The Shutdown (A sacred pause when life gets too loud)

Storm (n.)

A divine disruption designed to shake, shape, and strengthen you; not sent to destroy, but to develop deeper truth, clarity, and alignment within.

Shutdown (n.)

A sacred soul response to overwhelm; a spiritual recalibration moment where you pause, get still, and gather your strength to endure, evolve, and hear what chaos tries to silence.

There’s a moment that comes, not with a bang, not with a scream, not even with tears. It creeps in like a whisper wrapped in cement shoes. And suddenly… You can’t move.

Not emotionally. Not mentally. Sometimes not even physically. It’s not a “pause.” It’s not a nap. It’s a shutdown. I’m not talking about the kind of shutdown you recover from with a spa day and a smoothie. No ma’am. I’m talking about that deep soul silence that hits when life is so loud, it knocks the strength out of your belief system and the wind out of your sails.

Your body knows before your mouth can form the words. Your breath shortens. Your eyes feel dry, not because you’ve cried, but because even your tears are in line like:

“We don’t even know what to do with this one, sis.”

And all of a sudden… You stop. Not a rolling stop, the kind we fake at stop signs when nobody’s looking. No. This is a full-body, soul-stirring, spirit-grabbing STOP. And I’ve felt this. More times than I care to count. (And yes, even the strong ones shut down too.) I used to get so overwhelmed. So frustrated. And if I’m keeping it a full hundred, angry. Angry that I couldn’t catch a break. Angry that life just kept life-ing like it had personal beef with me. Angry that no matter how much I prayed, believed, declared, and decreed, my response in the storm didn’t match the faith I claimed to carry. Whew. (Felt good to get that out.)

But it wasn’t about perfection, it was about alignment. I didn’t want to say one thing and feel another. I wanted my faith walk and my faith talk to actually be on speaking terms. And if you’ve ever had that inner tug… That divine revelation trying to knock on your spirit in the middle of the chaos… But you were too distracted by the thunder to hear it? Yeah. That part. For me, the shutdown became sacred. Because in the stillness, I realized I had a pattern. And that pattern wasn’t producing peace, It was recycling pain.

I would read Psalm 91 like it was a prescription:

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High..." Again. And again. And again."

But… I still felt overwhelmed. Still felt tired. Still felt like I was spiritually running on two bars of battery and a cracked screen. And let’s be real, I wanted a break. But God gave me revelation instead. Rude. But divine. It wasn’t until I started redirecting my energy, from panic to presence. From worry to wisdom. From frustration to focus, that I started gaining clarity.

No, the storms didn’t get easier. They just stopped catching me off guard and getting the best of me.

I started asking myself:

• What is this teaching me?

• Where am I being invited to grow?

• How can I honor my nervous system instead of shocking it every week like it’s on an emotional rollercoaster?

  
  

And I stopped trying to outrun storms I was meant to learn from. Through prayer, meditation, breathwork, and the sacred gift of being present, I stopped seeing the shutdown as weakness, and started seeing it as sacred strategy. Because sometimes, God will literally shut you down to keep you from shutting all the way off. That shutdown? It was protection. Preservation. A divine intervention to help me recalibrate.

So now? When life starts “life-ing” again? I don’t lose it. I locate myself.

I ask for strength. I open my umbrella. I plant my heels in the soil of my faith. And I wait for the wind to whisper what it came to teach me. Because storms still come. They’re supposed to. But I’m no longer scared to get a little wet if it means I grow.

I want to be clear about something:

Shutdown doesn’t mean I’m avoiding life. It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring what needs to be handled. It doesn’t mean I don’t have responsibilities or real-life stuff going on. Shutdown means I go still. I get anchored. I take deep, holy breaths. I get groundated (yes, that’s a word now, grounded + calibrated). I check my internal temperature. And I chill in my spirit long enough to keep myself from getting swept away by the waves.

Because let’s be honest, sometimes a drizzle hits and our emotions react like it’s a tsunami, tornado, and hurricane all rolled into one. (And depending on what you’ve already been through, it feels like that.)

And maybe, just maybe, it is a full-on storm.

But the question becomes:

"Am I going to float out into the chaos, flail, and panic?” Or am I going to remember that I can float... I can breathe... And I do know how to swim, even in the deep?

I’m not letting life take me out with the same wave every time. I’m not letting my nervous system pay the price for my lack of strategy. I’m not letting temporary circumstances convince me that I don’t have eternal backing.

So yes, sometimes, I shut down. But not to escape… To reset. To recalibrate. To re-enter the storm with a clearer head, a grounded heart, and a fortified spirit.

In Reflection:

• Where in your life are you still reacting instead of recalibrating?

• When was the last time you honored your shutdown moment as holy, instead of hiding it?

• What revelation might be buried under your resistance?

• Have you confused stillness with surrender? Or avoidance with anchoring?

  
  

“Sometimes the stop isn’t failure—it’s the Spirit putting your soul in recovery mode.” – YMC

Still here. Still standing. Still sacred.

Holding Space with grace,

Yahminah