Three years after his retirement, Michael still found himself at loose ends; most days he found himself on the couch, listening to the radio or praying a rosary, wondering whether this was all there was now.
That’s when he called into the More2Life radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak.
Michael’s situation is one that the Popcaks see on a regular basis: A job ends, a diagnosis arrives, a relationship changes, and suddenly we are facing a future we can’t picture, so we stop picturing it. We stay on the couch—not out of laziness, but because moving seems to require knowing where you’re headed.
Rachael Isaac, a pastoral counselor and mental performance specialist who directs the Success and Performance Coaching program at CatholicCounselors.com, told the Popcaks that the thing keeping most of us stuck isn’t the problem itself.
“When we’re dealing with stress, one of the biggest things that can cause that stress is the uncertainty that we have about the situation,” Isaac says. “That uncertainty just causes us to close in on ourselves, and we stop asking questions or exploring possibilities, and sometimes we even stop taking action altogether.”
Why Withdrawing Feels So Reasonable
There is nothing irrational about pulling back. Isaac points out that the reactive part of the brain is doing its job when it steers us away from anything uncertain. That self-protecting part of the brain interprets the unknown as a threat and nudges us toward caution.
The trouble is what it costs us: “While withdrawing often feels safe in the moment, it also leaves us feeling really trapped,” Isaac says. “The more we close ourselves off, the smaller our world becomes, and the less we can use the gifts and strengths that God’s given us.”
Curiosity Is the Opposite of Shutting Down
Surprisingly, Isaac says the alternative to fear and caution isn’t courage, but curiosity.
“One of the most effective ways that we can interrupt that cycle [of fear] is to become curious, because curiosity is the opposite of fear’s instinct to shut down,” she says. “When we’re curious, we naturally lean in instead of pulling away. We begin looking for information instead of just assuming the worst-case scenario.”
Curiosity moves the brain out of a threat-focused state and into a learning state. And when that shift happens, our questions change, too. Fear asks: What if this goes wrong? Curiosity asks: What can I learn here, and what am I not seeing yet? Those questions don’t make the uncertainty disappear; they just change our relationship with it.
Isaac points out that Scripture is full of people who stepped out boldly even though they didn’t have the full picture of what might happen. Peter had no idea what would happen when he stepped out of the boat, for example; Abraham didn’t know what would happen when he left his homeland; and the disciples certainly had no idea what to expect after the Resurrection.
Sometimes, God calls us to lean into curiosity in smaller ways. Lisa Popcak points to Jesus telling the disciples to cast their nets on the other side of the boat.
“That seems ridiculous,” she said, “even when we know what’s going to happen.” A few feet of water, and the nets came up full. Even “switching sides of the boat,” Lisa said, can open us up to new possibilities.
Three Questions to Ask When You Can’t See Ahead
If you’re facing uncertainty, don’t let fear shut you down. Isaac offers three questions to ask instead.
1. What is God trying to teach me through this?
This one reframes the whole situation. Uncertainty stops being evidence that something has gone wrong and starts being a place you are being invited into. “Sometimes uncertainty is simply just that place where God’s inviting us to grow,” Isaac says.
2. What strength has God already given me that I haven’t recognized yet?
Fear has a way of erasing our own history. Ask what you have already survived, what you are already good at, what people come to you for. The answer is almost always more than you would have guessed on your own.
3. What is one faithful step I can take today?
Remember, you don’t need to know the whole plan, just the next step.
When Michael asked what he should do with himself, the Popcaks didn’t tell him to carefully inventory his passions or create a spreadsheet of possibilities. Instead, they counseled him to call his parish, say he was available, and start saying yes to whatever came up.
Trusting in God’s Grace Allows Us to be Curious Rather Than Cautious
As Isaac points out, peace and that confidence doesn’t come from having every single answer — in other words, from trying to control things that we simply can’t control.
“It’s about trusting that with God’s grace we can take that next step, even before we know where that whole path leads yet,” she says. Like Abraham, like Peter, like Mary Magdalene outside the tomb, we can take the next step because we trust God to handle the details.
For Michael, that next step might be a simple one: calling the parish to see where he might plug in, then letting things unfold from there. What will it be for you?
For more help with fear, worry, and the anxiety that keeps you stuck, check out Dr. Popcak’s book Unworried: A Life Without Anxiety, or reach out to Rachael Isaac and the team of pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.