Feeling Lost? Here’s How a Therapist in Wakefield, MA Can Guide You Back
Feeling lost? Connect with a therapist in Wakefield, MA to find guidance
Feeling Lost and Alone in Your Journey?
It is really easy to feel lost in modern life, and particularly during major life transitions. Sometimes, those life transitions aren’t even noticed but can have a big enough impact to make you feel a bit disoriented and uncertain, like losing a friendship, a pet or changing roommates.
Life is more enjoyable when we have a sense of purpose, meaning and direction, so feeling lost can disrupt this sense of intentional progression. Fortunately, therapy can be helpful to getting back on track with feeling in touch with yourself and your life in a way that feels deeply satisfying.
As a therapist in Wakefield, it is common for people to see me with concerns about feeling unrooted and lost in some way in their lives. Sometimes it is about moving forward after experiencing a significant loss, a breakup or other heartbreak. Other times it is about adjusting to a new role as a parent, a newly minted graduate or simply being new to the area. Whatever the specific reason, we work together closely to ensure that people leave therapy feeling more deeply connected to their lives, more intentional about their choices and how they spend their time and understanding how to keep this momentum.
Why You Might Feel Lost: Understanding the Causes
What do we feel lost at times? There can be so many reasons! Sometimes it is someone around us who throws us off with comments that are critical of our choices or with words that lead us to doubt ourselves. Sometimes, this may be callous or intentionally critical, but just as many times, it could be someone else’s curiosity that can throw us for a loop. A curiosity-driven question, such as “oh, why are you changing jobs? I thought you were doing really well at yours and liked it,” can lead someone feeling a bit insecure about a job change already so spiral into anxious ruminations of self-doubt and uncertainty.
At other times, the feeling of being lost can come from within. Perhaps you recently moved to the Wakefield area for a good commute to work. But now you find yourself farther than you realized from friends, longing for more variety than the plethora of Italian restaurants available, and paying so much for housing that you feel like you hardly know how you ended up in this area, let alone what to do about it. Feeling untethered in this way can be very unsettling, and for some people, can lead to self-criticism and anger. For others, coping with alcohol or spending excessive time online might be what takes the edge off in the evening, but not in any way that really helps the feelings in a lasting way, so that sense of disorientation persists.
It can be hard to see a way forward in situations like this, especially where changes that either were or were not on your terms from the start, are already set in place. Feeling off-track in this manner can lead to more anxiety or depression as feelings of helplessness are easy to worsen as well.
Understanding that all the dynamics of uncertainty, helplessness, self-doubt and confusion are working together in an unhelpful way is the start of the healing process. Then, working to reconnect with what you value and want, even amidst the circumstances, is where you will really start to feel relief.
The Power of Self-Reflection in Finding Your Path
Reflecting to understand the why behind your suffering can be a really helpful part of the process for finding yourself and your way forward again. Yet, it can be a very difficult balancing act to give yourself the time and space for reflection without getting into ruminations, spiraling thoughts, thinking ruts and simply end up beating yourself up in the process.
I find it really important to put some guardrails up to ensure that you are actually in a process of reflection and not simply churning over the same thoughts again and again, which is very easy to slip into by accident. You are not alone if this happens to you!
Here are some general tips for creating more helpful self-reflection opportunities:
Start by identifying what question you actually hope to answer before really starting your reflection process.
Examine if that question is actually one you are likely to be able to answer or not. It is all too easy to ask ourselves un-answerable questions, so it is no wonder we continue to feel lost. See if you can play around with the question a little to make it more manageable.
Identify your desired end point before you start. Do you want to feel ready to make a decision about something? Do you want to simply explore what feelings arise when you really give yourself permission to go looking? Try to set yourself up to be able to stop before you even start, and feel satisfied when you do.
Consider a time limit. For more reflections, we don’t actually need all that much time, we simply need focused time, free of distractions and with a clear purpose. Consider setting a timer to give yourself a 5-minute warning (and stick to it) or commit to reflecting during a walk of a certain distance, and ending when you get home. This will also help you keep your focus, knowing your time is limited, yet fully available while you are in it.
If you find yourself stuck in the same reflections or unable to reach the conclusions you want, therapy can be extremely helpful to moving forward more purposefully. In therapy, you can reflect in the presence of someone trained to ask you helpful and purposeful questions, help you identify when you are in thinking traps, when you are stuck and most importantly, help you get out of the stuck thoughts and into meaningful change.
Navigating Life Transitions with Support
Transitions in life can be really tough, even when they are seemingly positive and even when they are changes that you want. They can be even harder when they are unwanted transitions associated with losses or high demands on your time and emotional energy.
Often there is a liminal space, or period of time where things feel almost suspended while you detach from how things were, yet before you settle in to how things will be, and this liminal space can feel very unsettling and uncomfortable. It is natural that it takes us time to change, however, and so if we can expect this, we can navigate it more smoothly and with less anxiety associated. Using this liminal space to explore what we want moving forward can be really helpful to a satisfying outcome.
Having support in these transitions can be really helpful for many people to reducing the loneliness often inherent in transitions, being a sounding board for reflection and being helpful resources for feedback and ideas on how to move forward in a way that feels good. Meeting with a therapist in particular can be helpful to approaching some of the deeper and more personal aspects of change that can get sticky. Therapists can facilitate adjustment and adaptation, helping you find new meaning and purpose as you move into a new stage of your life.
Reconnecting with Your Passions and Interests
Changing routines can be refreshing and a helpful way to stay invigorated, yet life transitions can sometimes throw us so far out of our routines that we wind up feeling adrift and disconnected from our passions and interests. Without these aspects of life, we can feel dull, bored, disconnected and certainly more lost as a result.
Transitions such as taking on a caregiving role can be particularly challenging because the new role simply eats up more hours of the day, and hobbies are often the first thing to get dropped. Other times, the stress of the transition itself can make hobbies less appealing If depression takes hold of you, you simply might not find your hobbies that enjoyable anymore, even if you are still making time to engage with them, which can really be disorienting and frustrating.
Getting disconnected from pleasurable activities, however, can lead to feeling even more lost, and have you questioning your life. It may be that you need to re-evaluate how you are using your time to see if there are any creative ways to create space for these endeavors. You might also need to find new passions and interests, which bring an initial wave of grief, disappointment and frustration, however, can ultimately lead to much more satisfaction. Knowing that you are being purposeful with your time and intentional about your exploration of hobbies can help connect you to the new activities in a way that leads you to feel more content about moving away from things which gave you enjoyment in the past.
If you find yourself feeling very stuck in this process, you are not alone. I have been there myself and many people who see me in therapy have been there as well. Therapy can be very helpful to get past things that are blocking you from connecting with passions and interests and identify new and creative ways to use your time, even if limited, to be increasingly satisfying. This can help you feel more anchored and less lost as you go through daily life.
How Therapy with a Therapist in Wakefield Can Help You Find Your Way
Therapy is a highly individualized experience, yet one of the common aspects of therapy is finding ways to live a more satisfying and fulfilling life. Therapy can get you beyond anxiety, grief, confusion and anger and into focusing on your needs, your role in the world and where you find the best fit in your environment.
If you are feeling lost, therapy can help you understand where this feeling came from, where you might indeed feel connected but not have realized it, and determine how to feel more focused, directed and intentional. Sometimes, this is in small ways, like adjusting how you eat to have foods that satisfy you more often. Other times, it might be larger, like shifting how household responsibilities are divided or finding readiness to embark on a career transition. Either way, therapy can provide you with someone with whom you can be honest and open to receive feedback and helpful questions to help you explore your needs and how to get them met.
Taking the First Step
Feeling lost can be a common aspect of life, particularly during transitions. With the right support, however, it can be a temporary experience that leaves you ultimately more satisfied and fulfilled, even in the midst of tremendous stressors and external challenges.
If you feel lost and unsure of how to find your way, consider therapy in Wakefield, MA as a next step to bring yourself to a point of more clarity. Whether you are navigating life transitions you wanted or that were forced on you, feeling overwhelmed, or looking to reconnect with your passions, therapy can help you rediscover your path. Reach out today to schedule a consultation and take the first step toward a more fulfilling life
I offer in-person sessions in Wakefield, MA and online therapy across Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut. Reach out today for a free consultation — let’s see what support can look like for you.