Futile

I found myself inside an emotion I didn't recognize. It wasn't despair. It wasn't fear. It was something new.

For a year and a half, my business had been in a season I didn't expect. I kept telling myself to stay open. Stay trusting. Stay generous. Nothing shifted the way I thought it would.

I was sitting with Sarah McCrum. She invited us to notice what was present. That's when it surfaced.

I tried different names. Hopelessness came close but didn't land. Helplessness — too familiar, wouldn't settle.

Then the thought arrived, simple and flat: Nothing I do makes a difference.

It hit like a dull bite. That's when the word came.

Futile.

It felt like watching a door slowly close while I was still inside the room.

Fear followed. My mind doesn't walk when fear comes — it ricochets. My jaw tightened. Thoughts bounced hard and fast, trying to outrun the ground beneath them.

What Happened When I Stopped Trying To Fix It

Sarah didn't try to fix it. She didn't offer a strategy. She invited me to stay.

Stay with the feeling of futility.

When I stopped following the story — that it was over, that I had failed — and stayed with the energy itself, something else appeared. A drumbeat in my belly. Deep. Loud. Persistent. Like something knocking from the inside.

Everything in me wanted to tighten, analyze, do something useful with it. Relaxing into it felt exposed. Unprotected. Like standing in the weather without a coat, teeth slightly chattering, waiting.

But I stayed. And it moved. Not because I pushed it. Because I stopped running from it.

What Futility Was Actually Asking For

Futility didn't ask me to fix anything. It asked me to stay.

Where in your life are you trying to fix or outrun a feeling that might be asking you to stay?

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