How God Pulled Me Out of Emotional Paralysis (and How You Can Find Freedom Too)

When I was a kid, my mom didn’t wake me up by flipping on the lights or dragging me out of bed.

She would stand in the doorway and say my name softly… then leave.

A few minutes later, she’d come back—this time a little louder, a little more urgent.

And then again.

Each time, just enough to pull me closer to being awake… but never forcing me out of bed.

And looking back over the last year…

I can clearly see that is what God did for me.

Not a jarring wake-up call.
Not a dramatic moment where everything changed.

Just gentle nudges… over and over again.

I didn’t realize It at the time, but I was slipping into something deeper—something I can now only describe as emotional paralysis.

Have you ever felt stuck?

Like you wake up, go about your normal routine, and do what absolutely has to get done…
but that’s it?

You know there are things you should do.
Dinner. Laundry. Mail. Projects. Your kids. Your marriage. Your friendships. Yourself.

But instead of moving forward, you find yourself doing just enough to get by…

…and wondering what’s wrong with you.

That quiet, stuck feeling has a name—and for many of us, it’s emotional paralysis.

Emotional paralysis isn’t laziness.

It’s what happens when you mind and body feel overwhelmed, unsafe, or unresolved—and instead of moving forward, you shut down.

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to stop showing up for my life.

From the outside, I looked fine.

I was friendly at work.
Helpful even.
Present with my extended family.

But at home… everything was different.

I’d find myself lying in bed at the end of the day, frustrated with myself for letting another day go by without doing the things I needed to so—but couldn’t bring myself to even attempt.

From the outside, I looked functional.
Inside, I was shutting down.

That’s what emotional paralysis felt like for me—functioning on the outside, but stuck on the inside.

My house stayed messy for months.

Mail piled up. Bills went unpaid until either I remembered… or was forced to deal with them.

It didn’t matter if the money was in the bank or not.

My husband and I started fighting more.

Friendships faded.

And there was this strange disconnect between what I wanted to do… and what I could actually bring myself to do.

I had ideas. Vision. Creativity.

But no movement.

Last summer, while preparing my school for the new year, I was already running on empty.

The beginning of the school year is always intense, and I didn’t have anything left over at the end of the day.

Not for my home.
Not for my health.
Not for what I knew God had called me to do.

I didn’t have the energy to create content for Simply Waterbury.

And that started to weigh on me.

Because I knew what God had placed on my heart.

Simply Shielded.

A prayer resource to help women connect with Him in a real, practical way.

I could see it in my head…

…but I couldn’t bring it to life.

And instead of facing that?

I found something else.

A dream I had one night turned into a book idea.

And it consumed me.

Every quiet moment at work, I was building the story.
Every break, I was writing scenes or characters.
Every bit of free time I had… went to that.

Not my house.
Not my responsibilities.
Not my calling.

Just a distraction that felt productive… but was quietly pulling me further into emotional paralysis.

At some point, I knew.

I knew I was distracting myself.

I just didn’t know why.

I told myself it was spiritual warfare.

That I just needed to fight harder.

So I signed up for a Bible study at my church—Freedom.

I had taken it before during one of the darkest seasons of my life, and it had helped me fight through so much.

I believed it would do the same thing again.

But this time was different.

I knew the material. I knew the answers.

But I struggled to engage.

Still, I went to the conference at the end.

And that’s where something shifted.

During the second day, I connected with God more deeply than I ever had before.

But that closeness came with exposure.

God showed me the parts of my life that weren’t healed.

The places where I had forgiven—but hadn’t fully processed.

Childhood wounds.
Pain in my marriage.
Rejection I had buried.

I released things that weekend.

But I wasn’t fully healed yet.

And I still didn’t understand what was happening inside of me.

You can read more of this experience in this post, “I Went to War This Weekend.”

By the time winter came…

I knew something else, too.

God had told me to prepare our house to list in January.

And I hadn’t done it.

Instead of correcting myself…

I shut down.

One night, I hit a breaking point.

I walked into our room, ripped the prayer and vision board off the wall—the one I had made about the promise God gave us of a new house and a baby—and threw them in the trash.

I ripped down the prayers I had written for my husband and my daughter too.

And I said out loud,

“I give up.”

I told my husband I was done.

Done trying.
Done building.
Done hoping.

And in that moment… I meant it.

But even then…

God didn’t leave me.

Not when I shut down.
Not when I gave up.
Not when I walked away from what He had told me to do.

Instead…

He started nudging me again.

And this time, I responded differently.

I decided to start small.

I wrote out prayers.

Simple ones.

Things I could repeat when I didn’t have the energy to think.

Prayers for:

• my health
• my family
• our finances
• our home
• the promise God gave me
• what I thought was just burnout

And at the same time, I decided to read through the Gospels during lent.

Just one or two chapters a day.

Nothing overwhelming.

Just… showing up.

As I started slowing down… and actually sitting with God instead of avoiding everything…

something else started coming to the surface.

The house.

Not just the situation.

Not just the stress.

But what it actually did to me.

I realied something I hadn’t fully let myself admit before…

I hadn’t been myself for a long time.

Not just for a few months.

Not just during this season.

But for years.

Looking back, I can see it now.

From the moment the house was sold out from under us…

…the years fighting in court…

something in me started to fade.

Slowly.
Quietly.

I learned how to funciton.
I learned to push through.
I learned how to survive.

But I wasn’t free anymore.

And I don’t think I ever fully came out of that survival mode.

Even now…

I avoid the mail.

I avoid email.

Every unexpected knock at the door makes my stomach drop.

Even though everything is settled…
even though we’re years past it…

my body still remembers.

And I started to realize…

this wasn’t just something I went through.

It became something that lived in me.

The effects of trauma bring it back every single day.

Part of me always knew it.

It’s why I’ve felt this deep urgency—almost desperation at times—to move forward… to leave this house… to step into something new that isn’t tied to what happened here.

Because the truth is…

the last time I truly felt free
was before we ever started house hunting in the first time.

And I didn’t fully realize until now…

I’ve been trying to get back to that version of myself ever since.

I can see now how much of that time… I was living in emotional paralysis without even realizing it.

And I didn’t even realize how far I had drifted… until God started calling me back.

And somewhere in the middle of that…

Something clicked.

I remembered all the research I had done while writing my book.

The trauma responses.

Fight.
Flight.
Freeze.
Fawn.

I had written about it.

Studied it.

Seen it so clearly in the character I was creating.

And suddenly…

I saw it in myself.

I wasn’t just overwhelmed.

I wasn’t just burned out.

I was frozen—emotionally paralyzed.

Everything finally made sense.

The disconnection.
The avoidance.
The inability to move forward.

It wasn’t laziness.

It was a response.

As I started coming out of it, God brought me back to His truth.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

And for the first time…

I wasn’t frustrated by the timing anymore.

I was relieved.

Because I could see that God wasn’t late.

He was healing me.

Slowly. Intentionally. Completely.

In John 8:36, it says:

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Jesus had already set me free.

I just wasn’t living like I was.

And in Romans 8:28:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him…”

Even this.

Even the delay.

Even the season where I shut down.

God was using it.

Now, looking back…

I can see that this season wasn’t just about a house.

Or a baby.

Or even the timing of everything.

It was about healing.

The kind I didn’t even realize I still needed.

And now…

I’m building what I couldn’t before.

Simply Shielded.

Not from a place of pressure.

But from a place of understanding.

Because I know what it feels like to be stuck.

To be disconnected.

To want to move forward… and not be able to.

And I know what it looks like when God meets you there.

I don’t know your story.

I don’t know what you’ve been through… or what parts of your past still show up in your present.

But I do know what it feels like to be stuck.

And I know what it feels like to need help getting out of it.

In Luke 5, there’s a story about a paralyzed me.

He couldn’t get to Jesus on his own.

So his friends carried him.

And when they couldn’t get through the crowd, they didn’t give up.

They climbed up on the roof, tore it open, and lowered him down right in front of Jesus.

Jesus saw him.

He forgave him.

And then He told him:

“Get up, take your mat and go home.”

And he did.

The Chosen did an amazing job depicting this scene. Watch it here.

That story has never felt more personal to me than it does right now.

Because for a long time…

I couldn’t move.

Not physically.

But emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally.

I was stuck.

And what I needed most wasn’t more pressure…

It was help getting back to Jesus.

So if you feel frozen right now—

like you can’t move forward,
like you don’t even know where to start,
like something inside of you just won’t respond—

I want to be the kind of friend who helps carry you there.

The kind that won’t leave you stuck.

The kind that believes there is still healing for you.

Because if you belong to Jesus…

you are not stuck forever.

Just remember that verse in John:

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

You are free.

Even if you don’t feel like it yet.

Even if you’re still sitting on the mat.

Even if all you can do right now is let someone help carry you.

I’m not going to give you a step-by-step plan.

But I do want to give you somewhere to begin.

Because when you feel stuck—when emotional paralysis has been holding you back—the hardest part isn’t knowing what to do…

…it’s taking the first step.

So if you don’t know what to say to God right now, you can start here:

God,

I don’t fully understand what’s going on in me right now… but You do.

You see the parts of me that feel stuck.
The parts I’ve been avoiding.
The things I don’t know how to face.

And even here… You haven’t left me.

Thank You for continuing to come after me—even when I’ve pulled away.

Help me to hear You.

Help me to respond—even if it’s just in small ways.

Give me the courage to face what’s underneath this—not all at once… but with You.

Remind me that I’m not stuck forever.

Remind me that You are still working—even here.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

If that’s all you can pray right now… that’s enough.

But if you need help continuing—

I created something for you.

Something simple.
Something gentle.
Something to help you reconnect with God when you feel too stuck to know where to begin.

Especially if you feel like emotional paralysis has been holding you back.

It’s the first Simply Shielded resource.

Inside, you’ll find:

• a prayer you can keep somewhere visible
• scriptures with simple guided prayers
• journal prompts to help you process what’s really going on
• a truth sheet to remind you what’s real when your thoughts feel overwhelming

You don’t have to figure everything out today.

You just need a place to start.