What does it mean to feel lost?
To feel lost is to be stalled, to feel a loss of onward motion. When the wind leaves our sails, often without warning, the trajectory we were on is no longer viable; we can’t proceed. We have lost power, momentum, and with it inclination. We have no driving force, we are no longer a driver.
Lost one’s way? Lost a sense of purpose?
To be lost is to not know. To feel we don’t know where we are heading, to not know where to look, what to look for or how to find our way again. It is not only a loss of momentum and direction it is the loss of an idea; what we think we know. It is a state of not knowing. It’s loosing our ‘whyness’.
To be lost is to let go of knowing. To be aimless, lack purpose. To be ambivalent, to lose care as well as drive. It is suspended will, of withholding. It is a vacuum, a devoid state where life can lack meaning and affect as we find little to engage with. This can lead to discombobulation – discomfit, disconcertion and confusion.
Lost in oneself? Lost a sense of who we are?
We may feel that we are floundering. We may tend towards anxiety because we have lost momentum and direction. We don’t know what to do. We may fear it is a permanent state because we don’t quite know how to regain control or have the will to do so, even though we want to get into gear.
To be lost is a temporary state of disengagement. It is often a transitory feeling of disconnection from that which is around us, more than it is a condition of being lost in our self.
To find ourselves again we need to trust this. We can acknowledge that we do know where we are, even if we no longer know where we are going. We can accept that we are okay. We can accept that drift is a time where we are not driving forward and allow something else to arise. View this place as one of dislocation. Rootlessness and wander. Discovery.
It is natural to feel lost in life at times. We too often define our sense of self and rootedness in what is around us, or what we do, rather than in being ourselves. When these relationships alter, it can affect how we feel about our self. Feeling lost becomes an emotional or internalised state as we disconnect with the familiar. As we move away without having moved forward. But if we can stay grounded; calm and kind with our selves and appreciate what we do have in our life, we are less likely to become lost in our self.
Lost love for life? Lost a sense of what matters?
We may feel like we are in a boat without wind in the sails, compass or oars. However we are still in the boat and afloat. We will not drown in our own inertia. It means we no longer wish to head where we thought we did. It’s an enforced pause which prevents us from heading mindlessly towards something that no longer has the meaning we once thought it had.
Have trust that the conditions will change and we will once again find a course of navigation. Be open, without fear or frustration against yourself. We always find a way out. A different way forward.
There is something other on the horizon, we just may not be able to see it. Yet.
If the topic and themes in this article resonate with you and you’d like to explore feelings of being lost or without direction in life further, please go ahead and book a free exploratory phone call with me and I’d be happy to talk with you. ( Consultation Call button at the bottom of this page).