People think strength in a storm means standing tall.
Chest out. Chin up. Defiant.
That’s not how you stay upright.
If you’ve ever stood in heavy wind, you know the truth.
You lean.
Not backward. Forward.
You don’t fight the wind by pretending it isn’t there. You accept it. You adjust your weight into it. If you lean back, even a little, it pushes you off your heels and you loose your footing.
The first lesson in a storm is simple:
Face it.
Lean into it.
The second lesson is balance.
Nobody stands with their feet together in high wind. You widen your stance. You lower your center of gravity. You spread your weight so one gust doesn’t knock you sideways.
Storms don’t usually knock people down in one dramatic blast.
They unbalance them first.
A quick push. A sudden shift. A surprise gust from the side.
If your footing is narrow, you scramble. If you scramble long enough, you fall.
The same thing happens in life.
Financial pressure. Cultural noise. Political heat. Family tension. News cycles. Social media outrage.
Gust.
Gust.
Gust.
Most people try to outrun it. Or they spin with it. Or they react to every flying piece of debris.
That’s how you lose balance.
Widening your stance in life means narrowing your focus.
What is actually in front of me?
What can I control today?
What is mine to carry — and what isn’t?
Storms scatter attention. Stability gathers it.
When you plant your feet wide enough, you stop chasing everything that blows past you.
Now the third lesson, the one most important.
You hold onto something solid.
When the wind really picks up, instinct kicks in. You reach for a fence post. A railing. A tree trunk. The side of a building. Something anchored deeper than your own legs.
That’s not weakness.
That’s wisdom.
There are moments when your balance alone isn’t enough.
So what do you grab?
Some grab noise.
Some grab outrage.
Some grab whatever crowd is closest.
But those move with the wind.
If you’re going to stay upright, you hold onto something that does not shift when the pressure rises.
A principle you won’t trade.
A faith you won’t bend.
A promise you won’t break.
A responsibility you won’t drop just because it’s uncomfortable.
Storms reveal what is anchored and what is loose.
Loose things fly. Anchored things endure.
And here’s the quiet truth.
You don’t figure this out when the wind is already howling.
You decide it before.
Farmers tie things down before the sky turns dark.
Boaters secure their lines before the swell builds.
Builders reinforce before the season changes.
You choose your ground in clear weather.
You decide what you’ll lean into.
You decide how wide your stance must be.
You decide what you will hold onto.
Because once the storm hits, instinct takes over.
And instinct follows training.
But survival isn’t loud.
It’s mechanical.
Lean forward.
Widen your feet.
Grip what is solid.
Storms aren’t new. Every generation thinks theirs is the worst. The wind always feels stronger when it’s hitting your own face.
But the body hasn’t changed. The mechanics haven’t changed. Gravity still works the same way.
Balance still matters.
If you feel the pressure rising right now — in culture, in politics, in your own house — don’t start shouting into the wind.
Adjust your posture.
Lean into reality instead of pretending it isn’t there.
Spread your stance by focusing on what’s directly in front of you instead of reacting to everything that flies past.
And reach for something that doesn’t move when the gusts do.
You don’t win a storm by running through it.
You stay standing by choosing your footing before the first push comes.
Where do you stand?
More importantly—
What are you holding onto?
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
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