Have you ever had that untethered feeling where you don’t quite feel like you are anchored to a point? Where you are a bit adrift, like you’ve let go of the dock and started swimming out into the water but you can’t see the other shore yet?
There’s a word for that. It’s called liminality.
Wikipedia sums things up: Liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when you no longer hold your pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status you will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, you “stand at the threshold” between your previous way of structuring your identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.
Liminality = Where nothing is certain and everything is possible and everything feels freakin’ HARD.
This is when you are tired of being busy, tired of burning out, and frustrated with not being able to get new habits to stick. This place sends most people back into the arms of a lifestyle that doesn’t serve them or their big dreams because this place of uncertainty is uncomfortable AF.
Your nervous system may be used to a frenetic pace so anything slower freaks it out. You’re comfortable with adrenaline rush. You may have built incredible things in your life with hard work and long hours and you may not be able to sustain that pace anymore (no human could). You may feel ashamed of cracking under the weight of all the responsibilities in your life.
What will happen when you stop busting your ass 24/7? Will your whole world come crashing down? Are you going to lose any support you may have had? What will other people think? Are you somehow failing at this life thing?!
If you can relate to any of this, the terror is real and it makes complete sense. When you don’t know what’s next, the familiar, even if it’s not serving you, is better than the unknown.
But there is a different way to approach the unknown.
Liminality is the space where you let go of the things you know and explore the things that could be. Who could you be with a different pace of life? What would become possible if you weren’t always exhausted and overwhelmed? What could you actually accomplish in your life if you created a new paradigm?
These are the big questions I dig into with my one-on-one clients. And it’s work that’s available to you if you need a helping hand while you’re trying to reach (or even define) the other side of your threshold.
People that hire me are smart, ambitious, extraordinarily capable and things are simply not working out in their lives. They are stuck in the go-hard-and-crash cycle. They have super ambitious and achievable goals that are getting away from them. Their brains are spinning with all the stuff they need to do and don’t have the energy for.
Is this you?
I’d love to help out.
I have room for a few new one-on-one clients. And my rates are going up next year.
This work is deep and brave stuff and I know it takes guts to make the first step. Many of my clients admit to me that they considered working with me for months or even YEARS before they hired me. Because they were scared.
I get it. And this isn’t for everyone. But if it’s for you, let’s talk.
You can click here to book a free consult. Or you can contact me here and tell me you’re interested.
If you’re ready to take that scary first step, I’m ready to usher you in gently on the other side.
In one of the best emails I’ve received from clients at the end of our work together, they wrote: “It literally feels like the stars are aligning. I feel a mixture of relief and disbelief that I am the type of person to whom this could happen… I just always admired/looked up to people who got to do the sort of thing I get to do right now, and it’s kind of nice to realize – oh, wait, I AM that person. Makes me want to dream of bigger things.”
I’ve seen it so many times that I can assure you that you are going to get through this. You are going to create a new normal. And you are going to thrive.
It’s time for you to cross the threshold. It’s time for you to dream of bigger things.