#214

We celebrate beginnings.

The courage to start.

The excitement and sometimes dread of something new.

We also notice endings.

The relief, the grief.

The closed doors, or the half-closed ones.

But what about the middle?

The space between the end and the beginning.

The space we rarely talk about.

It’s rarely as neat as this ends, then that begins.

Usually, there’s a middle.

And usually…it’s messy.

Anthropologists call it a liminal space - from the Latin limen, meaning “threshold.”

It’s the awkward in-between where the old identity has slipped away, but the new one hasn’t quite formed.

You’ve left the job but haven’t found your rhythm in the new one.

The kids have moved out but the “empty nest” doesn’t yet feel like home.

You’ve ended a relationship but haven’t stepped into the next chapter of connection.

Even in smaller ways - finishing one project, returning from holiday, waiting for the next thing - life is full of these liminal spaces.

And let’s be honest:

They can be uncertain.

They can be uncomfortable.

They feel like nothing is happening.

But here’s the whisper:

The spaces between are where some of the most important shifts occur.

Like seeds under the soil, change is happening - even if you can’t see it yet.

Old stories loosen.

New possibilities emerge.

Identity reshapes itself quietly in the dark.

The temptation is to rush through, to get to clarity.

But rushing means we miss the gift.

The gift of reflection.

The gift of imagination.

The gift of not-knowing long enough for a new knowing to arrive.

So maybe the invitation is this:

Don’t hurry the next beginning.

Sit in the messy middle just a little longer.

Trust the in-between.

Some questions for you this week:

- What ending am I still processing?

- Where am I standing on a threshold, not fully in the old and not yet in the new?

- What is whispering to me in this liminal space?

- If I didn’t rush through it, what might I discover here?

- How could I make peace with the “not yet”?