There’s no doubt about it: feeling lost can feel anxiety-provoking, demoralizing, and depressing.
How do I know? I’ve been there before. Some recent moments that come to mind have centered around my work, relationships, and general purpose in life.
Perhaps on your side, you’re feeling lost after leaving a job, working through an education degree, going through a big life transition such as a marriage, divorce, death, or birth of a child, or you feel general malaise and unease surrounding your existential meaning of life.
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In my experience of feeling lost about a million times in life, there’s a lot of inner hidden shame that comes with the experience, aka.:
- “Shouldn’t I have my sh*t figured out already?”
- “I thought I finally knew my path, what the hell happened?”
- “Why do I feel like I want to do something different all of a sudden? I’ve already put in so much effort already!”
- “What is wrong with me?”
To answer at least one of your questions, there’s nothing wrong with you. Feeling lost is absolutely and positively normal, and we ALL go through this experience in life (usually many times).
I’m going to share WHY feeling lost is not only normal but also why it can actually be a positive thing.
I’ll also share some helpful tips for finding your path and eighteen enlightening journaling prompts that can give you more direction and clarity.
Table of contents
What Causes a Person to Feel Lost?
If you feel lost or like you have no direction and don’t know the answers (or what to do next), it usually means any of the following:
- The life, path, or direction that you’re moving in doesn’t align with your deeper needs, dreams, or gifts.
- You’re ready to grow and evolve as a person in a whole new and different way.
- You’re disconnected from the voice of your heart and soul and have come to a standstill in order to rest and reconnect with your higher self.
Often, feeling lost is a sign that you’ve innocently been listening to the voice of the mind (or ego) instead of the deeper and wiser voice of the soul.
Other times, feeling lost is simply a sign that you’re ready to metaphorically shed an old skin that feels too tight and restricting, and expand in new and unforeseen ways.
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On the wheel of the Spiritual Wanderer’s Journey, feeling lost signifies that you’re in phase one of the inner path, where you feel a calling to go searching for what truly fulfills your soul.
Is Feeling Lost Okay (and Normal)?
Yes!
I’ve never heard of or met a person who has everything figured out 100% of the time – that just ain’t a reality!
To be human is to be in a state of flux, change, and evolution. And feeling lost is a completely normal, healthy, and positive part of that.
Just look at nature (and by the way, don’t forget that we are nature – on a human level, we’re mammals who evolved from the great apes):
There tides of the ocean have a natural ebb and flow. Trees grow leaves and then shed them. Animals carry shells, grow too big, and then go in search of new ones. Caterpillars dissolve in cocoons and become butterflies. Snakes shed their skin. Day turns into night.
Within nature, we can observe moments of transition and change everywhere.
The same happens with us humans – except because we’re usually out of touch with the Tao or the flow of Spirit, we tend to interpret these natural shifts as “something going wrong.”
As a result, we feel lost and start becoming obsessively preoccupied with that feeling.
What to Do When You Are Feeling Lost (3 Tips)
Feeling lost can often bring feelings of anxiety, sadness, and even depression.
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If you’re experiencing any of these feelings, my heart goes out to you. I know what it feels like to be totally lost, with no direction, no purpose, and no clarity in life.
(Incidentally, that’s one of the reasons why I created The Spiritual Wanderer Course – to help you find your deeper path and purpose from someone who has experienced this form of suffering first-hand.)
Furthermore, these feelings of lostness can also make us feel isolated and lonely, especially if everyone else seems to “have it all figured out” (which they don’t, by the way).
Based on personal experience, here are some of the most simple and direct tips I have for dealing with this empty feeling of being lost:
1. Cultivate intentional quietness and silence all external voices
As much as possible, try to distance yourself from all the noisy voices out there that flood your mind with drama and irrelevant static.
Take an extended break from social media. Turn off your phone notifications. Simplify and carefully select your “information diet” or what your brain takes in each day. Be a mental and emotional minimalist right now.
What I recommend doing is embracing solitude, silence, and stillness for a few days, weeks, or months.
Intentional quietness is essential for creating the space needed to tune into your inner voice again – and it’s this internal force that knows what you truly need, want, and desire on a deeper level.
2. Creatively express your inner world and e-motions each day
Creative self-expression is a powerful way of helping you to befriend and process feeling lost so that it doesn’t sit like a heavy weight in your mind and body.
You may have come across the saying that emotions are energy in motion (“e-motion”), and when you tune into your feelings, you’ll know that it’s true.
Having some kind of outlet to express those complicated emotions is not only relaxing and healing, but it can also provide tremendous clarity and, often, even inner direction.
Examples of creative self-expression could be journaling, drawing, writing a song, writing a story, singing, scrapbooking, dancing, or anything that requires you to create something unique and fresh.
Feeling lost will then cease to become a horrible cursed feeling and instead become an evocative muse to inspire your heartfelt creations.
3. Be an autodidact and let your spirit wander
An autodidact is a self-taught person, someone who delights in self-education.
When you’re struggling with feeling lost, it may be because you haven’t let your spirit wander into exploring new refreshing fields, philosophies, and teachings.
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Sometimes, feeling lost happens because we lack enough quality information or unique perspectives and paths available to us. Instead, we stuff our minds with the half-thought-out junk food information found on places like social media.
Is it any wonder we feel lost?
If you spend large portions of your time externally focused, you’re probably mentally and spiritually malnourished – and this directly contributes to feelings of emptiness and lostness.
Adopt the philosophy of being a passionate learner.
Start reading soul-nourishing books again. Explore new teachings, paths, and philosophies that you’ve always had an interest in, but have never given yourself permission to explore. Sign up to enriching newsletters and also give yourself space from any content that feels shallow or half-baked.
Here are a couple of posts I recommend reading related to this article to get you started on this self-education path:
- How to Find Yourself When You’re Lost in Life (9 Steps)
- I Don’t Know Who I Am: How to Deal With An Ego Crisis
18 Journaling Prompts For Feeling Lost & Finding Your Path Again
As I mentioned above, journaling is one powerful form of creative self-expression that can help you find your path again when feeling lost.
Questions can open magical doorways of insight and are powerful ways to go soul searching.
Feel free to pick and choose any of the journaling prompts below that resonate with you – they have been designed to help you gain more clarity and direction:
- Why does feeling lost make you feel so uncomfortable? Explore your thoughts and feelings.
- If you could change any one thing in your life without negative consequences, what would it be, and why?
- What is your unique definition of “success”?
- Name the feelings that have been arising inside of you recently. What deeper lessons might they be trying to teach you?
- If you could pick any spirit animal to accompany you on your life journey right now, what would it be, and why?
- Off the top of your head, list five of your values. Then reflect on them.
- List three non-negotiables (or core needs) in life that you hold close to your heart.
- We all have a fantasy or “ideal” self in our minds that we try to live up to. What does your fantasy self look like, sound like, and behave like? How might this fantasy self be limiting you?
- What does the mind’s voice vs. the soul’s voice sound like within you? How can you tell the difference?
- In what parts of life are you the unhappiest? Why?
- In what parts of life are you the happiest? Why?
- If there was no one else in your life telling you what to do or who you should be, what would your inner voice tell you?
- Place a hand over your heart and imagine that a wise old man, woman, or person is sitting in front of you. What advice would they give you? Write in their voice.
- What do you love doing in your free time? If you can’t think of anything, what did you love doing as a teenager or child? How can you bring that more into your life?
- We all carry many “shoulds” around that limit our ability to be true to ourselves. List some of your “shoulds” and reflect on them. (E.g. “I should study to be a doctor because that’s what my parents want me to do,” “I should feel happy about this job offer,” “I should want to be friends with this person,” etc.)
- How is the you now different from the you one year ago? What has changed, evolved, and expanded?
- What is the bright or positive side of feeling lost?
- Visualize your life from the perspective of your deathbed. What are you the proudest of having done or experienced in your lifetime?
All of these questions have been chosen to help you directly or indirectly gain some clarity and perspective about where you are on the winding path of life right now.
Be gentle, take your time, and feel free to bookmark this page to return to!
Feeling Lost in Life is Normal and Healthy
Feeling lost isn’t only normal, but it’s actually HEALTHY.
Why?
Feeling lost is a sign that you’re growing and evolving as a person, or at the very least, you’ve come to a threshold of change.
We must all outgrow old ways of living and being in this world.
Feeling lost is what happens when we enter into that uncomfortable liminal space of inner expansion and transformation – and that’s a positive thing.
Imagine if we were always traveling on the same perfect path, never deviated, and never grew or evolved as a person … how boring and empty would that be?
Not knowing the path ahead isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s a little scary, yes. But it also means that there are new possibilities ahead of us that we can’t quite see yet. Be a lone wolf and embrace them!
You may find that the more open you are to accepting feeling lost, the more clarity, purpose, and direction you’ll discover.
The path will eventually become clear once you stop resisting these feelings and turn inwards.
***
I hope that, by now, you feel more hopeful, knowing that there are many paths, practices, and questions out there that can help you to find your way.
Tell me, what is the hardest part about feeling lost to you? Share a comment below and let me know.
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I do feel lost in a sense. Being more inverted from the grass roots to on display. As tension mounts and we all feel the pain and suffering in the world.
I feel ambivalent mixed and alienated in my own Country. Displaced, uprooted on edge with all the constant changes happening. Instant recession! Wars! etc.,
But happy by staying grounded close to home and within reach of personal comforts for my age group. For example warm blankets hot tea/coffee and simple foods which are fairly low on protein (meat) and high on vegetables, fruit, plus ice cream for sweet treat, With plenty of dark chocolate and sherbet sweets for later on.
The hard part is stepping outside of the ingrained old familiar territory of our social and private life. Old negative archetype and familiar boundaries are no longer achieving the required levels of support for the hierarchy of needs. As past things are disappearing rapidly and can no longer serve our needs. Millenials are craving every darn thing ASAP. They want the career, the employment and the money in the bank. Their energies are some what wasted in the wrong way on the wrong things. These lost soul energies slow the process down making it hard to stop and let go of all that is negative useless and wasteful and to just seek reconciliation to Source/God as the true parameter and reconnection to make for true reality and not an artificial matrix.
Thanks for sharing, John. With millennials, I think with time they’ll mature. As a millennial myself, I know the plight of instant gratification seeking, but also recognize positive qualities in this group like becoming more socially and environmentally aware, which previous generations weren’t.
This is exactly what I needed to read today, I’ve been going crazy with this feeling lately. The constant pull between my soul’s voice saying, “embrace the in-between, it’s okay” and my brain (society’s conditioning voice) saying, “Do something! Figure out your life! You should be doing this, and this. Why aren’t you doing any of these things?” …then the negative self-talk and shame spiral ensues. Ugh!
Reading this pulled me out of this hell-loop and helped me recalibrate and reminded me which voice to listen to. I’m always so deeply grateful for your emails, they arrive like an answer to a prayer.
I’m so grateful to read this, Claire, and that you’ve managed to recalibrate. Thank you for sharing this 🙏 💜
I have been lost many times throughout my life. In this crazy world we live in it is easy to get pulled into the programing all around us everywhere. Pulling us away from our true selves our true center our peace. I try to remember that I am a spiritual being living out a physical existence. I am one with GOD I am sovereign and I am free is a mantra I have used to help me remember my journey. We are never alone.
Well said Michael. It helps so much to have a mantra like this to carry with us 🐺
I don’t think there is any human being who isn’t lost in some way, due to our limited nature as human beings. It’s just some people are more lost than others, and some far less. All I can offer as advice, from my own limited life experience, is that the same solutions that didn’t work, likely won’t solve things if you just do it over and over. That’s different from when a solution works, but does so very slowly and in tiny signs of progress, so you have to be alert when that happens. Though people are stuck in old problems, because people are stuck within old ways. As long as you don’t change the old ways, people are stuck in old problems. Simple as that. What might get you out of a funk simply might be in just trying to experiment with random solutions you won’t usually try or consider, which ironically might do far more than just repeating what won’t work. Progress reports are simple. Ask, “What works?” “What doesn’t work?” Then ask, “What should I do about it?” But most people don’t ask that. They think, “I have to repeat this solution a hundred, thousand, million, or more times for it to work!”
Thanks for offering this advice Anonymous – I like these pragmatic questions, they’re valuable to contemplate. 🐺
I feel I’m stuck in my life. Practically, I know what I am supposed to do but that doesn’t make sense to me. I feel disconnected and lost and I don’t know wether I am on right path or not. I want to get out of this but still not getting the way that can make sense or make me do something.
Hello again!
I have been struggling with feeling lost so much since long ago. It comes when so much fears and desires get into a big conflict in my head. Especially when I feel out of control, with my own aims and sense of direction, a guilt.
For more concrete examples; When I fail to meet my promise that I will not touch an energy/time draining activity like social media etc, but I find myself using them for hours without noticing, and forgetting about my daily duties (Routine: physical exercises, prayers, studies, deep meditation…). This makes me feel like a failure, and unable to control my life, and in past days, I used to react to this feeling by escaping it and diving deeper into more distracting activities like walking into endless and useless Youtube videos. Nowadays, I find it more healthy as you mentioned, since it alarms me that I need to bring necessary changes by renewing my discipline plan.
Actually, I recall a phrase that I used to say to describe this unpleasant state: “I feel like I am wasting myself.”
Thanks Haytam. Not sure if you wanted my feedback or comments at all, but I appreciate you reading and sharing how feeling lost appears for you 😀
Oh wow Haytam I feel the same way, I feel that I am wasting my life. I need to stay focused on what I need to do in my life and to do it. Not spending day after day continuing to do the same thing and knowing I am wasting my life away but still continuing to do the same negative thing over and over and then feeling guilty and frustrated with myself. I too have watched endless youtube videos ending up staying up all night only to sleep a couple of hours and then feeling like crap and then instead of going to bed the next evening at a reasonable time doing the same thing all over again. I have been repeating a negative action over and over for years. I told myself when I retired I was going to stop, well It has been 5 years since I retired and nothing has changed except for me to feel more depressed,lonely,and frustrated. Tonight I am going to turn the computer off and go to bed at a reasonable hour and when I wake up tomorrow stick with detoxing so that I can go on a vacation and not be tied to having to stay here a slave to my addictions. I have to be strong and change my situation so that I can travel and enjoy my life. Life is precious and I feel like I am wasting mine. I have to be strong and change my situation if I want to be happy and live, not just exist.
At the moment I find difficulty in saying “Why Feeling Lost is Normal”
As too many things are happening at once. Old age has it’s merits and it’s flaws or reproach which combined with suddenly dealing with body bits wanting to play up and still say I am healthy and can focus without worry on the points in hand. As I feel swamped by every thing at this time, and that alone can place one feeling lost from too much happening and not getting done.
So this week I honed this open ended topic down to two points !) I am to a certain extent what my intention faith and love has built over the years and thus need to dwell in some degree in self acceptance. Though with help from Sol and Luna this may need some vital modification in the next two years.
2) That trust is a precious gift bestowed upon those that feel and know they are sufficiently part of our lives and we love them. One other point was going to be on Self Sovereignty but I think this is more for me to dive into self discovery, when time permits.❤
Thanks for sharing John 😄
Thanks, this article was extremely good. Feeling lost now feels more positive and helpful now that I have read this. Personally I am lost because my old way of living was destroying me, I was ignoring so many of my feelings and wishes to “get a job and fit in.”
After leaving it, I fight the voices in my head that call me useless for not job hunting everyday and focus on improving the skills I enjoy instead
Thank you for sharing that, Lala. I’m glad you feel better about this extremely normal and natural experience in life. 💗
Sometimes feeling lost is a an exciting thing!
It’s even more exciting when several people are lost with you. And then we can sing the song on YouTube, “Living, in the land, of the lost! Lost! Lost! Lost!”
LoL
😆 Love this!
I’m writing because it brings concrete ideas out. Something as simple as thanking you for all the light and guidance, so consistently – these are sincere words.
Less easy to say is how lost I’ve been, even when I thought I knew what I was doing. The problem I have is a creative slump – a depression – unlike other times when I had a drive to put things out. Now I see the motives better than I did then: the egotism, the self-delusion, the little king on his throne reinforced in passing by friends, some of whom offered realistic assessments that passed right over me. The friends moved on while I stayed in the same place. People don’t reach out to me anymore. I used to be a good confidant. Now I’m that person still lost in his own world except that reports through performance are no longer issued. Finding a partner would be a relief and a healthy challenge, but I am not depending on anyone to save me. Contacting the High Self – and thus true compassion, love, and safety – is the only process that I think can greet these core issues and effectively change them.
Thank you for sharing here Foundling. What you offer in these words shines a light on how potent (and also painful) having others around us can be. They bless us with their uncomfortable assessments of our behavior and how we’re deluding ourselves (if they’re perceptive and genuinely caring friends/family members). Even if their perceptions of us are false, they still hold up a mirror and show us where we still have ego-centered reactivity and attachment. Connecting with the Higher Self (what I’m starting to see as the loving inner parent or light of the Soul), is the only true safe space I’ve found – that warm field of consciousness that only wants the best for us. May you befriend it and find what you’re looking for ❤