When Lightning Strikes: How Shock Becomes a System Upgrade

I thought the severe storms had passed.
I was only slightly aware of the steady rain streaming from the sky.
Staring at my screen, I was working on my new system upgrade: NeuroOnboarding.
Suddenly the sirens were blaring.

Multiple things happened all at once
I looked up from my screen out the window.
My husband yelled for me and my son to come to the basement
My son yelled back “Should we go downstairs, I’m scared.”
I saw the dark green sky and heard the gush of wind hit the house.
The lights flashed and everything went dark
The power out, lights off.

My body surged forward to safety.
Surprised by the severity of the storm,
I started searching for information.
Desperate for data showing we were safe.
Instead, discovering a possible tornado had just passed and was now by my girls school.

As quick as it started it stopped.
The sirens silenced.
The power and lights restored.
The threat having passed us by.
Surely this chaos would end here right?
With the relief we were all safe.

But no, the storm was still swirling. 
The lightning strikes seconds apart 
And getting bigger, brighter, and louder. 
Until I felt and saw it all at once. 
The crackle of lightning caught by my eye. 
The vibrating of its voltage in my veins. 
The buzzing in my body and bones.

Shock. It’s the only appropriate word. 
What just happened? 
What was that? 
Did we just get hit by lightning? 
Did that really just happen? 
We could still feel the charge in the air. 
Whether it hit our house 
or was just so close the current carried it to it, 
My son and I felt it fully.

When Lightning Strikes Your Life

Why am I sharing this story?

While this experience might seem unbelievable, it did in fact happen to me just this week. I felt compelled by the crackle in my body to share the wisdom it left within me. 

Whether it truly was a divine experience or simply a coincidence, it left me thinking deeply about the lightning strikes in our lives. Because not all lightning strikes the ground. Sometimes they strike you…

• Right through your nervous system.
• Right through the career you’ve worked hard to achieve.
• Right through the life you thought you were building.
• Right through a relationship you thought would last a lifetime.
• Right through the system you thought was safe.

And in that strike, that moment of shock, something is revealed: A choice. A threshold. An opportunity. A flash of truth that doesn’t come gently, but comes barreling through us exactly when it is most needed in our lives.

The shock of these situations can have very different results:

• They can cause problems or propel our lives with new possibilities.
• They can fracture us, or they can forge us into something stronger.
• They can leave a scar, or they can ignite a spark.
• They can collapse a system—or initiate an upgrade.

It all depends on whether we run from the shock, or regulate to rise from it. And that’s the power of shock, it has the potential to spark a change in our lives but only when we learn to feel it, face it, and rise up to become free from it.

Moments like this, whether they arrive as a whisper or a whirlwind, don’t just interrupt our lives, they invite us to rewire them.

When lightning strikes, it doesn’t just light up the sky. It lights up an unseen truth. Revealing exactly what we need to change, within ourselves, our leadership, and our teams. But most of all, within the systems that need to evolve.

Shock Is the Signal: Turning Disruption Into Transformation

What is shock?

Shock is a whole-system response to a sudden disruption that overwhelms current capacity—mentally, emotionally, or energetically.

It’s the body and psyche’s way of hitting pause when an event or experience is too intense to process in real time. It may show up as numbness, disorientation, emotional detachment, or confusion—but beneath the stillness, something powerful is stirring.

In its deeper form, shock is a signal that the existing wiring, within a person, a team, or a system, is no longer able to hold what’s trying to move through it.

It’s not a breakdown. It’s a threshold. A moment where we are given the chance to reset, rewire, and rise. But only if we notice it.

Shock doesn’t always come as a dramatic collapse, more often, it shows up as a subtle shift in rhythm:

• A team that suddenly stops communicating
• A leader who starts to question everything
• A body that won’t sleep, or won’t slow down
• A moment that leaves you buzzing, blank, or both

These are not glitches in the system. They are the system speaking.

Shock is a signal that says:

“The current structure can’t hold this level of charge anymore.”

“You’ve hit the edge of what’s sustainable.”

“Something new is ready to come online.”

And if we meet the moment with curiosity instead of avoidance, shock can become a portal: A doorway from endurance to embodiment. From collapse to clarity. From dysfunction to design.

Why So Many People and Systems Are in Shock

These days, shock isn’t rare, it’s embedded. Not always dramatic. Not always visible. But it’s there in our bodies, our teams, and the systems we move through every day.

We are living and working in an era of ongoing disruption and both people and organizations are showing the symptoms.

For People: 

Most individuals are carrying stacked stress without space to process:

• Pandemic trauma, uncertainty, and grief
• Chronic overstimulation from tech and task-switching
• Economic pressure, political polarization, and cultural unrest
• Unprocessed emotional experiences—personal and collective

Without time or tools to regulate, we default into functional freeze: 

Still working, still showing up, but internally disconnected, emotionally numb, or chronically wired.

For Organizations: 

Most workplaces are operating with outdated human operating systems:

• Productivity models built on endurance, not capacity
• Communication cultures where feedback triggers fear
• Onboarding, performance, and leadership systems that ignore biology
• Constant change without integration, clarity, or emotional safety

When the pressure builds without release, organizations enter systemic shock: 

Teams go silent. Leaders make reactive decisions. Cultures lose trust. Innovation stagnates. Engagement Deteriorates. Everyone Suffers. 

Shared Patterns of Shock: Seeing Shock When It Strikes

Shock doesn’t always announce itself with lightning. Sometimes it’s subtle, a pause in your breath, a blank stare, a sudden inability to act. Other times, it’s loud—a surge of panic, a wave of numbness, a system-wide freeze.

You know you’re in shock when:

• Your body goes still or tense, even when you want to move
• Your thoughts become scattered, slow, or stuck in loops
• Emotion disappears—or floods in too fast to name
• You feel disconnected from yourself, others, or time
• Your team suddenly goes silent, reactive, or robotic
• The workplace energy shifts from urgency to shutdown

Whether in humans or organizations, shock tends to show up as:

• Sudden freeze or collapse in momentum
• Disconnection from values, purpose, or people
• Overreactions to small stressors
• Under-responsiveness to real risks or opportunities
• A growing sense of “something’s off” but no one knows how to name it

But Here’s the Truth: Shock is not failure or dysfunction. It’s a signal.

Shock is the system’s way of saying: 

“This is too much, too fast, and something needs to shift.”

For a human, it says: 

“You’ve reached the edge of what your nervous system can carry. Something needs to shift.”

For a workplace, it says:

“This system is no longer sustainable. You can’t lead people into the future using patterns built in the past.”

The first step in any upgrade, is to notice the signal, not override it.

Rather than powering through or patching over, we must pause, pay attention, and ponder.

Because shock, when met with presence, can become a threshold:

• For healing.
• For upgrading.
• For evolving how we live, lead, and work.

Lightning Strikes in the Workplace

Our workplaces don't escape these strikes and sometimes they impact the systems we’re a part of...our teams, cultures, communities, and workplaces.

Their strike disrupts the norm, jolts us out of autopilot, and exposes the truths we’ve been avoiding.

At work, the “crackle” shows up differently:

• A leader pushing through burnout but calling it “grit.”
• A team stuck in survival mode, pretending it’s just “busy season.”
• A culture buzzing with quiet quitting, conflict avoidance, or disconnection.

We often wait too long. Until the system breaks and the lights go out. Before we notice, let alone start taking action.

But the hard unspoken truth is, we feel the charge building, long before the collapse or crackle of the strike.

Moments of shock, whether personal or organizational, don’t just cause problems.

• They reveal the places we’ve outgrown our systems and structures
• They expose what’s outdated, unsustainable, or misaligned.
• They surface what’s no longer working and what must be reimagined to move forward.

And they offer a choice: We can numb out, ignore it, and carry on—or we can regulate, rewire, and rise.

This is the invitation of every workplace storm:

Feel the friction. See the signs. Start the upgrade.

Because peak performance doesn’t come from avoiding the shock. It comes from listening to it and evolving our people, practices, and systems to hold more with purpose.

Shifting out of Shock

When shock hits, whether in your body, your team, or your organization, it’s easy to freeze, numb out, or rush to fix.

But shock isn’t just a crisis. It’s a call to pause, pay attention, and ponder. Here’s how to move through it with awareness and intention:

1. Pause and Ground

The instinct is to act quickly, but transformation begins by slowing down.

• Breathe deep into your body.
• Place a hand on your heart, gut, or belly.
• Feel your feet on the floor.

Shock disorients. Grounding reorients.

2. Name What You’re Feeling (Even If It’s Nothing)

Shock can dull sensation, so just naming “I feel nothing right now” is powerful. Naming begins the integration process. You might feel:

• Numb
• Dizzy or out of body
• Wired but exhausted
• Overwhelmed, blank, or disconnected

3. Stay With the Sensation, Not the Story

The mind wants to explain, analyze, or spin; but the body needs space and time to completely process the experience.

• Notice where you feel tightness, buzzing, or pressure
• Let your body express (through movement, sound, or rest)
• Avoid jumping into problem-solving too soon

You don’t have to “figure it out” to begin healing.

4. Co-Regulate If You Can

Shock is easier to process in safe connection.

• Sit with someone grounded
• Share what you’re noticing in your body
• Invite calm presence rather than advice

In trauma recovery and leadership alike: Regulation is relational.

5. Ask: What Is This Shock Trying to Reveal?

Once grounded, gently ask:

• What truth is being revealed here?
• What part of me or this system needs an upgrade?
• Where have I been pushing through when I needed to listen?

6. Let the System Reset Before Rebuilding

We often rush to “fix it” or return to normal. But when shock is respected, it can:

• Reveal what was unsustainable
• Invite deeper alignment
• Create space for a new kind of rhythm

Shock is not the enemy, it’s the signal. When met with presence, it becomes a path to peace, purpose, and possibilities. 

Reflection Questions

Whether you’ve just felt the crackle, or you’ve been carrying a low hum of tension for a while, this is your invitation to pause and ask…

• Where in my life or work have I been feeling the crackle of pressure—but brushing it off as “just stress”? What if that tension is trying to tell you something deeper?
• What part of my system (or team, or culture) feels like it’s reaching its edge, it's breaking point? What signals are you sensing but not naming?
• Are you clinging to what once worked, instead of making space for what's asking to emerge? What might need to be reimagined, not just repaired or rebuilt?
• What would it look like to listen to the signal, instead of overriding it? Can you pause long enough to truly listen, to your body (not just your brain)?
• If shock is a threshold, what might be waiting on the other side? What new truth, possibility, or version of yourself might be waiting for you? What do you fear or hope you'll find on the other side?

Closing

If you’ve felt the flicker, the freeze, or the full-body buzz, don’t dismiss it. 

Pause and reflect…

You don’t have to wait for collapse to begin the upgrade. You can begin the moment you notice the buzz in your body, the fog in your mind, or the flicker in your culture.

Shock isn’t here to break you.  
It’s here to break the pattern.  
So when the lightning strikes, 
Pause. Breathe. Feel.
Let it light up what’s ready to change.
Illuminate what's no longer sustainable.

You’re not here to go back to business as usual. You’re here to build something better. 

To upgrade your system to what's next. 

More human. More whole. More Wise. 

More aligned with what really matters. 

A wiser way to work!

Want to share your own moment of shock and turn it into a system upgrade? Let’s talk. I'd love to hear your story and see how I might be able to support your system.