Waiting on the Threshold of Change
How to navigate the liminal space in between
“Honor the space between no longer
and not yet.”
Nancy Levin
To many of us, the end of the old year and beginning of the new signifies a time of transition. It’s a time to think about the year that’s just past, and plan for what’s ahead. As a child, after Christmas I would have new things to add to my toy and book collections and I’d often pick that time off school to rearrange my room. I’d spend a lot of time daydreaming about what’s ahead.
I’ve also heard this time period referred to as a liminal space. I was curious, so I looked up the meaning of liminal space or liminal period and here’s what I discovered.
According to a Google dictionary definition, “Liminal space refers to the place a person is in during a transitional period. It's a gap, and can be physical (like a doorway), emotional (like a divorce) or metaphorical (like a decision).” Psychologists call the time between life changes and big transitions a liminal phase. “It’s as if you’re standing in a doorway between 2 rooms and you can’t move forward or backward.”
The word “limin” comes from the Latin word for threshold. It’s a crossing over space; that time where you are leaving something behind but haven’t fully embraced what’s ahead; a transition space.
Liminal spaces may be imposed on us through change, and we can also create our own liminal spaces just by pressing pause on our lives for a short time. Sometimes our lives are disrupted by an unexpected event or illness, like what I experienced this year over the holidays when I was sick for several days. It felt to me like a liminal space. I spent three days not doing anything at all - no reading, no TV, no writing. I had no interest or energy for any of it. I just laid in bed with my eyes closed and let my body heal. It was like time stood still. I left the old year and went into the new with my life on pause.
And guess what? Life continued on around me. Nothing horrible happened. Pressing pause for a few days didn’t cause my life to implode. What it did do was create some space and now I feel like I’m starting things fresh again with renewed energy.
The liminal space is a waiting space and we get to decide how we want to think and feel about this time. It can be a time when you have thoughts that you don’t know what to do and you end up spinning in indecision. Or, it can become a creative period where you brainstorm all kinds of ideas. Sometimes you move quickly through this space and sometimes it takes more time as you go through the process of change.
There’s no hurry and always enough time. Whatever the reason you ended up in this space, taking those tiny turtle steps forward in your own time will always get you there.
The liminal space gives us time to practice the pause and notice how we’re showing up for ourselves and others. It can bring us face-to-face with our fears and cause us to question everything we’ve ever learned. In her book, Finding Your Own North Star, my mentor Martha Beck describes this stage as being in Square One. It’s the caterpillar in the chrysalis that is dissolving into the gooey fluid that will eventually turn her into a beautiful butterfly.
As you’re starting this new year, you may have set some new intentions and be ready to start some new habits, and that’s the advantage of having a liminal time to plan. You may want to keep moving forward towards something you’ve already started, or completely let yourself dissolve like the caterpillar in the chrysalis and become something totally new.
Journal Prompts - The Liminal Space
Think about something you want and yet you’re waiting for the “right time” to start. It could be something that you want to do, experience, achieve, have, etc. It’s entirely up to you what this thing is and your imagination is the only limit.
As you’re sitting in this liminal place, waiting, notice your thoughts, emotions and feelings. What fears and/or resistance comes up for you? Here are some writing prompts to get you started:
I feel ______________________
I fear ______________________
I want _____________________
I plan to ____________________
I will _______________________
I’m learning _________________
I wish ______________________
What did you notice about this exercise? What can you take with you as you head into this new year?
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"I felt at complete ease with Sharon from our first conversation. She has a wonderful, gentle but firm way that made me focus on my thoughts / feelings so I could remove / change to move forward with a completely different feeling to what felt like obstacles. It was great having regular coaching that gently kept me accountable to actioning and moving towards my goals. Sharon has vast experience in so many areas, I felt that makes her an amazing coach.”
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