TURNING INWARD WITH THE GREAT INSCAPE

Ideas
By
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March 12, 2026

By Punxsutawney Phil’s estimation, we have at least one more week of winter left. Heed the cry of this ground rodent! (And they do, in fact, cry quite loudly) His warble is telling us that we’d all benefit from more hibernation, a retreat from the harsh elements of the outside world to focus on ourselves.

Because we got spooked. After looking into the glare of the digital world, we caught a glimpse of our own empty reflections — a void that sent us scurrying back into the burrow to find something more substantial. As a result, we’re turning toward ourselves with heightened courage and intention. We’re reconnecting with our intuition, exploring our values, and returning to long-forgotten desires. We’re seeking meaning and purpose found through practices that restore and replenish the spirit.

This is the Great Inscape — a cultural turn inward — where healing is the new status symbol, and presence is the rare currency we’re all chasing. We’re not seeking more stimulation; we’re seeking ourselves. And while this retreat evokes weekend getaways spent soul-searching, it also means that our inner worlds are increasingly insulated from the outside one.

Facing the Shadow of Mistrust

Full disclosure: I am a 35-year-old white female who has voted for Democrats in the last four presidential elections. If you don’t share those qualities — or if you don’t know me personally (most of you), work with me (some of you), or see me on a daily basis (Hi, Aaron!) — there’s a good chance you don’t trust me.

Because according to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, a lack of shared values, lifestyle, workplace, or even news sources fosters mistrust among us. While much can be suggested as the source — we’ve touched on everything from the polycrisis to terror management theory — this lack of trust will cast its long shadow on both brands and audiences for years to come.

Don’t bother looking to the algorithm for generating trust — a pain you’ve likely felt if you’ve repeatedly shouted “OPERATOR” into the phone when dealing with a brand’s automated messaging. We get more frustrated when interacting with AI customer service tools; prefer human interaction for anything beyond basic tasks; and can quickly discern inauthentic, manufactured interactions from what’s real — even if it involves humans. Familiar faces in our feeds often fail to resonate as McKinsey notes that influencers have become our least trusted source of online information. When machines disguise themselves as humans and humans masquerade as brand plants, trust becomes a premium in building brand loyalty and turning us into repeat customers.

But trust drives our behavior beyond how we vote with our wallet or, nowadays, tap with our phones. Researchers have found that when we engage in social interactions with individuals who we trust, our brains’ default-mode network (DMN) activates. The DMN, a robotic-sounding bundle of nerves, is responsible for self-reflection, understanding our world, and higher-level thinking. It drives your inner monologue that is currently saying, “what the heck is this woman going on about?”

Essentially, becoming our highest selves requires something online rarely offers: a sense of safety. Digital spaces keep us entertained and endlessly scrolling, but they rarely make us feel grounded. And without the trust and friction that happens face-to-face, it's hard to do the deep thinking that leads to meaning or purpose. 

Simply put: our most joyful moments don’t happen online. They happen in the real world. We find truth by stepping into the messy, physical world — by touching grass — not by chasing the fleeting dopamine hit of scrolling past strangers. Our online lives may be overflowing with content, but they can’t replicate the disarming, transformative power of being in the same room with someone.

But can live experiences really be that transformative? Live experiences — or IRL, if you’re fancy — do more than just gather a crowd. They anchor us in a shared reality.  Not to compare a B2B conference to an ayahuasca trip or even a halftime show from a global superstar whose namesake gives nod to the groundhog’s burrowing relative — experiences can build trust among attendees and create the safety and space for us to turn inward. They give us the permission to go deeper into our own perception.

The good news is that you don’t have to take hallucinogens or even wait until spring to discover how experiences can play the role of part trust broker, part self-help guru. Many brands are already creating the foundation for The Great Inscape by considering how an individual’s relationship and sense of trust with the outer world ultimately impacts the relationship they have with themselves. 

Creating Physiological Safety

Gone are the days of vast ballrooms washed in harsh light and chairs that remind you of their frame more than their cushion. Here, it’s all about the vibe — from moodgeisting (mood experience design) to emotioneering-driven spaces through the practice of neuroaesthetics.

Neuroaesthetics is the study of how our brain responds to physical spaces and stimuli, a practice that many savvy-minded experience designers already intuit. It’s why you might feel those fuzzy, warm feelings when you see warm hues or lighting as oxytocin levels increase. Or why we gravitate to curved forms and shapes as our brain’s anterior cingulate cortex activates, an area in the brain associated with emotional regulation. 

We’re seeing neuroaesthetics deliver on physiological safety in retail, hospitality and even clinical spaces. Angad Arts Hotel in St. Louis allows guests to intentionally shape their mood and experience during their stay by selecting the emotional color of their room. Brands experiment with mood-managing environments, ecosomatics, and salutogenic design. Genesis’s The Forest Within showroom and Marshmallow Laser Feast’s 360° forest bathing experience are powerful examples of this in action.

Designing  for Intentional Friction

We’re done worshipping a seamless journey. Convenience culture is losing its grip, and something else is taking its place: intentional friction. Some call it friction-maxxing. Others call it a digital unwind. Either way, it’s a quiet rebellion against the perfectly optimized world we built. This isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It’s a deliberate return to offline devices, analog hobbies, and most importantly, to ourselves.

You see it everywhere: from eBay searches for retired iPods jumping 25% to Gen Z ‘rawdogging boredom’ challenges for thrill of having no thrill at all. None of it is optimized. None of it scales neatly. And that’s exactly why it resonates.

The waiting, the effort, the unpredictability. Those are the ingredients that make an experience memorable and worth sharing. So the next time you design for “seamless,” ask a harder question: are you removing friction or removing the soul? The most meaningful experiences live in the inefficiencies as well as in the imperfect, slightly inconvenient moments that make something feel alive. Friction isn’t always a flaw. Often, it’s where meaning — and soul— start to form.

Encouraging Heightened Presence

Life has become an infinite scroll, stripped of rituals and rites of passage, and people are feeling the void. In response, audiences are seeking what it means to present.

The signals are everywhere. Australia banning social media for kids under 16 years old. Fredagain hosting no-phone concerts. Kinetic art exhibitions like Boris Acket’s Secret Life Exhibition in NYC that invites audiences to draw, dance, lay, write, sleep, and heal for six hours. The same impulse is showing up in OJAS Listening Rooms, Calmcations, and immersive wellness spaces like Estelle Manor’s Cultivating Resilience Retreat in Oxfordshire and Ahmeyalli’s wellbeing resort in Utah. These aren’t just escapes; they’re environments designed for introspection, reflection, and real human connection. And corporate retreats are taking note.

Human is no longer just a noun. It’s becoming a verb. The experiences that matter most will feel sacred, rare,  and remind us what it means to ‘human’ together.

Holding the Space for What’s Next

In the end, The Great Inscape isn’t about escaping the world — it’s about allowing people to meet themselves within it. When experiences seek to broker trust by inviting friction and making space for presence, something deeper happens: people reconnect with their own intuition, their own values, and with each other. For brands, the opportunity isn’t just to entertain or impress, but to become quiet stewards of the moments where meaning emerges. 

In a culture turning inward, the most powerful experiences won’t shout for attention; they’ll create the safety for people to listen to themselves. And if you can’t take it from a groundhog, hopefully you can trust me and take my word for it.

Return to Extra! Extra!
Lauren Rice
3.12.26

TURNING INWARD WITH THE GREAT INSCAPE

TURNING INWARD WITH THE GREAT INSCAPE

By Punxsutawney Phil’s estimation, we have at least one more week of winter left. Heed the cry of this ground rodent! (And they do, in fact, cry quite loudly) His warble is telling us that we’d all benefit from more hibernation, a retreat from the harsh elements of the outside world to focus on ourselves.

Because we got spooked. After looking into the glare of the digital world, we caught a glimpse of our own empty reflections — a void that sent us scurrying back into the burrow to find something more substantial. As a result, we’re turning toward ourselves with heightened courage and intention. We’re reconnecting with our intuition, exploring our values, and returning to long-forgotten desires. We’re seeking meaning and purpose found through practices that restore and replenish the spirit.

This is the Great Inscape — a cultural turn inward — where healing is the new status symbol, and presence is the rare currency we’re all chasing. We’re not seeking more stimulation; we’re seeking ourselves. And while this retreat evokes weekend getaways spent soul-searching, it also means that our inner worlds are increasingly insulated from the outside one.

Facing the Shadow of Mistrust

Full disclosure: I am a 35-year-old white female who has voted for Democrats in the last four presidential elections. If you don’t share those qualities — or if you don’t know me personally (most of you), work with me (some of you), or see me on a daily basis (Hi, Aaron!) — there’s a good chance you don’t trust me.

Because according to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, a lack of shared values, lifestyle, workplace, or even news sources fosters mistrust among us. While much can be suggested as the source — we’ve touched on everything from the polycrisis to terror management theory — this lack of trust will cast its long shadow on both brands and audiences for years to come.

Don’t bother looking to the algorithm for generating trust — a pain you’ve likely felt if you’ve repeatedly shouted “OPERATOR” into the phone when dealing with a brand’s automated messaging. We get more frustrated when interacting with AI customer service tools; prefer human interaction for anything beyond basic tasks; and can quickly discern inauthentic, manufactured interactions from what’s real — even if it involves humans. Familiar faces in our feeds often fail to resonate as McKinsey notes that influencers have become our least trusted source of online information. When machines disguise themselves as humans and humans masquerade as brand plants, trust becomes a premium in building brand loyalty and turning us into repeat customers.

But trust drives our behavior beyond how we vote with our wallet or, nowadays, tap with our phones. Researchers have found that when we engage in social interactions with individuals who we trust, our brains’ default-mode network (DMN) activates. The DMN, a robotic-sounding bundle of nerves, is responsible for self-reflection, understanding our world, and higher-level thinking. It drives your inner monologue that is currently saying, “what the heck is this woman going on about?”

Essentially, becoming our highest selves requires something online rarely offers: a sense of safety. Digital spaces keep us entertained and endlessly scrolling, but they rarely make us feel grounded. And without the trust and friction that happens face-to-face, it's hard to do the deep thinking that leads to meaning or purpose. 

Simply put: our most joyful moments don’t happen online. They happen in the real world. We find truth by stepping into the messy, physical world — by touching grass — not by chasing the fleeting dopamine hit of scrolling past strangers. Our online lives may be overflowing with content, but they can’t replicate the disarming, transformative power of being in the same room with someone.

But can live experiences really be that transformative? Live experiences — or IRL, if you’re fancy — do more than just gather a crowd. They anchor us in a shared reality.  Not to compare a B2B conference to an ayahuasca trip or even a halftime show from a global superstar whose namesake gives nod to the groundhog’s burrowing relative — experiences can build trust among attendees and create the safety and space for us to turn inward. They give us the permission to go deeper into our own perception.

The good news is that you don’t have to take hallucinogens or even wait until spring to discover how experiences can play the role of part trust broker, part self-help guru. Many brands are already creating the foundation for The Great Inscape by considering how an individual’s relationship and sense of trust with the outer world ultimately impacts the relationship they have with themselves. 

Creating Physiological Safety

Gone are the days of vast ballrooms washed in harsh light and chairs that remind you of their frame more than their cushion. Here, it’s all about the vibe — from moodgeisting (mood experience design) to emotioneering-driven spaces through the practice of neuroaesthetics.

Neuroaesthetics is the study of how our brain responds to physical spaces and stimuli, a practice that many savvy-minded experience designers already intuit. It’s why you might feel those fuzzy, warm feelings when you see warm hues or lighting as oxytocin levels increase. Or why we gravitate to curved forms and shapes as our brain’s anterior cingulate cortex activates, an area in the brain associated with emotional regulation. 

We’re seeing neuroaesthetics deliver on physiological safety in retail, hospitality and even clinical spaces. Angad Arts Hotel in St. Louis allows guests to intentionally shape their mood and experience during their stay by selecting the emotional color of their room. Brands experiment with mood-managing environments, ecosomatics, and salutogenic design. Genesis’s The Forest Within showroom and Marshmallow Laser Feast’s 360° forest bathing experience are powerful examples of this in action.

Designing  for Intentional Friction

We’re done worshipping a seamless journey. Convenience culture is losing its grip, and something else is taking its place: intentional friction. Some call it friction-maxxing. Others call it a digital unwind. Either way, it’s a quiet rebellion against the perfectly optimized world we built. This isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It’s a deliberate return to offline devices, analog hobbies, and most importantly, to ourselves.

You see it everywhere: from eBay searches for retired iPods jumping 25% to Gen Z ‘rawdogging boredom’ challenges for thrill of having no thrill at all. None of it is optimized. None of it scales neatly. And that’s exactly why it resonates.

The waiting, the effort, the unpredictability. Those are the ingredients that make an experience memorable and worth sharing. So the next time you design for “seamless,” ask a harder question: are you removing friction or removing the soul? The most meaningful experiences live in the inefficiencies as well as in the imperfect, slightly inconvenient moments that make something feel alive. Friction isn’t always a flaw. Often, it’s where meaning — and soul— start to form.

Encouraging Heightened Presence

Life has become an infinite scroll, stripped of rituals and rites of passage, and people are feeling the void. In response, audiences are seeking what it means to present.

The signals are everywhere. Australia banning social media for kids under 16 years old. Fredagain hosting no-phone concerts. Kinetic art exhibitions like Boris Acket’s Secret Life Exhibition in NYC that invites audiences to draw, dance, lay, write, sleep, and heal for six hours. The same impulse is showing up in OJAS Listening Rooms, Calmcations, and immersive wellness spaces like Estelle Manor’s Cultivating Resilience Retreat in Oxfordshire and Ahmeyalli’s wellbeing resort in Utah. These aren’t just escapes; they’re environments designed for introspection, reflection, and real human connection. And corporate retreats are taking note.

Human is no longer just a noun. It’s becoming a verb. The experiences that matter most will feel sacred, rare,  and remind us what it means to ‘human’ together.

Holding the Space for What’s Next

In the end, The Great Inscape isn’t about escaping the world — it’s about allowing people to meet themselves within it. When experiences seek to broker trust by inviting friction and making space for presence, something deeper happens: people reconnect with their own intuition, their own values, and with each other. For brands, the opportunity isn’t just to entertain or impress, but to become quiet stewards of the moments where meaning emerges. 

In a culture turning inward, the most powerful experiences won’t shout for attention; they’ll create the safety for people to listen to themselves. And if you can’t take it from a groundhog, hopefully you can trust me and take my word for it.

Return to Extra! Extra!