The Pressure of the Unknown: Learning to Stand When Nothing Feels Secure

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
A Different Kind of Monday
It’s Monday morning.
Not Sunday.
And that shift matters more than I expected.
Because Sunday carries rest…
but Monday carries reality.
Last week I completed orientation, and now I’m stepping into something that doesn’t feel settled yet. There’s no rhythm. No confidence in routine. No sense of familiarity that I can lean on.
Just movement into something unknown.
And if I’m being honest, I can feel the weight of that.
A Season I Didn’t Prepare For
This isn’t just a new job.
It’s a completely different season of life.
And it’s come with a kind of pressure I wasn’t ready for.
Because in a very short space of time, things that were constant for years are suddenly gone.
No Runaway Bay after 13 years.
No familiar structure.
No place where I automatically know where I fit.
And I didn’t realise how much of my sense of stability was tied into those things until they were removed.
What Those Years Actually Built
When I look back now, those years weren’t just time.
They built something in me.
Working in Runaway Bay, moving through Target, TerryWhite Chemmart, Woolworths those places became more than jobs.
They became rhythm.
They became familiarity.
They became a kind of quiet grounding that I didn’t have to think about.
I knew where I stood.
I knew how the day would move.
I knew the environment well enough that even when things were hard… I wasn’t lost inside them.
And when you live in that kind of structure long enough, you stop recognising it as support.
You just think it’s normal.
When That Structure Disappears
And then one day it’s gone.
Not gradually.
Not in a way that gives you time to adjust.
But in a way that forces you to step out of it completely.
And suddenly everything that felt stable becomes memory.
You don’t know the system anymore.
You don’t know the rhythm.
You don’t know how you’re going to respond in situations that haven’t happened yet.
And that’s where I find myself now.
When Identity Gets Exposed
What this season is doing more than anything is exposing where I’ve been finding my security.
Because for years, I had something predictable.
Something that anchored me.
And now that’s been stripped back.
And without it, there’s a deeper question sitting underneath everything:
Who am I when I don’t feel secure?
Not when things are working.
Not when I feel confident.
But right here in the middle of uncertainty.
The Unknown and What It Does Internally
The unknown doesn’t always come as panic.
Sometimes it’s quieter than that.
It lingers.
It sits underneath your thoughts like a constant hum.
“Is this going to work?”
“Have I taken on too much?”
“What if this doesn’t stabilise?”
And that’s where I’m at right now.
I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.
Not because the work itself is impossible…
But because everything around it is new at the same time.
Pressure From Every Direction
It’s not just one thing.
It’s everything… at once.
New environment.
New expectations.
New systems.
New people.
New internal pressure.
And no solid ground yet.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Because outside of this new season of work, my life hasn’t slowed down to make space for the transition.
If anything it’s intensified.
The Pressure Cooker
I’m not just stepping into something new.
I’m juggling multiple things at the same time.
Refined by Fire Press something I feel deeply responsible to build.
Porky’s Paradise rubs, spices, a vision that has grown into something real.
Bible College at Kings Church being stretched, challenged, shaped.
And another book project something personal, psychological, requiring me to sit with parts of my life that aren’t always easy to face.
When Everything Collides
Individually, each of these things makes sense.
Each one has purpose.
Each one feels aligned.
But together
It feels like I’m living in multiple universes that are all colliding at the same time.
Work is one world.
Refined by Fire Press is another.
Porky’s Paradise is another.
Bible College is another.
And this new book project that’s a world of its own entirely.
And instead of existing separately
They’re all overlapping.
All demanding attention.
All carrying weight.
All pulling on different parts of me at once.
When Everything Feels “On” at Once
There’s no real off switch.
Even when I stop physically moving
Internally, it’s still running.
Still processing.
Still carrying.
Still trying to make sense of everything.
And that’s where the pressure builds.
Because it’s not just external responsibility
It’s internal weight.
The Weight of Carrying It All
And if I’m honest…
I can feel myself trying to carry everything.
Trying to hold it all together.
Trying to make sure nothing drops.
Trying to prove even to myself that I can handle it.
But the truth is
I don’t feel like I have full control over any of it right now.
Struggling to Trust God in the Process
This is probably the hardest part to admit.
But it’s real.
I’m struggling to trust God in this process.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
But quietly internally.
Where I say I trust Him
But I’m still trying to manage everything myself.
Because the unknown scares me.
And when things feel unstable, my instinct is to take control.
To figure it out.
To stabilise it.
To make sure it works.
But the more I try to do that
The more pressure I feel.
The Mind Under Load
There are moments where my mind doesn’t just think
It opens.
Like too many tabs running at once.
Everything overlapping.
Everything louder than it should be.
And even when nothing externally is chaotic…
Internally, it feels like overload.
Learning to Observe Instead of React
One of the shifts happening slowly is this:
I’m learning to observe what’s happening internally
instead of reacting to it.
Not every thought needs agreement.
Not every feeling needs action.
Some things just need to be seen
and not followed.
The Illusion of Control
I used to think growth meant becoming more in control.
But this season is teaching me something different.
Growth isn’t always about gaining control.
Sometimes it’s about releasing it.
The Serenity I’m Learning to Live
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I’m not just hearing those words anymore.
I’m feeling them.
Sitting at His Feet
There’s something simple that keeps coming back:
sitting at His feet
Not fixing.
Not striving.
Not proving.
Just being.
A Broader Call Emerging
Even in this pressure
I can feel something forming.
Uganda.
Papua New Guinea.
The United States.
France.
Places that feel distant now
but connected to something deeper.
Standing in the Middle
Right now
I’m not at the beginning.
But I’m not settled either.
I’m in the middle.
And the middle is uncomfortable.
The Quiet Realisation
I don’t need to have everything figured out.
I don’t need to feel secure to keep moving.
I don’t need to control the outcome.
Moving Forward
So this Monday morning feels different.
Not calm.
Not certain.
Not fully confident.
But real.
And maybe that’s enough.
Just the willingness to keep going
even when it feels like I’ve taken on more than I can handle.
 Final Word
This is not the end of the process.
It’s the middle of it.
And maybe learning to stand in the middle
is where everything begins to change.

About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.7 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

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