I’m going to let you in on a secret: one of the biggest reasons we get stuck on things that matter is because we have it backwards how to get unstuck…
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We’re so often fed this false narrative that everything good comes through struggling. I beg to differ: the struggle comes when we can’t see what we want and we let that question get big without kicking the proverbial tire, without jostling it around, without bringing it out into the daylight.
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There’s an expression that’s bandied about that says that happiness is reality minus expectations. I used to think about this as an admonishment to keep your expectations low. But, as I surf the sea of the unknown myself, and as I support others in the same situation (I’m a liminal zone guide), I’ve begun to think of it differently.
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I believe each liminal zone we enter is there to ask us a question that we benefit from getting clear on. (I used to believe liminal zones were there just to drive us batty, and I mostly don’t think that now, so I’d call that progress ;) So, once I can get past the sheer pain (most liminal zones we don’t choose start off with a good dose of hurt), what I’ve found helpful is to start to look for the question this time is asking me. Sometimes it takes a while to unearth the question. Sometimes it’s buried in so many things all feeling uncertain at once.
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I usually write and release this blog on Fridays, but it was on Friday morning that I heard that I don’t have a home.
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I tried to write about this last week, and a different story came out. In fact, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t write the story I meant to. Until yesterday, when I realized it was because I don’t have the answers (oh, how liminal of me!), and that was irking me. I still don’t, but instead of answers, I’m going to lay out the question. Perhaps we can solve it together.
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Transformation is an immensely personal process. It takes bravery to begin and bravery to continue. From the outside, it doesn’t always make sense. That’s okay. The only person it really has to make sense to is you. But therein lies the challenge: holding firm to your own conviction, in the face of inevitable uncertainty.
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Today, I want to whisk us back to one of my most surprising periods of change. Because, looking back with the expertise I now hold, I realized that I did a lot of things right without realizing it. And that it was no coincidence that this particular period of liminality led to my dream job and opened the door to even greater opportunities I could never have imagined.
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that elevator ride is an apt analogy for our common vernacular about life’s liminal zones (the time between an ending and a new beginning): they’re best gotten through as quickly as possible, with very few people traveling with you. The expectation is that you go in one side and you’re spit out the other end near instantaneously. Voila: you’re in a new world. And yet, they often feel more like that cramped ride, trapped between floors. Whyyyy am I still here? Who are these people asking me when it will be over? Why is it so hot in here?
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Would you park in a spot labeled 13? Stay on the 13th floor? This is my 13th post since I rebooted this blog, and it got me thinking. In the U.S., we consider 13 an unlucky number. So much so that as many as 85% of tall buildings go straight from floor 12 to 14. But, I’ve lived around the world and found that 13 is not a universally unlucky number. The Chinese take great pains to avoid 4, because it sounds similar to the word for death. In Japan, it’s 9, in Italy, it’s 17. And so on. So is 13 really bad? But what does this have to do with getting unstuck?
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What do all of these athletes have in common, besides the gleaming gold medals around their necks?
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If I asked you to picture a midlife crisis, I think I can safely guess what would pop to mind first. Fancy sports cars? Divorce? A younger partner? Quitting your job? Whether or not you believe that, it’s been a pervading cultural myth: with midlife comes a breakdown of some sort….So I looked up the etymology of the word crisis, and wouldn’t you know: It variously means decision or turning point.
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