Deep in our hearts and minds, daily experience teaches us our weaknesses, doesn't it? Hardly a day goes by that I don't notice at least one of my shortcomings in action, while remembering several others as well. For the days I don't see one - well, that's really just evidence of another weakness, isn't it?

I'd lay odds that most of you have the same kind of experience. "I didn't do well in that meeting - I'm not great at public speaking." "My kid's behavior is really triggering my anxiety." "No money in the bank again, since I'm so bad with money." "My wife and I keep having the same argument... Why am I always wrong?" "I keep having trouble with pride/anger/lust/greed/<insert vice here>, and I can't seem to make it go away."

The referees in our minds are constantly throwing these flags at us and piling up the penalties. In a lot of ways, it feels like the field in front of us gets longer and longer, and winning is ever more distant.

But we also have this other innate feeling that we ought to be competent at life. That we're adults, and we really should already know all the things: how to relate with our spouses, how to raise our kids, how to handle money, how to just stop our various vices... We feel like nobody should have to tell us how to exist.

We can be pretty bull-headed about it too - I mean, how do people usually react if you tell them they're doing something wrong? Nothing will step on their boundaries quite so heavily as telling them they need someone else to inform them how to think and feel and live.

Truth be told, we will often respond the same way. This is one reason (among many) why many of us can tolerate a church service but get uncomfortable in smaller discipleship group settings. The former often preserves the facade of competence, and the latter threatens that image.

In a service, I can keep appearances that I am both present and able to follow function and form of the church. I can check the boxes and be ok, with little bearing on my inner experience. Smaller groups mean less distance and more interaction, so others can begin to see my issues sooner.

So we have that wall in front of us, blocking us from improvement. Certainly not the only possible barrier, but it's a common one: self-image trumps the process of self-improvement. Sure, it's pride, pure and simple, but doesn't it feel sometimes like it's that very chutzpah that's getting us through the day? You know, fake it 'til you make it, and all that?

That can work, depending on the circumstances, can't it? And following the path of least resistance (the one where we don't really have to change), we'll usually go that way: "I'm not great at all of it, but I'm as good as or better than most at the things that matter. I can coast as best I can through the rest."

And that's where crisis enters the picture. Here I am, getting through life the best way I can, and then something happens that upends everything. Loss of a loved one. End of a relationship. Losing a job. A traumatic experience. Something snaps through that facade, pushes us over the edge, and leaves us in a puddle of shambles.

Some of us are closer to the edge than others. Few of us are aware how close - mostly, we're just trying not to slip-slide that direction. But we're all there somewhere, aren't we? And most of us are aware of a lot of these weaknesses we have anyway - they are impressing upon our consciousness most every day, even though a true crisis is not impending.

For many of us, though, it feels like crisis is indeed imminent, whether or not it actually is. And that, my friends, is one essence of the fog - awareness of and shame for our shortcomings, and wondering how we can navigate life, family, faith, and everything else.

We all have baggage we carry with us every day. We all have pains and wounds that have been reluctant to heal. From that perspective, almost all of us could stand to benefit from some competent therapy or counseling at some point in our lives. We could use someone to point out patterns that we act out without noticing, or to show us how the way we think about ourselves is flawed.

So my cards are on the table, and I'll pose the question: who needs therapy, counseling, some other help? I think a lot of us would still answer, "Not me! Someone else maybe."

And that's an answer worth exploring more deeply.

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"Burden of years" by Seif Alaya is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0