The Power of Unseen Growth in a Culture of Visibility

Last Updated on February 19, 2026 by Avia

Like many of you, I’ve been following the Winter Olympics. When I turned on the broadcast this afternoon, it showed a livestream of the women’s figure skating competitors warming up backstage before their performances.

I’ll be honest. It unsettled me.

These athletes already live under relentless scrutiny. Cameras track them from the “Kiss-and-Cry” booth to the medal podium, from interviews to replay loops. I understand the contracts. I understand the ravenous ratings machine & the culture of visibility. But there’s something about pre-performance preparation that feels, well, sacred.

That quiet pacing.
The breathwork.
The subtle rituals.
The gathering of nerve and focus before stepping into a moment that could redefine a lifetime.

Do we really need to see that?

Isn’t there value in letting certain things remain behind the curtain? It made me wonder whether we’ve started to confuse visibility with worth. As though something only matters if it’s streamed, posted, captured, dissected. Does everything need to be shared, snapped, and videoed? For the record, I’m not the only one who noticed this.

Then I thought, “Nature doesn’t work that way.” And could this be a lesson for all of us about the power of unseen growth? The most radical transformations happen in the dark before they unfold under the bright lights of a stage, and I think that’s where true, meaningful symbolism begins.

The Cultural Assumption & Conundrum

I can’t stop thinking about how hungry we’ve become for access. It’s as if an experience isn’t captured, it can feel oddly unofficial. Like it didn’t fully happen, or it doesn’t fully matter. Even our most intimate thresholds like grief, healing, and personal change often get smooshed into clickable, poseable, snappable, shareable bits online before they’ve had time to settle into the bones.

I’m not saying that’s wrong; I’m saying it’s revealing. Because it suggests we’ve quietly come to believe that meaning requires witnesses. When did visibility become proof of value?

When did we decide that what isn’t seen is somehow less real, when, in truth, the power of unseen growth has always been doing the heaviest lifting? And yet, when I look to the natural world, I see a completely different story unfolding. Because if visibility were truly the measure of value, nature would have collapsed long ago.

How Nature Has Different Standards From the Culture of Visibility

If I want a truer answer to this visibility conundrum, I step outside. Because out in nature, beyond our feeds and footage, life unfolds according to a rhythm that doesn’t care who’s watching.

Take a seed

It splits quietly in the soil. The first movement is downward, not upward. Before there’s a tender green shoot catching sunlight, there’s a hidden, magnificent architecture forming below the surface. Roots crane, stretch, anchor, and test their terrain long before anyone applauds a bloom. What we eventually celebrate above ground is only possible because of what happened in darkness.

Or consider metamorphosis

Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar doesn’t just whamo-bammo “grow wings.” It dissolves. Its former structure breaks down into something almost completely unrecognizable before reorganizing into a gobsmacking marvel of new design. That radical reconfiguration happens sealed away, in stillness, in containment.

And then there’s the moon

Each month, it thins, fades, and finally disappears from sight in quiet (sometimes unnoticed) elegance. To me, that says illumination is born from intervals of shadow.

Even the creatures we revere for their mystique operate this way

The owl doesn’t hunt at high noon. The jaguar doesn’t prowl beneath stadium lights. The wolf moves with the pack beneath the cover of night. Power gathers in quiet spaces. Gestation happens in protected dens. Restoration unfolds where the world isn’t watching.

All of this just reinforces my initial epiphany that not everything meaningful has to be visible.

The Symbolic Pattern of Unseen Magic

Once we start tracing the patterns of power of unseen growth, we can see it everywhere.

Take the Hermit

In the tarot, the Hermit carries a lantern of singular, steady light, and he stands at the edge. In shadow. In retreat. Illumination comes through withdrawal that doesn’t need exposure. Revelation follows solitude. The wisdom he offers the world is forged in quiet distance from it.

Then there’s the root system

We admire the oak. We photograph the canopy. We rest beneath its shade. But what keeps it upright through wind, drought, and storm is hidden beneath our feet. Roots tangle and deepen out of sight. The tree’s visible strength is only as stable as the unseen network supporting it. Remove the underground architecture, and the miracle cannot grow.

The pattern repeats in incubation

Eggs warm in sheltered nests. Seeds lie dormant through winter. Ideas gestate before they’re ever spoken aloud. There is a protected interval, like a threshold space, where something is forming but not yet ready for exposure. That interval is an essential space for development. It’s like the gloaming hour, when 100% pure potential boils undetected. I think that’s a pretty freaking magical way nature speaks to the power of unseen growth.

How to Harness the Power of Unseen Growth

I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that my most meaningful creative work doesn’t happen when I’m talking about it. It happens when I’m deep inside it. When I’m researching without announcing. Writing without posting. Refining without asking for feedback. You get the idea. Or maybe you don’t. But if you do, and this is something intriguing, I’m inviting you to put the power of unseen growth to work in your life in real, actionable ways. Here are some practices I’ve done that have worked for me, and I hope they seize you by your snarglies too:

Create Before You Announce

Begin something meaningful. Maybe that’s starting a book, a health shift, a spiritual practice, a new business idea. Do it. But don’t tell anyone about it. Instead, let it mull, root, gurgle, and burble in your essence.

Don’t post about it. Don’t hint at it. Don’t seek validation for it.

Just work.

When you remove the pressure of being observed, something remarkable happens. Your motivation shifts from performance to integrity. You stop crafting optics for the sake of being seen and start crafting substance. It’s like breathing life into the ephemeral, or making dreams come true. It helps in big, mystifying ways, I promise.

Not Everything Meaningful Has to Be Visible:

Practice Quiet Skill-Building

Pick one skill you admire in others and cultivate it where no one can applaud you.

Read more than you speak.
Train more than you display.
Study more than you summarize.

There is extraordinary freedom in incubating in solitude & working on something without an audience. Why? Because when applause isn’t the fuel, mastery becomes the focus.

Let Healing Be Unnarrated

Not every breakthrough needs a caption. Some shifts require privacy to fully integrate.

If you’re going through a change, challenge, problem, whatever…try sitting with it before explaining it to others, or spewing it on social media. Try evolving without announcing the evolution. Let the recalibration settle into your nervous system before you turn it into a story.

The power of unseen growth becomes personal here because the transformation is independent of external perception.

Reclaim the “Dark Phase”

Every project, relationship, or goal has a phase that feels invisible. It’s like old-school photography…the shot needs to be tenderly developed in a darkroom before the image manifests.

I’m talking about those moments in our lives when nothing is blooming. Nothing is getting recognized. Nothing appears to be happening. Yadayada.

For some (self included), these moments can be unsettling. These are normal, natural moments, and I propose that instead of panicking during these so-called dormant phases, let’s experiment with trusting them and leaning into the power of unseen growth.

Not Everything Meaningful Has to Be Visible

I’m still thinking about that behind-the-scenes Olympic training room.

That athlete wasn’t performing yet. She wasn’t selling anything. She wasn’t even competing. She was gathering herself.

And the fact that it was being broadcast felt wrong to me.

I guess because it flew in the face of the fact that the efforts we make in those sacred, private spaces of nurturing brilliance really don’t need to be publicly transmitted (and maybe shouldn’t be, for good reasons).

I hope, in time, we can begin to realize that our efforts don’t need to be posted on IG or uploaded to TikTok to be relevant, important, or profoundly meaningful.

Can you relate to the power of unseen growth? Do you agree that not everything meaningful has to be visible? Got thoughts about this reflective post? Let me know. In any case, I sincerely hope some tidbit here has inspired you in some way. As always, thanks for reading!

Mighty brightly,