source. 

HOW TO BE WITH IT

Start paying attention to what’s causing low-grade irritation in your life. Not the big, obvious problems, but the subtle, persistent annoyances you’ve learned to live with. Think about the friend who always makes everything about themselves, the family member who guilt-trips you when you set boundaries, or the work environment that slowly erodes your soul.

Practice diplomatic honesty. That means finding ways to address issues that honour both your truth and your relationships. But NOT by being brutal or careless with your words. 

Get curious about where you’ve been over-functioning in relationships or situations. Where are you working harder to maintain harmony than the other people involved? Where are you managing emotions that aren’t yours to manage?

Have the conversations you’ve been avoiding. You don’t want to create conflict, but actual resolution. Temporary discomfort is the price of long-term peace.

And most importantly, stop treating symptoms when you know there’s something deeper that needs attention. Have the courage to go looking for what’s really causing the inflammation.

YOUR WEEK IN ONE SENTENCE

“This week, I stop managing the mess and start removing what’s actually causing it.”

MINI PRACTICE FOR FINDING HIDDEN IRRITANTS

These are best done in the mornings. Ask yourself: “What am I putting up with that I shouldn’t be?” Then notice what comes up without immediately trying to fix or dismiss it. During the day, pay attention to when you feel that subtle irritation or resentment starting up. Instead of pushing it down or managing it away, get curious: “What is this trying to tell me about what needs to change?” Do this often enough and you’ll have a clear map of where the real sources of inflammation live in your life.

ANYWAY

This week, when you feel the urge to smooth things over or keep the peace at your own expense,  ask: “What am I afraid will happen if I address this directly?” When you catch yourself managing other people’s emotions, “Whose responsibility is this really?” When something feels off but you can’t name why, trust that instinct and go looking for what might be hiding just out of sight.

Your discomfort is information, more than inconvenience. Your irritation is guidance. Disrupt the artificial peace that’s slowly poisoning everyone involved.

Address the source and pull out what doesn’t belong. (I did, and I’m not just talking about my contact lens).