How to Be in the Space Inbetween 'No Longer' and 'Not Yet'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unprecedented, inconceivable, new normal, challenging and difficult, are words that have echoed for the past year and I am sure that many people fostered the hope or the expectation that 2021 would be different, offering more stability and predictability.

Then new strains of COVID-19 were identified, and the infection rate and numbers increased.

This is not what we hoped for, what we longed for. In conversation with colleagues and clients, I have heard expressions of fatigue or exhaustion instead of the usual excitement and motivation of the start of a new year.

This fatigue might be because 2021 did not bring with it ‘new beginnings’ or ‘change’ but rather we have stayed in a place of transition – the neutral or liminal space between endings and new beginnings. We are in the space between no longer and not yet.

This period can be a period of great anxiety because we have left the way things used to be, but we have not yet established a new way of being. Liminal space is a space in which creation happens, out of which things are born. New things, new beginnings, new ways. But it is a painful and sometimes overwhelming process to create or birth into existence new life. In endings there is darkness and in new beginnings the promise of light, but in liminal space there is a dance of dark and light.

Too often we just want to ‘get better’ or ‘get on with it’ but we don’t realise that a lot can happen in the ‘pauses’. In the development of emotional intelligence or healthy psychological development, it is important to rest, to pause, and to learn to identify and name our emotions, our needs, our physical sensations in order to create balance and coherence within our own internal system, especially during liminal space.

For example, if we look at music, “rest” is an interval of silence of a specified duration, where the musician pauses, the music stops, the suspense builds. You hear nothing happening but so much is happening within us during that time. Or when seeds are planted in the ground and are under a combination of the darkness, pressure and nutrition they sprout.

For weeks or months we may feel like nothing is happening, but underground something was at work, and eventually the plant sprouts as it breaks the ground and receives the sun’s rays, growing higher and higher until it blossoms.

We too can make use of our periods where we feel stagnant or stuck by reframing them as liminal spaces. A time to germinate, reconsider and engage in ritual.

What should you “do” in the liminal space?

Be curious about what seeds need to be watered in your inner world

Maybe this period in time invites you to curiously spend time and look at everything that is happening inside of you. This can be done through certain practices like journaling, meditation, creative expressions or therapy. What is germinating in you? Which thoughts, feelings, sensations, hopes, ideas, longings or wishes are moving in you? Have you considered looking at all of them with curiosity, with an openness and naming it?

Shift from doing to being

Build your tolerance to just ‘let it be’. Many of us are addicted to productivity or entertainment or both. We want to eliminate the difficult feelings of boredom or anxiety that come in liminal spaces when ‘nothing seems to be changing.’ However, very few new ways were born out of convenience or comfort. They are usually created out of the inconvenience or discomfort. And when we think nothing is happening, that is when the our unconscious mind is doings its work. By allowing yourself to be in this uncomfortable space without trying to distract yourself, you may actually give birth to many new ideas and new ways of being.

Create rituals
One of the things that seem to have been part of human society as long as it has existed is the practice of rituals. Casper ter Kuile, the author of the book The Power of Ritual, lays out four categories or types of rituals – those for connecting with yourself, rituals that connect you to others, nature, and to something transcendent. It can be activities or practices that we already might have in our lives without being aware of it, but we are now doing with with intention, attention and repetition.

Rituals are daily, weekly or specific periodically practices with a clear intention, a WHY. It can include generally identified religious rituals like prayer or readings but also family meals, daily walks or like Casper, taking a break from technology and digital devices which he calls his tech sabbath. 

Identify the activities you already do from time to time to get a sense of connection to self, others and something greater than yourself. If you have difficulty identifying something, try different activities like writing or other creative expressions, spiritual practices or mindful activities in nature.

 

So, while no one knows how long this COVID-19 liminal space will remain, instead of waiting for it to be over, you can harness the energy of this space by acknowledging the endings that have taken place over the last year in your life, and accepting that you will be uncomfortable in this space.

However, by not trying to rush out of this space, and instead spending your energy making meaning out of your day to day lives and activities through ritual, you can take these periods of transitions and make them into periods of transformations.

May you find rest and recovery through ritual in your life. 

 

This article was originally published in Arabian Business in December, 2021.