Strength of Struggle Q&A #27: “I Feel Stuck In My Own Head”

Q:

Dear Rabbi,

I’m 46 years old and honestly I feel stuck.

I know I should be grateful. I have a wife, kids, a roof over my head. Baruch Hashem for that. But financially things are always stressful, the kids always need something, and I feel like I’m constantly carrying pressure in the back of my head.

I also feel guilty even writing this because from the outside my life probably looks fine.

But inside I feel tired. Scattered. Sometimes disconnected from my family even though I love them. Sometimes disconnected from myself.

Part of me feels like maybe I wasted years already. Part of me is angry at myself for not accomplishing more by this age. And honestly, sometimes I even feel upset at Hashem for making life feel so heavy all the time.

I just want to feel present again instead of constantly stuck in my own head.

What am I supposed to do?

— Yosef

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A:

Dear Yosef,

First, you should know this is actually very common, especially for men in their 40s and 50s.

A lot of people quietly wake up one day and realize:
“I’m surviving life, but I don’t really feel it anymore.”

And then they start beating themselves up for feeling that way.

One thing I noticed in your question is that you keep arguing with your own pain.

“I should be grateful.”
“My life is fine.”
“Other people have it worse.”

Maybe all of that is true.

But struggling and being grateful are not contradictions.

When gratitude turns into a stick to hit yourself with, it stops helping.

A person can love his family and still feel overwhelmed.
A person can believe in Hashem and still feel exhausted.
A person can have potential and still feel stuck.

That does not make you fake. It makes you human.

You sound overwhelmed and overloaded.

Too many thoughts.
Too many expectations.
Too much pressure to finally become the person you think you should already be by now.

Eventually the brain stops moving forward and just spins.

There’s the famous line from Rabbi Tarfon in Pirkei Avos:
לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמוֹר
“It is not upon you to finish the work.” (Pirkei Avos 2:16)

A lot of people read that as a nice idea. But when you stop and think about it, it’s actually very profound.

Rabbi Tarfon understood that people sometimes take the entire weight of their life and responsibilities onto their own shoulders.

But our job is not to solve everything right now. That’s Hashem’s department.

Our responsibility begins and ends with:
“What can I do with what’s in front of me right now?”

One thing at a time.

Right now your mind is trying to solve:
parnassa,
purpose,
family,
regret,
motivation,
self-worth,
spirituality,
the future,

all in one conversation inside your head.

Nobody functions well that way.

So stop trying to solve your whole life this week.

Just reconnect to one small thing consistently.

A short walk.
Fifteen focused minutes of learning.
Sitting with your kid without your phone.
Doing one task before opening WhatsApp.

Not because small things magically solve everything.

Because small things slowly reconnect a person back to himself.

Hashem should bench you with menuchas hanefesh, clarity, and the strength to take things one step at a time.