mossyrocks

I'm in my last semester of my MA program in religion. To be honest I've had a really difficult time adjusting and doing as well as I had hoped. My grades are definitely not as good as they should be to get into a PhD program, and in consequence I've lost a bit of confidence and drive to keep going. So I decided to take a gap year because I didn't feel like my application was strong enough or that I would get good enough recommendations. I was told by many people that taking a year off would look like a lapse from academia and that it would look bad on my application. It would look like I was lazy and tired of the academic life, but I do want to get away from it for a bit in order to get some perspective on things. I haven't given up on pursuing my PhD but I do feel like I need to do something different for a while. Have I shot myself in the foot and screwed up my chances of getting into a PhD program in the future? Does anyone have any personal experiences or advice they could give me?