Small Step Sundays™ | Permission to Be Uncertain
Discover | When Sunday Starts Feeling Like Monday
It's Sunday afternoon, and your mind has already started working on tomorrow. What if that meeting doesn't go well? Did I forget something important? What if someone needs something from me that I can't give? Maybe you're mentally rehearsing a conversation, running through your calendar for the third time, or trying to anticipate every possible thing that might go wrong.
You're not necessarily doing anything that looks particularly stressful. You might even be sitting somewhere comfortable, enjoying the last few hours of your weekend. But your mind is somewhere else. And it keeps telling you that if you could just figure out a few more things, maybe you'd finally feel ready. There's something understandable about that. When we care about our work, our families, our relationships, and our responsibilities, uncertainty can feel like a threat to everything we're trying to protect.
Thinking ahead can be useful. Planning can help us prepare. But sometimes, without realizing it, we move from preparing for what we know into trying to resolve what we cannot possibly know yet. And the tricky part? Every answer seems to produce another question. What if this happens? Well, then I'll do that. But what if that doesn't work? The mind keeps searching for the point where uncertainty finally disappears.
Meanwhile, Sunday is happening. The people we love are here. Our bodies may be asking for rest. There may be something enjoyable, meaningful, or ordinary right in front of us. And our attention keeps getting pulled toward a future we cannot fully predict.
Of course, some uncertainties have very real consequences. Financial pressures, health concerns, caregiving responsibilities, and unreasonable workplace demands aren't problems we can simply think differently about. Sometimes we genuinely need information, support, resources, or changes to the circumstances themselves. But there's also an important distinction between taking a useful action and mentally rehearsing every possible outcome. We can care deeply about what happens without needing to know exactly how it will happen.
What might become possible if we allowed both of those things to be true?
Grow | Let Two Things Be True
Let's try something small together.
If it's comfortable, rest your hands in front of you, palms facing upward. Imagine placing one thing you've been trying to figure out into your left hand. Something about the coming week that you genuinely care about but can't fully predict. You don't need to solve it.
Just notice what it feels like to acknowledge:
There is something here I don't know yet.
Now imagine placing something else in your right hand. Not an answer. Something that matters to you. Maybe it's being present with someone you love. Treating yourself with a little more compassion. Showing up thoughtfully. Protecting a small piece of your time. Something meaningful that doesn't require knowing every outcome in advance.
For a moment, look at both open hands. One holds uncertainty. The other holds something that matters. Notice what happens inside you as you make room for both. Perhaps there's discomfort. Perhaps your mind immediately wants to explain why you really do need an answer. That's worth noticing, too. You aren't trying to make uncertainty disappear. You aren't required to feel peaceful or confident. You're simply experimenting with the possibility that not knowing and meaningful living can happen at the same time.
Take a moment to notice what that experience was like for you.
Now imagine an ordinary moment in the coming week. It's Monday morning. You open your laptop and notice something you weren't expecting. Maybe a message, a schedule change, or a question you can't answer immediately. You feel that familiar pull to figure everything out. Picture yourself briefly opening your hands again. One hand makes room for what you don't know. The other reminds you that something meaningful is still available to you.
You haven't solved every possibility.
But you haven't disappeared into them, either.
Integrate | Carry It Into Your Week
Let's make that same experience a little easier to remember.
Choose one ordinary moment that's likely to happen this week: opening your laptop to begin the workday. Try connecting the practice to that moment.
"When I open my laptop, I'll briefly turn my palms upward and remind myself that I can care about what happens without needing to know everything yet."
Imagine that moment now. The laptop opens. Your mind begins its familiar predictions. Your hands open for just a moment. You remember that uncertainty and what matters to you can coexist.
That's it.
Over the next seven days, there may be opportunities to notice this familiar pattern again. Sometimes you'll remember the practice. Sometimes you'll be halfway through a spiral before you notice. Sometimes you'll forget entirely. None of those experiences mean you've failed.
The opportunity isn't to become someone who never worries. It's to begin recognizing that uncertainty doesn't have to determine how you spend every moment that follows. And each time you remember, you have another opportunity to practice.
Small Steps Are Better Shared
You probably know someone whose mind is already trying to solve next week, too. If this invitation feels meaningful, consider sharing it with them. Not because you have an answer for everything they're carrying. Simply because there's something connecting about remembering that none of us has to have everything figured out to deserve a meaningful life.
Normalize Mental Health. Share a Resource. Open a Door.
Some moments call for deeper reflection. Others call for a small, accessible experience right when life feels like too much.
That's why I’ve created the Pocket Wellness: 30 Small Ways to Meet the Moments When Life Asks Too Much of You. The My Brain Won't Stop collection within it offers additional small invitations for those times when your thoughts seem to have taken over the room.
For those who would like more guided practice with uncertainty, Permission to Be Uncertain™ is one of The Red Door's psychoeducational Signature Groups for adults in Colorado.
It's an opportunity to explore patterns of overthinking, mental checking, and reassurance seeking while practicing a more flexible relationship with uncertainty alongside others who understand the experience.
Explore Permission to Be Uncertain™
You don't need to master uncertainty this week. Recognizing one moment when you can make room for both not knowing and what matters is already meaningful practice.
That deserves a happy dance!
Small steps open big doors. Keep going. 💜