How to Move Through Uncertainty (Without Feeling Stuck or Overthinking)

By Sherraine Miller, LPC, ATR-P

Something that comes up quite frequently in the therapeutic journey is learning to sit with uncertainty. While that notion is valuable, it can also feel incomplete. When we’re “sitting with it” the goal is typically in an effort to put an end to discomfort. Finding a sense of relief is often lost though. So when the relief doesn’t come, it can lead to overthinking, feeling stuck, or waiting for a sense of clarity that never quite arrives. 

The reality is that ambiguity and nuance are a very natural part of our internal worlds, and when we have mixed feelings, unclear direction, or competing needs, they don’t become problems to eliminate. The ambiguity becomes something we have to move through once we recognize it’s there. 

Uncertainty and our response to it can be laced with discomfort. Some of us find ourselves moving quickly to resolve it by making quick decisions in order to escape the discomfort of not knowing or the unfamiliarity of circumstances. Others stay in a prolonged space of reflection, hoping clarity will eventually appear. That space becomes a sense of stuckness, where old behaviors cease to work and new paths to moving forward are unclear.  Each response is an understandable attempt to cope. Yet neither create much movement or growth.

Engaging with Ambiguity 

Tolerating our uncertainty is one piece. It allows space for not knowing, for anxiety, fear, depression, and other emotions to flow, while staying in relationship with your experience. To take the next step, you don’t need some fully formed answer or resolution though. Without engaging with what you’re feeling or noticing, ambiguity can remain abstract—something you think about, opposed to something you interact with. This is how we get stuck. 

Unprocessed or unexpressed ambiguity can become: 

● Rumination 

● Heightened anxiety 

● A sense of passivity or lack of direction 

● More questions than answers 

● Missed opportunities 

● Decision paralysis or poor decision making 

● Lack of growth 

● Stagnation 

● Assumptions 

When we are feeling stuck, the goal isn’t about forcing clarity or remaining inactive. The goal becomes finding ways to engage with our uncertainty in a more active and tangible way. We create movement.

Using Art to Work With Uncertainty 

Art can offer us something new, fresh, and different. Not because it will provide answers, but because it offers a way to do something with experiences that feel unclear. Engaging your creativity can help externalize thoughts and feelings, experiment with undefined outcomes, make choices without having full clarity, and stay engaged with the discomfort , even when direction seems far away. The goal here is interacting with ambiguity, rather than avoiding or sitting in it. 

What’s great about art, is there is little to no “right” way to proceed, which uniquely mirrors everyday decision making. Through creativity, questions naturally arise, such as: 

● What am I making? 

● Is this working? 

● Is there something forming? 

● Should I change direction? 

And even while these come up, the creative process continues. Every mark you make, color choice, or shift becomes a small decision made that lacks complete certainty. But that lack is not an issue, because overtime these small decisions in the uncertainty build a novel kind of tolerance—not just for ambiguity itself, but for moving within it. 

From Awareness to Movement 

Engaging with ambiguity doesn’t necessarily lead to an immediate sense of clarity. However, what it can lead to is something just as useful. When we engage with ambiguity a movement, or shift, arises. A shift from “I don’t know” to “I notice…” 

That shift is meaningful for a relief from the stress of uncertainty. From the awareness, no matter how partial or evolving, small movements make trying new things, adjusting direction, and letting go of things that no matter fit, become possible. And these are not final answers, they are steps. 

It’s funny because clarity is often treated as something we need to have before we act. How often does clarity come first though? In many cases, it doesn’t. Clarity comes from action—through engagement, experimenting, and allowing something to take shape over time. Uncertainty doesn’t have to be resolved before moving forward. 

While the middle space—ambiguity, and even nuance—are very much allowed to exist, they don’t have to remain untouched. Which ultimately means there is no reason to avoid it, or spin around just stuck. Even without it all figured out, you can begin, adjust, and respond, not to find answers but to stay engaged long enough for something meaningful to emerge. Through those journeys, your ambiguity may cease to exist.