The Performance Was Convincing — Until It Wasn’t

Lately, I’ve been noticing something happening in real time, and it’s surprisingly subtle.

It isn’t a dramatic spiritual moment. No lightning bolt. No choir of angels. No sudden urge to move to a mountaintop and live on tea.

It’s quieter than that. Almost ordinary. Which, honestly, makes it more convincing.

I keep catching myself knowing things before I’m ready to admit that I know them.

You probably know this feeling. It shows up as a gentle nudge or a quiet sense that something is already decided somewhere deep inside you… while your mind is still opening new tabs and conducting a full research project.

For years, I thought intuition would feel louder. Clearer. Maybe with a soundtrack.

Instead, it feels like slowly realizing the light in the room has been on the entire time, and I just hadn’t looked up yet.

Call it intuition.

Call it inner guidance.

Call it the quiet voice within.

The name matters less than the experience.

It’s like an inner light that never turns off — whether I’m paying attention to it or not.

Sometimes, when all the knowingness comes crashing in, I want to hibernate.

Meditate. Sleep. Be alone for a while. Write. Create something beautiful. Wrap myself in a blanket and stare thoughtfully out a window like a character in a movie.

Because I can feel what just happened.

I’ve had a growth spurt.

And spiritual growth spurts are not glamorous. They stretch you. They ache. They rearrange things. But they also validate something important: all those tiny inner nudges you almost ignored were quietly building a picture.

And when the picture finally comes into focus, it’s a lot.

There’s a strength that comes with that kind of clarity. Not loud strength. Not dramatic strength. Just the steady kind that makes you harder to knock off center.

You become invincible.

Not quite the dynamic superhero. Just in the sense that once your inner knowing proves itself enough times, you stop being so easily pulled by urgency. You stop outsourcing your authority to louder voices.

Not because you're closed.

Because you trust yourself.

This whole reflection actually started from a place of frustration.

I feel something in my gut — a quiet sense of what feels true — and like many people, I go looking for validation. I open the news. I scroll social media. I listen to the voices explaining what’s really going on.

Sometimes I find alignment.

But more often?

I see performance.

I see branding.

I see people trying very hard to convince the world they are who they want to be seen as, rather than who they actually are.

And the gap becomes impossible to ignore.

We’ve all watched the headlines. The public figure who built a platform on integrity, while behaving very differently behind closed doors. The spiritual leader preaching compassion while secretly harming people.

Those stories land hard because they violate trust.

Not just personal trust. Spiritual trust.

They remind us how easy it is to confuse charisma with integrity and confidence with wisdom.

There’s another reason this topic matters to me.

I know what it feels like to trust a spiritual teacher deeply. To admire them. To want to belong in their community. To feel alive and hopeful and certain you’ve found something meaningful.

I was in a deeply vulnerable season. My husband was nearing the end of his life because of cancer. We had lost our home in the Paradise Camp Fire. Everything familiar had fallen away, and I was searching for something steady to hold onto.

I wanted connection. Belonging. Support. Understanding.

For a while, I believed I had found that.

But eventually I felt something I couldn’t explain at first — a quiet sense of being on the outside of something I thought I was part of.

At first, I assumed it was me.

That I wasn’t good enough.

That I wasn’t spiritual enough.

That I needed to try harder.

That’s where the mind goes when we’re hurting. It starts making a list.

And honestly, it messed with my head.

The performance was convincing.

Until it wasn’t.

And slowly, the conversation became very one-sided.

With distance, I see it differently now.

It wasn’t that I didn’t belong.

It was that the environment didn’t align with my values.

The kind of spiritual space I was hoping for didn’t require secrecy, hierarchy, or hidden dynamics.

It required honesty, kindness, and integrity.

And those are values I’m not willing to compromise.

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About Jennifer Lasell

Jennifer Lasell is a psychic medium, spiritual life coach, and energy healer dedicated to helping people connect with their intuition and inner wisdom. Through meditation, reflection, and spirit-guided practices, she offers grounded tools and gentle guidance to support emotional and spiritual well-being.

Her work encourages people to recognize their own inner clarity and the subtle ways guidance speaks—through intuition, resonance, synchronicity, and everyday moments that quietly open the door. Jennifer creates a sense of community and belonging, inviting others to explore the unseen, trust their sensitivity, and return to the deeper knowing already within them.