Latest / Unlocking The Paradigm Portal / Sunday Deep Dive: “There Is Wisdom In The Liminal Space”

Transcript

Sunday Deep Dive: “There Is Wisdom In The Liminal Space” · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

0:00
Good morning everyone. Welcome back to unlocking the
0:03
Paradigm portal. My name is Sarah.
0:05
So I haven't been around for the last week and honestly it was
0:09
kind of nice and it has me re evaluating how I'm going to do
0:14
all my episodes. And do I need to be so rigid in
0:17
the structure and the timing? Yes to an extent, no to another
0:21
extent. So I might play around with the
0:23
format a little bit and just let it be a little bit more free
0:27
flowing. So I've had a really interesting
0:30
week. And I know I say that every week
0:32
because frankly it's true. It has been my week of I'm doing
0:36
air quotes quietude. It has been my Roman week, the
0:40
week where my oldest baby that, well, my first baby passed away
0:45
and then was born 18 hours later.
0:48
Well, actually a little bit more than that.
0:49
But, and I wrote a whole post that I did put up there, not
0:54
intending to trigger anyone or freak anyone out, but it's a
0:57
significant moment that catalyzed everything in me.
1:01
And it's something that most people that have experienced it
1:04
feel the need to shove it under the rug to keep everybody else
1:07
feeling comfortable. And I do a solid middle finger
1:11
to that one. It was the most pivotal,
1:13
profound moment probably in my life.
1:15
And this week as I sat with it, and I mean, I'm past the point
1:20
of like grieving. There's a few tears, but not too
1:23
much. It's more contemplative.
1:25
And I worked, this was the first year that I worked on both of
1:28
those days. And I focused on family.
1:31
And I spent a lot of time alone just contemplating and thinking
1:35
and letting the pieces of the puzzle swirl together in my mind
1:38
and coming up with this feeling. And it was the term that I came
1:42
up with was active stillness because it felt so still, but it
1:46
was so active. And then this phrase popped into
1:48
my head. And if you remember the episode
1:51
where I talked about the phrase Pandora's boxes, liberation
1:54
coming into my mind, it was similar to that.
1:56
But it wasn't in the middle of the night.
1:57
It was like, or in the morning. I was like spring cleaning,
2:00
moving things around, trying to make my house feel the way I
2:03
wanted it to. And what popped into my head was
2:06
there's wisdom in the liminal space.
2:08
And I thought, that's another one.
2:10
I don't even know what that means.
2:12
So I started researching and I put together a whole thing to
2:16
share with you because one thing led to the next led to the next
2:19
led to the next. And it just opened up my eyes to
2:22
so much in myself and other people in the world, as always.
2:26
So I want to talk about that because it's something that
2:29
probably doesn't have a name for you yet.
2:32
And it'll you'll have one very shortly.
2:34
And it is that feeling of like low level buzzing, like the one
2:38
that shows up when things get quiet.
2:41
Do you know what I'm talking about?
2:42
And the one that maybe makes you reach for your phone before you
2:45
even fully waking up. Lord knows I've done that many
2:47
times. And it also, it'll have you
2:50
filling up your calendar the moment that a window opens, You
2:53
know, when like something comes to a close, suddenly there's a
2:56
little gap of space in your calendar and it feels like
2:59
expansive freedom. And then what happens?
3:02
You immediately fill it in with something else.
3:04
And then now that gap that felt like something that you needed
3:08
to close has been closed and boom, you're right back to where
3:11
you started doing too many things.
3:13
Is any of this resonating for you?
3:15
I thought it might. So it also might look like I
3:19
literally sat down and was thinking of all the ways that
3:21
this appeared for me. And for in other conversations
3:25
I've had with people, I'm a little fumbly because I haven't
3:27
done this in a week. So it may look like the last one
3:30
going to bed every single night. And maybe in that time, I know I
3:35
did this. You tell yourself, well, this is
3:37
my alone time. This is like my sacred solo
3:39
time. And maybe you spend half of it
3:41
like doom scrolling and then you wake up exhausted.
3:44
So you do it again the next night.
3:45
And or maybe like you keep taking on new projects, new
3:49
plans, new people before the last one has fully finished or
3:53
closed out. It's that overlapping of
3:55
chapters. And maybe it's the, well, it
3:58
must be nice that you may say under your breath or out, like
4:02
outwardly to someone when they talk about themselves, choosing
4:05
to slow down or take some space for themselves or do something
4:09
nice for themselves. And it you may say it with like
4:12
what you think is genuine admiration, but it might be a
4:14
little bit more jealousy because maybe somewhere underneath that,
4:18
you know, you could do it too, but you're choosing not to.
4:21
And the one that I keep coming back to is that schedule filling
4:25
U like always finding something to add in that is important,
4:29
that's necessary, that serves your goal.
4:31
And part of you knows that you're never allowing yourself
4:33
to have some space and some silence.
4:36
And maybe it's not a personality flaw.
4:39
Maybe you're not just a busy bee.
4:41
Maybe you're not just, I always describe one of my siblings as
4:44
the Energizer Bunny, like just able to do everything.
4:47
And I know I've said this and other people have said this,
4:50
maybe it's not ADHD. Yeah, there are traits with ADHD
4:54
where you just are highly, highly busy and doing all the
4:57
things. But what if it's not?
4:59
And what if it's not just being a mom or having a full plate or
5:02
living in the real world? Because really, if you break it
5:05
down, those are the excuses that we make, but it's really
5:08
avoidance. It is like a sophisticated,
5:10
socially acceptable, incredibly well disguised avoidance.
5:14
And what I've realized is that the avoidance has a name and
5:18
that is the liminal space. And there's so much wisdom in
5:22
there. And I'm so thankful that I sat
5:24
in that space for the week because like I said earlier,
5:27
liminal comes from the Latin word lemon.
5:29
That means threshold, the in between.
5:33
And I'm wondering how many of you, when I even just said that,
5:36
kind of cringed a little bit. So it's not the room that you
5:39
left. It's not the room that you're
5:40
entering. It's the space of standing in
5:43
the doorway itself. That old thing has ended.
5:45
The new thing hasn't come yet. And you're no longer who you
5:48
were, but you're not yet who you're becoming.
5:51
And that space, it's my first thought with it was a little bit
5:55
of a physical recoil and thinking, Oh my God, it's like a
5:58
void. And what is the void?
6:00
The void feels like it's absence of all sensory stimulation.
6:04
It feels dark. It feels the word that came to
6:07
my mind was impending. And I think maybe that is
6:10
accurate. Like actually what I wanted to
6:12
say, it feels heavy even though it's actually light.
6:15
But what if instead of that, it's that space of free
6:18
floating? And so I was trying to think of
6:20
an image that would go along with it because I think in
6:23
images. So think of the shoreline at
6:25
dawn, not ocean, not land, but like that exact line where they
6:29
meet, where the water comes in and then it pulls back and
6:31
nothing is really fully settled. Or that one actually, that
6:35
doesn't work for me. Change gears.
6:37
What about a seed underground after it's been planted?
6:40
Think about this. If you've ever planted seeds
6:42
before, nothing has broken the surface.
6:44
So from the outside, nothing is happening, right?
6:46
But from the inside, everything is happening.
6:49
Like the entire reorganization process is underway.
6:53
It is sprouting, it is growing. You just can't see it yet.
6:57
And what I realized is that I suspect, and I know I did, most
7:01
people experience liminal space as something going wrong.
7:05
Like the chapters ended and the next one hasn't been written.
7:08
So what the hell do we do? Or the relationship is
7:11
completing, but the new one hasn't begun yet.
7:13
So what do we do? That in dating, by the way, is
7:16
monkey branching. If you know people that go from
7:18
one relationship to the next, the relationship hoppers before
7:21
1 is fully closed, they've already got the next one lined
7:24
up. That is monkey branching because
7:25
of the discomfort with being alone.
7:27
So they have to set up the next one.
7:28
And it's not just in relationships.
7:30
You may see that. Well, with jobs, it's not always
7:33
a bad thing unless you're able to do that.
7:36
But I'm curious if anybody else can see any other pattern in
7:39
life where there's monkey branching.
7:42
So it's really like the version of yourself is dissolving before
7:46
you can see what's replacing it. And there's no visible progress.
7:50
There's no, like, metric to gauge it.
7:52
There's no external evidence. You're definitely not getting a
7:55
Gold Star from anybody for sitting in the discomfort.
7:58
So the thought becomes something must be broken, and what does
8:03
everyone do? We need to fix it.
8:05
Got to come in and fix it. We got to move through it.
8:06
We got to get to the other side as fast as possible.
8:09
But what if that instinct is completely wrong?
8:12
And what if the liminal space isn't the problem to be solved?
8:15
What if it's where the solving of problems actually begins?
8:19
Like under the surface, in the quiet, without your
8:22
interference, just letting things be.
8:25
And I did that this week. And it's seriously, I've had the
8:30
coolest, most rapid mental processing every week.
8:35
I have times where more and more things just come into total
8:38
clarity. But this week it just allowing
8:41
myself to step away from the things that kept me busy that I
8:44
enjoy doing. I actually love doing it, but I
8:46
realized the intensity of it, like posting every single day, I
8:50
enjoy it, It's fun, but it gave me that low level buzzing and
8:53
removing it. All of a sudden it got quiet.
8:56
And in that quiet, shit got real and got awesome.
8:59
It's so cool. So I'm going to share even more
9:02
of the images that came up. So the first image that came up,
9:05
you know, those like flat escalators in the airport, what
9:08
are they called? Like are they, are they actually
9:11
called moving walkways where you step on and you feel the motion
9:14
and your body's going somewhere and there's forward momentum.
9:16
And from the outside you look like you're moving.
9:18
But the second that the walkway ends, you're like exactly as far
9:22
along as the effort you put in yourself.
9:25
I'm curious, just for the fun of it, anyone who's used those, do
9:28
you get on it and stand still? Or do you get on it and like me?
9:32
I power walk because it makes me feel like I'm flying and I love
9:35
it, but that's the image that came into my head.
9:38
So there's so many people that do just get on and stand still
9:41
because it's doing the movement for you.
9:43
And not a lot of people I've seen in the airports and I saw
9:47
this a lot when I was flying through Chicago quite
9:49
frequently. A lot of people just get on and
9:51
they stand still and then it ends and there's like 0 effort.
9:54
And that is what consuming without integrating feels like
9:58
from the inside. It feels like motion and
10:00
momentum and like a sensation of going somewhere, but underneath
10:03
it, the ground is moving and you are not.
10:05
So sit with that for a second. I need some coffee that was
10:08
another thing I realized is that I can't do or I don't want to do
10:11
coffee first thing in the morning because coffee indicates
10:14
it's time to work and often aside from this morning, which
10:18
it is 611 in the morning. I like getting up at 5 AMI
10:22
realized that this week and I like moving slowly and quietly
10:25
and if I drink coffee that indicates to my system it's time
10:28
to get moving. So what I discovered and this is
10:31
just a totally random side note. Hot chocolate is it feels
10:34
luxurious and on days where I don't have to work in the
10:37
morning, it's going to be a hot cocoa day.
10:39
On days where I do have to work in the morning, it's going to be
10:41
a hot tea day until I just choked on that hot tea day until
10:46
it's time to actually get into work mode.
10:48
So another thing I learned in the liminal space.
10:50
But anyways, back to the human walkway.
10:52
So that is similar to that avoidance of the luminal space.
10:57
You're not actually doing the work, but you think you're doing
10:59
the work. And the person that's doing the
11:00
actual work, they stepped off the walkway and their legs are
11:03
tired and it's slower and harder and there's no ambient motion
11:07
carrying them forward. But the ground underneath them
11:09
is still and every single step is theirs and they own it.
11:12
And here's what it actually feels like in the body.
11:15
Not in the airport, not in like this abstract notion.
11:18
It feels like swimming on the surface while the riptide pulls
11:22
underneath. That's another image that that
11:24
came to my mind, but it wasn't an abstract image for someone
11:27
else. It was when I sat with what does
11:28
it feel like to sit in the liminal space and I literally
11:32
got the image of like if they you've seen the drone view of
11:36
the riptide where it like is curved out where and then it's
11:38
calm in the middle and that's what it felt like.
11:40
The riptide is real. I could feel the pulling
11:44
underneath the surface in my body.
11:46
Now keep in mind I was not actually swimming.
11:48
I was sitting on my couch, but the feeling of it was feeling
11:51
the pole to stay busy, to stay active, to do all the things.
11:55
And I wasn't pretending that that wasn't there.
11:58
I just was choosing to focus on my own personal strokes and not
12:02
letting the current determine my direction.
12:05
And what I realized is that wasn't detachment and it's not
12:08
white knuckling. That's what it actually feels
12:10
like to have done the work. And don't get me wrong, there's
12:13
always more work to come, but it was totally a self high 5 moment
12:17
of like, I can feel this pull to stay super busy, to fill in all
12:21
the free time to do all the things to go, go, go.
12:24
And I was like, no, I am going to keep this measured pace of
12:28
swimming on the surface and not get pulled into it.
12:31
And most people though, when they hit a riptide, they will
12:34
either exhaust themselves fighting it or get swept away
12:37
entirely. And that is the crucial thing to
12:40
realize. And it's not all the time.
12:42
Let me make that super clear. But try to notice when you are
12:46
in that integrated place where you feel the pull of the riptide
12:50
of staying busy, of doing all the things and you lean into to
12:54
just flowing O. The question is not whether
12:57
you're on the walkway, because we all get on it.
13:00
The question is whether you're aware you're on it.
13:02
And that awareness is, it's so it may seem very subtle, but it
13:07
is so crucial. And notice, are you getting
13:10
swept in the riptide or are you noticing the riptide and staying
13:14
calm and cool and collected and swimming anyways?
13:17
And a real life example of this would be, you know, you're
13:20
exhausted. Your body is screaming for rest,
13:23
but you keep filling in the day anyways.
13:25
But then you hit a point where you're like, this feels very
13:28
uncomfortable and I'm going to just sit down and I'm going to
13:32
put on a TV show and I'm going to let my body stop moving.
13:35
Not the greatest example, but it's a very relatable one where
13:38
you can feel that discomfort because you probably feel lazy
13:41
or unproductive or like someone's going to call you out
13:45
or like you're doing something wrong, but you do it anyways.
13:48
So there's a battle there between the two until you do it
13:51
often enough that it becomes second nature.
13:53
So that was the initial part of all the thinking.
13:56
Then there's three ways to deal with the in between, to deal
14:00
with that liminal space. And think of these like
14:03
portraits of a type, like an archetype of an individual.
14:06
And take your time with each one because I want you to see if you
14:09
can identify yourself in any of them or all of them, because I
14:14
know that I have definitely had a place in all three, especially
14:18
this first one. So this first one, I refer to it
14:21
as the accumulator because over time most of us develop what
14:25
I'll call an avoidance identity. And it's this role that we step
14:28
into, consciously or not, that keeps us in perpetual motion and
14:32
out of the liminal space. And the first one is 1 that I
14:37
lived in for the vast majority of my life.
14:40
And again, the accumulator. So the accumulator is the
14:42
student of everything. They have read every book, they
14:47
have listened to every podcast, they have taken every course.
14:51
They can tell you about nervous system regulation, anxious
14:54
attachment, the mother wound, the father wound, the way
14:57
generational trauma lives in the body.
14:59
They speak the language fluently.
15:02
They have all the tools, but fluency is not integration.
15:07
And that was a really hard thing when I sat with this, to really
15:09
recognize how long I had been accumulating the tools and still
15:14
swimming on the the surface. Because the surface is having
15:18
all the tools that deep dive is actually putting them to use.
15:21
Because you can be completely conversant in a language that
15:25
you have never actually lived in or that you can see from the
15:29
outside and choose not to participate in.
15:31
So, oh, the accumulator, they feel like they're doing the work
15:35
because consuming feels like doing.
15:37
It's that human walkway thing again, remember?
15:41
And because they're doing so much, it does.
15:44
It has like the same texture almost as growth.
15:47
And it scratches that itch of wanting to be better, so to
15:51
speak, without requiring the friction that actual change
15:54
demands. Because frankly, change does not
15:56
exist without friction. Which is why most people don't
16:00
do it, avoid it, or think they're doing it because that
16:03
friction feels uncomfortable, feels scary, feels like, oh God,
16:06
I'm doing something wrong and you run the other way.
16:09
But it's necessary. You got to go through the
16:12
discomfort to get to the other side.
16:13
So here's what maybe people don't say.
16:16
Knowledge can become its own avoidance strategy.
16:19
So the next podcast, the next book, the next modality is not
16:23
always curiosity driving that. Sometimes it's relief, the very
16:27
kind of relief of not having to apply what you already know.
16:32
If this is hitting anybody in the heart space, in the gut, in
16:35
the head, in anywhere, I'm sorry for the sledgehammer on a Sunday
16:40
morning. But man, it's so true and it
16:42
resonated so hard with me. I'm literally staring right now
16:45
at bookshelves that I have that are loaded with so many books
16:49
that I've accumulated over time of topics that I am utterly
16:52
fascinated by. And I have never read the book.
16:56
Yeah. It's like, what am I going to
16:57
learn it by osmosis? So if this is hitting you, I
17:00
feel you. I feel you hard.
17:02
And my goal that I am setting a tentative loose goal because I
17:06
don't want to kill myself or, like, overwhelm myself with too
17:10
much, is now that my children are over to start reading those
17:13
books. Because my excuse before was I
17:15
have the book. I will get to it.
17:17
I'm fascinated by it. I will get to it.
17:19
But my kids need a lot. My work needs a lot.
17:21
Everything. I'm too tired.
17:23
I fall asleep. Well, maybe I just need to find
17:25
the right time. So I feel you in this.
17:27
So the liminal space requires you to sit with what is and the
17:32
accumulator continuously finds new information to process so
17:37
they never have to sit with what is.
17:39
Just think about that. And I really do know this one
17:42
from the inside. And actually specific example,
17:45
besides the books, as I was doing spring cleaning and just
17:49
moving things and literally moving furniture on, my kids
17:52
came back into the house and they were like, what the actual
17:54
hell? And I'm like, I'll start putting
17:57
labels on things so that you can find things.
17:59
But in this process I found journals.
18:02
I found a pile of journals from the last four years and I, I had
18:07
been just the night before using AI to try to help me piece
18:12
together a structure of an evening routine and a morning
18:16
routine that felt the most aligned to me because I could
18:19
feel what felt good, but like my brain just could not.
18:23
And some of this is ADHD trauma response.
18:27
I just, I've, I've accepted that I have a tremendous amount of
18:31
creativity. Creativity.
18:32
That's weird. I have a creativity of making
18:34
new words, but I struggle with the structure and seeing it.
18:38
Like I can take all the data. I can have someone verbally
18:42
vomit their entire life story. My brain is amazing in real time
18:45
of taking that data and piercing together and seeing the patterns
18:48
and the threads. But when it comes to let's say a
18:50
pile of stuff sitting on the counter, I have no ability.
18:55
I have not learned yet that ability to make sense of it and
18:58
create a structure. And the same with kind of
19:00
abstract routines. I really have a hard time.
19:02
So anyways, I don't need to justify it.
19:04
I used AI File AI for it to figure out what feels most
19:08
aligned for me. And the crazy thing is when I
19:10
was going through these journals in my own handwriting with the
19:13
morning routine that I knew I needed written out in full in
19:17
October 2024. The exact practices that I had
19:21
just come up with of what feels best for me, not what I think I
19:26
should do, but what actually feels good in my body for the
19:29
nighttime, for the morning time. It was literally freaking
19:32
written out in my handwriting in October 2024 and again in 2022.
19:37
Like literally the same order. And I wasn't doing them.
19:40
I had done all the legwork. I had pieced it together and I
19:43
didn't do it. Like I never put it into
19:45
practice. So I had that knowledge for
19:49
years now and the gap between writing it down and actually
19:52
living it, that's the gap that the liminal space that the
19:55
accumulator is working very hard to avoid.
19:57
I had the knowledge. I didn't actually do it because
20:00
doing it would require putting effort in.
20:02
That one hurt. So the next one, the next one is
20:05
the performer. This one, this one I've done,
20:08
I've dipped a toe into this at times when I was trying to be
20:11
super mom. This one is more one that I've
20:13
observed from people externally. So the performer has not.
20:16
Just accumulated. They have built an entire
20:19
identity around who they say they are.
20:22
They are the self aware one, the growth oriented 1, the conscious
20:27
evolved emotionally intelligent one.
20:30
They speak the language beautifully.
20:32
They have the aesthetic of someone doing the work.
20:35
And here's what makes this one harder to see.
20:37
The performer may genuinely believe their own story because
20:40
the mask has been on so long that they've forgotten that it
20:43
is a mask. They are not consciously lying,
20:46
they're living at such a distance from their own interior
20:49
world that the presentation has become the person, and until
20:53
someone sees through it and then the performer cannot tolerate
20:56
being seen clearly. Not because they are malicious
20:59
or a bad person or anything, but because accurate witnessing
21:02
collapses the entire architecture that they have
21:05
built to keep the real question at Bay.
21:07
So what is that real question? The same one everyone is running
21:10
from? Who are you when no one is
21:12
watching? Who are you when the new thing
21:14
is not new anymore? Who are you in the gap between
21:17
the person you describe and the choices that you actually make?
21:21
Because you can talk a good game all you want and you can say all
21:24
the right things, but what are you actually doing?
21:27
So you'll see this a lot in people that say all the pretty
21:30
things but have no action to follow it up.
21:32
Or take a moment and notice this, the people that are
21:35
irritated by the people who talk a good game and have no action.
21:39
Because if you're triggered by someone like that, are you also
21:42
doing it? And that requires really self
21:44
reflecting. And if you're a performer then
21:47
you've intentionally avoided noticing that.
21:49
So the gap is the liminal space again.
21:52
The performer will do almost anything to keep it filled so
21:55
they don't have to genuinely see themselves or be seen.
21:58
And the performer, when they are actually seen by someone, bolts,
22:02
they shut down, they ghost, they take off, they run the other way
22:05
because being seen again threatens how they see
22:08
themselves. So the last one is the
22:11
integrator, and the integrator is the one who stopped, Not
22:14
perfectly, not without fear, but at some point they stopped and
22:18
they stepped off that moving walkway.
22:20
They felt the ground go still. And now I'm hearing in my head,
22:23
I feel the earth move under my feet.
22:25
That has nothing to do with it. But actually it kind of also
22:28
does because when you stop moving, the sky does tumble down
22:31
and everything starts actually getting clearer, I guess like
22:36
the past gets clearer and that clarity allows the next map
22:39
moving forward. It's a whole thing.
22:41
I can't even get into my head right now because I'll start
22:43
confusing people even more than I already am.
22:45
So the integrator, they stopped, they kept walking on their own
22:48
legs. The integrator is not finished.
22:50
The integrator is never finished.
22:51
They are not perfect, but they are different in a way that
22:54
shows up in real time, in real moments, in small moments when
22:58
something real is on the line. They move differently when I
23:00
cost something. And that is the only proof that
23:02
counts. So integration, if you're not
23:05
sure what that is, it's not what you know, it's what you do.
23:08
When it costs something, it's who you actually are on a what
23:11
day is it? On Sunday morning?
23:13
At 6:26 in the morning, when your old pattern gets activated
23:17
and nobody's watching, what do you do?
23:19
So the integrator, it's like they're the ones who even take
23:23
the baby steps. So if you're taking the baby
23:24
steps, huzzah, welcome. The water's warm here.
23:27
So as I kept thinking about all this, I kept thinking about
23:30
going further. Like, what are the connecting
23:33
threads? One of them that came up was
23:35
shiny toy syndrome. Have you heard of that one?
23:37
Oh, that one's irritating. So here's the mechanism
23:41
underneath all three of these identities, and I want you to
23:43
feel this one, not just understand it.
23:45
Feel into your body. Novelty creates a sensation of
23:48
movement without requiring actual change.
23:50
That's like the foundation of shiny toy syndrome.
23:53
New relationship, new modality, new program, new certification,
23:57
new city, new phase. There's a dopamine hit that is
24:00
new or that is real in that newness.
24:03
And the excitement is real, and the sense of possibility is real
24:07
because it's different. You feel like you're going
24:09
somewhere because something is different.
24:11
But newness is not growth. Newness is just new.
24:14
So watch what happens when the shine fades.
24:17
When that new toy isn't so sparkly and brand new anymore.
24:20
When the relationship is no longer a revelation and it
24:23
becomes a daily reality. Or when the program is no longer
24:27
shiny and actually requires you to sit with your own discomfort.
24:31
Or when the city is just where you live now and the same
24:34
patterns followed you there. Most people at that moment, they
24:37
reach for the next shiny thing, another person, another tool,
24:41
another course, another move, another reason it is not
24:44
working. That has nothing to do with the
24:46
one variable that has been in every single situation.
24:49
You, just you. And I'm going to say something
24:52
that might sting a little because that's kind of what I
24:54
do. The shine fading is not a signal
24:57
that you chose wrong. The shine fading is the
25:00
invitation, and that is when the real work begins.
25:03
That is the threshold of the liminal space.
25:05
And every time you reach for something new, instead of
25:08
crossing it, you reset the clock and you start over on the
25:11
walkway and nothing actually changes.
25:14
So what are you looking for in the next shiny thing that you're
25:17
refusing to find in yourself? Like if we're talking
25:20
relationships, if you have become dissatisfied in your
25:24
relationship or you know that it's come to a close and you
25:27
immediately set up the next one before closing out the previous
25:31
one, that shiny toy syndrome, that's also monkey branching.
25:34
Monkey branching is based upon shiny toy syndrome because
25:37
rather than sit in what went wrong, why it didn't work, you
25:41
jump to the next person to avoid having to sit with that and
25:44
think about it. But guess what?
25:45
That doesn't mean that the issues in yourself that you were
25:48
trying to solve in the previous relationship went away.
25:50
That means that you're trying to bypass them through someone
25:53
else. And guess what?
25:54
That sucks and it's shitty to do to people.
25:56
Just stop and think about that. So what are you you actually
25:59
running from? That's the hard question to ask.
26:02
So I want to go underneath that or another minute.
26:04
We're going to keep pulling out the threads keep going down into
26:07
the deeper layers because the accumulator, the performer, the
26:10
shiny toy cycle, they all have the same thing underneath them.
26:14
There is a knowing this like very subtle, bone deep knowing
26:18
that if you actually stopped and if you let motion cease and the
26:22
noise go silent, something would be there waiting.
26:24
And it might feel like drowning because it's all the things that
26:27
you've been out running and the grief that you filed away for
26:30
later and the question you've been too busy to answer and the
26:33
feeling you told yourself you'd make or that you deal with.
26:36
And you'd, I don't know what I was going to say with make.
26:39
There was something there, the train got derailed, but that you
26:42
would deal with when things calm down, you would make it go away.
26:45
That's what I was going to say. And things never calm down and
26:48
you make sure of it so that you don't have to deal with it.
26:50
And that is how you actually make it go away.
26:52
And on the surface it looks like restlessness, or like the
26:56
compulsive schedule filling or the doom scrolling at midnight,
26:59
or the shark that stops swimming dies, right?
27:02
That's the mentality. You got to keep swimming or Dory
27:05
from Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming.
27:07
And on a deeper level, it's panic, it's terror at night.
27:11
It's this inkling that you're running from your own mind and
27:14
your body, and impatience and annoyance at anyone who suggests
27:17
pausing or slowing down or taking a break, or judgement of
27:21
people who embrace the rest with that must be noised, even as
27:25
that jealousy underneath tells you something true about what
27:28
you actually want and are not letting yourself have.
27:31
And your nervous system has decided, usually a long time
27:34
ago, that the liminal space is not safe.
27:36
So it keeps you moving, and it is very, very good at it.
27:39
So the thing that you're most afraid will drown you in the
27:42
silence is usually not a tidal wave.
27:44
It's a feeling that needed to be felt, a question that needed to
27:48
be set with a clarity that cannot arrive while you're too
27:51
busy to receive it. It requires that liminal space.
27:54
And the trouble is the more of those questions and those
27:57
feelings that you avoid, they pile up, they pile up, they pile
28:00
up. And then that's what turns into
28:02
that feeling of a tidal wave. So what I learned this week, I
28:06
learned so much. So, so, so much.
28:09
And I'm going to tell you about it.
28:11
And 1st, I'm going to tell you about Roman.
28:14
And yes, there is that post up there.
28:16
I don't know if you've read it or not.
28:17
If not, go for it. Check it out.
28:19
And I've referenced him. Excuse me as I God, by the way,
28:23
I learned that when you're not tired and you yawn, it is a
28:26
subtle way to avoid topics. And I think maybe that's what's
28:30
happening because I slept a lot last night.
28:33
I've referenced Roman a bit in videos.
28:35
You know, he was my still birth. He was my first baby and he's
28:38
the one that I'd wanted since I was very, very young.
28:40
I mean, I was, I don't even know, 345 and saying very openly
28:45
like I do not want to get married.
28:46
I just want to be mom. I knew that as a kid.
28:49
I don't know why, I just did, but I was six months pregnant
28:53
when he passed away out of nowhere.
28:55
We never figured out why. And we did an autopsy.
28:58
We did genetic testing. We did, God, I think they took
29:01
like 17 vials of blood from me and they took everything that
29:04
they could to try to figure out what the hell went wrong.
29:06
We never got an answer. And here's the crazy thing, if
29:09
you didn't know, at least in my state, if you're further than 22
29:13
weeks along, I think it's 22 and you, the baby's heartbeat stops
29:18
you. Actually, it's it's not common
29:21
and at least it wasn't offered to me as an option to do
29:25
anything but a still worth whether that was, I don't know
29:29
if there, I don't know if there were supposed to be other
29:30
options, but that's what I got. So I had to be induced and go
29:35
through labor and delivery. And just as a fun side note for
29:38
anybody out there who has this very close minded, uninformed,
29:41
potentially judgmental mindset, labor is labor is labor.
29:46
The feeling of Labor, the pain of Labor, the experience of
29:49
Labor. It is not contingent upon the
29:52
size of the baby. Let me just make that clear.
29:54
So Roman was just shy of a pound.
29:56
The labor that I felt with him was the same labor that I felt
29:59
with Brody, who was £9. The pushing, The pushing is
30:02
different, I will say that. But I remember getting a lot of
30:04
judgment after the fact about that.
30:06
And I realized people don't know.
30:08
So instead of getting triggered, educate, which is why I talk
30:11
about this because it feels scary.
30:13
It feels overwhelming. You feel awkward because you
30:16
don't have any reference point. So let me share my experience so
30:19
that you can have a reference point.
30:20
A woman laboring through a it is the same feeling of Labor as
30:25
laboring a full term baby. If you didn't know that, now you
30:28
do. And I'm saying that because I
30:30
had people who would kind of roll their eyes like my labor
30:33
was somehow lesser because he was much smaller.
30:36
No, I will, I will confirm the pushing very different.
30:39
Pushing A1 pounder out is a lot easier than trying to get a £9
30:43
massive head out. Anyways, Side Story.
30:45
So I'm going to share the story a little bit here.
30:47
Feel free to Fast forward, feel free to stop listening.
30:50
It doesn't matter to me. I'm just sharing information
30:52
because is when you have this experience, you do not see it
30:56
coming. Even if you're someone who has a
30:58
lot of fear around pregnancy, you don't see this coming even
31:01
when you know it's a possibility.
31:02
And then when it hits, the feelings that come, that my
31:05
friend, that is a legitimate tidal wave that is terrifying.
31:09
And I, in sharing my story, there's been a lot, a lot of
31:13
people, men and women who have shared their own experiences and
31:16
who felt silenced, not even openly, sometimes openly by
31:20
family members who didn't know how to deal with it, but who
31:23
felt silenced by society that we just don't talk about that.
31:25
And hey, this ties into the Pandora's box because, pardon my
31:29
language, fuck that. Like this is a very critical
31:32
experience in someone's life and it impacts in very real ripples
31:36
every pregnancy after that. And I speak from experience
31:39
because I was terrified. Brody's entire pregnancy, his,
31:42
his labor and delivery was unbelievably challenging.
31:45
And I was OK with Quinn until the moment that she stopped
31:49
moving and the terror came roaring back.
31:51
PTSD man, and even now when I have to go into a doctor for any
31:57
reason to have an ultrasound even unlike my kidney or
31:59
something, I immediately have this gut wrenching, nauseating
32:04
like shrink into myself feeling still 18 years later.
32:08
So it doesn't go away. So when we tell people to shut
32:11
up or when we imply that we're uncomfortable because we can't
32:15
sit in their discomfort, you compound that for them.
32:18
This is why I share it. So here we go.
32:20
I was admitted to the hospital at 4:00, 3:00 in the evening
32:23
after hearing his final heartbeats the night before on
32:26
April 6th with one of those little home monitors.
32:29
And this is going to be a long episode.
32:31
Deal with it or don't listen, that's fine.
32:33
I heard his last heartbeats on one of those little home
32:35
monitors. I found it and I was like Oh my
32:37
God, I found them finally. This is amazing and I have my
32:39
little belly and everything. And then I couldn't find him
32:41
again and I thought Oh well that's OK.
32:43
Little did I know I most likely heard his final heartbeats and I
32:46
do believe that was meant to be. And the next day he'd been
32:50
having funny little skip beats and his heartbeat and for a
32:53
month. And so we had gone and we had an
32:55
appointment with the perinatal center.
32:57
So my then husband, now ex-husband, we went in bright
33:01
and early and I remember thinking I'm just not hungry
33:04
anymore. And he hasn't really been moving
33:05
all that much. But it's my first pregnancy.
33:08
I don't know any differently because doctors also would say
33:11
like it's your first, you don't have a frame of reference.
33:14
And I'm sitting here saying trust your mom instincts.
33:16
If something feels off, even if you're just afraid, go get it
33:19
looked at. That's why they're there.
33:22
Anyways, you go to the perinatal center, they put the ultrasound
33:25
on and I right away look up and he's not really moving.
33:28
And I said, wow, he's really docile.
33:30
And I didn't notice that the tech had stopped moving and she
33:33
had physically frozen. And then she looked a little
33:36
wide eyed and she said, I'll be right back and left my belly out
33:38
with a gel on it. And that's when I realized that
33:41
there was no heart flickering. And I start panicking and my
33:44
poor ex-husband, this guy, like we have our differences.
33:49
We were not we're we're really pretty good as Co parents, but
33:53
we were not we were not meant to be as a couple like we just
33:57
fundamentally incompatible. But we did what we needed to do
34:00
together. And this poor guy, he did not
34:02
know what to make of it. I will never forget the panic as
34:06
he saw me panicking and it triggered his panic because fun
34:10
fact, women out there, men need to do something.
34:15
I know it drives you nuts when they want to fix it and they
34:17
want to do something that is literally a biological impulse.
34:21
And when they have to watch their partner that they love
34:25
going through something so viscerally destructive and they
34:29
can't do anything. I don't think there's any worse
34:32
punishment, including even when you're having a healthy labor
34:35
and delivery. I do feel bad for the men
34:38
because frankly, we are beasts. We are warriors, We got this.
34:41
They have to sit and watch. They can't do anything.
34:44
That is like purgatory for biologically for men.
34:48
Anyways, this poor guy was freaking out.
34:50
They come in, they did have to tell me his heartbeat was gone,
34:53
he was gone, and next step was still birth.
34:56
I ranted, I raged. I thought that was beyond
34:59
torturous that I had to do that. I definitely went on a whole
35:02
glorious terror about modern medicine failing us in the most
35:05
epic of ways. And so I had to spend the entire
35:09
day waiting and my family surrounded me, which was lovely
35:12
and awkward at the same time. They took me to lunch and the
35:16
waiter came up because I have this belly and everyone's
35:19
watching me awkwardly or avoiding avoiding eye contact
35:22
because they wanted to be there for me and show support, which
35:24
was amazing. And simultaneously there was
35:27
nothing they can do and they knew that.
35:29
And the waiter came up and asked when I was due and it got really
35:32
awkward. And I wasn't mad because the guy
35:34
doesn't know but it was just Oh my God it was freaking horrible.
35:38
Like it was so horrible. And I sat there feeling the
35:43
weight of this child who was no longer there and desperately
35:48
wanting to escape my body and knowing what am I going into the
35:52
one time where so far I have no choice.
35:56
I have to feel my body. It was terrifying, absolutely
36:00
terrifying. So 4:00 comes, my ex-husband
36:03
walks me up to the hospital and I am a wreck.
36:06
And it was like walking to the guillotine.
36:08
And I'm literally like pulling the skin on my face down right
36:11
now reliving this. And I remember seeing a very,
36:15
very pregnant woman outside of the hospital smoking a
36:18
cigarette. And he had to literally restrain
36:20
me because I launched myself toward her.
36:22
Like I was ready to throw down and screaming at her.
36:25
And he had to pick me up like manhandle me and get me into the
36:28
hospital. And again, people are around me.
36:31
They're trying to sit with me with it.
36:32
They're looking at me wide eyed because they haven't experienced
36:35
it. And if you haven't, you cannot
36:37
fathom what it feels like. It is not your normal labor and
36:40
delivery. They put me off into a corner
36:43
room away from everybody. Thank you to them.
36:45
They truly were wonderful. And my nurse, my nurse Val, if
36:49
anyone who works at the hospital locally who knows me is hearing
36:53
this, Val, Val has a piece of my heart.
36:56
Val came up, didn't know me. Well, they kind of knew me
36:59
because I'd done a little bit of massage with them.
37:02
And she hugged me and she whispered in my ear, I've been
37:05
through this too. And I went, OK, you get it.
37:07
And I got some relief. And then it all started.
37:10
And my requests were, keep me on morphine or whatever pain Med.
37:13
I don't want to feel this and don't leave me to my midwife.
37:16
And she didn't. And then they were inducing me
37:19
with this medication called Servadil.
37:21
And I had the euphoric high of someone in labor because my body
37:25
was flooding with hormones that were like, we're having a baby.
37:28
And I was cracking jokes and nobody around me could really
37:32
grasp that. And they were looking at me like
37:35
something was wrong with me. And I remember that I will never
37:38
forget the looks on certain people's faces about that.
37:40
And I remember looking at them and saying, yes, I'm very aware
37:43
of what's happening. And I can't help the fact that
37:46
I'm having floods of hormones. So read through the post if you
37:49
want the rest of it because it's it's very, I could get very into
37:52
it. But for 18 hours my body refused
37:55
to listen to him or to listen to yeah, to what I mean to the fact
37:59
that Roman was gone. And to listen to the medication
38:02
that was trying to soften it and get it to release him.
38:05
And to listen to my ex-husband holding my hand and telling me
38:09
like, you didn't do anything you didn't like you're doing
38:11
everything right. And for 18 hours, like
38:13
medications, trying to get my body to let go and it wouldn't,
38:16
it wouldn't open, it wouldn't soften.
38:18
My body knew something was deeply, desperately trying to
38:21
like my mind was trying to override it.
38:24
And I couldn't do it because release felt like losing him
38:26
completely. It felt like a title wave.
38:28
It felt like I would drown, and it felt like having to sit with
38:32
the reality instead of the fantasy.
38:34
Queue back to my duality episode about reality versus fantasy.
38:38
And then the moment came that my midwife, Linda, she was amazing.
38:41
She is amazing. She came in, she took my hand
38:44
looking in the eyes and said, your body's doing what it knows
38:46
how to do. He's not done yet.
38:47
It knows that you didn't do anything wrong.
38:50
And she leaves the room and boom.
38:51
I'm not even joking. Scientifically, we cannot
38:54
explain it, but I went from zero to 10 centimeters in that
38:57
second, and I felt him sliding and two pushes and he was out.
39:01
And he was like a little carbon copy of his father.
39:03
And I remember looking around at the people standing there that
39:07
were crying, and I said I'm OK, I know what I'm doing.
39:10
And it was the most peaceful Zen.
39:12
And now that I think about it, Oh my gosh, I'm getting a little
39:15
bit teary. That was my first experience at
39:17
liminal space that didn't click into my head until right now
39:21
fully because he was in my body and I was holding on and he
39:24
wasn't out, but I literally was delivering him.
39:27
And in that liminal space, it felt like that void.
39:30
But the void wasn't bad. It was peaceful and euphoric.
39:33
That's the word I would describe for it.
39:35
Holy shit. I just had another epiphany
39:37
while I'm talking. Awesome.
39:38
So OK, getting back on track. I'm going to be journaling that
39:42
one. So I've thought about that for
39:43
18 years, that you cannot be forced open.
39:46
You only release when you feel safe enough to trust yourself.
39:50
So for 18 years, Roman's birthday week has been the week
39:52
that I kept myself busy or I would drown in grief, which is
39:57
its own kind of motion and its own way of staying in the past,
40:00
but also in the present. And that's people talk about the
40:03
grieving process. They often don't find the
40:05
connection between the past and the present.
40:07
They just stay sitting in the past without that forward
40:09
movement because that requires friction.
40:11
Or drowning myself in tasks and projects and forward momentum.
40:16
And they both kept me out of the liminal space, both which kept
40:19
me from just being there in the in between, in that space
40:23
between who I was before him and who I've become because of him.
40:26
But this year I stopped, and I didn't record episodes and I
40:29
didn't fill my schedule. I did work a little bit, but
40:31
significantly less. And I slept when my body needed
40:34
it. And I sat in the quiet in the
40:36
dark before dawn. And I let my mind go wherever it
40:38
wanted to go without directing it.
40:40
And I found my old journal, and I read things I'd written years
40:43
ago that I am only now actually living.
40:46
Like words and phrases that I wrote years ago are words and
40:49
phrases that have resurfaced in my journaling now.
40:52
It's crazily, it's crazily, crazily awesome.
40:55
And I snuggled Quinn and I hugged the bejesus out of Brody,
40:59
and I let the connections form on their own of everything that
41:04
was coming together without trying to force it.
41:06
And that is when that whisper came through the stillness,
41:09
clear and quiet and unmistakable.
41:12
The one that I said earlier, there is wisdom in the liminal
41:15
space. And that's why I'm here today,
41:17
because the liminal space isn't empty, it is full.
41:20
You just can't receive what's in it while you're running.
41:23
And you have to be able to identify what you're running
41:26
from. And not even that, but what is
41:28
your method of running from it? So I want to get a little bit
41:31
further into this active stillness that I referenced.
41:35
And I want to make this one part really, really super clear
41:37
before I close because it's very important.
41:39
So liminal space is not collected, it is not checking
41:42
out, and it is not passively waiting for the discomfort to
41:45
pass. You're not avoiding.
41:47
It's not like you're sitting there with your hands covering
41:48
your eyes just waiting for it to go through.
41:50
There's a difference between passive stillness and active
41:53
stillness. So passive stillness is
41:55
avoidance. Wearing a quieter costume,
41:57
you're not filling the space with busyness, but you're not
42:00
actually in it either. You're just suspended and
42:03
waiting for it to end. And that is not the liminal
42:05
space. That is the liminal space
42:07
avoided in a different direction.
42:08
So active stillness is something else entirely.
42:11
It is being fully present in the in between.
42:14
It is feeling the discomfort while without running from it,
42:18
and it's noticing what surfaces when you stop filling every
42:21
moment, letting the pieces move without forcing them into the
42:24
shape you think they should take.
42:25
It is totally acceptance allowance, release, let go.
42:30
And it looks like sitting outside in the dark with
42:32
something warm to drink, which I did, and just breathing.
42:35
And it looks like sleeping when your body needs it without
42:38
justifying it to yourself, which I've also done.
42:41
I've fallen sound asleep on the couch at 9:30 at night and I
42:44
have woken up and been like fuck it, I'm going to just stay here
42:47
because I'm comfortable. And it looks like following a
42:50
thread of thought wherever it goes, instead of redirecting it
42:53
towards your To Do List, let yourself just sit and let your
42:56
mind wander. You may call it daydreaming.
42:58
What if it's actually putting the pieces together and it looks
43:02
like being in the eye of the storm, which is where I've been
43:04
this whole week. Not because nothing is moving,
43:07
but because you have found the still center and you're staying
43:10
there because everything is reorganizing around you.
43:14
So you're not gone. You're just through the first
43:16
part of the storm. You're standing in the eye.
43:18
You can see all of it swirling around you in the, you know,
43:21
occasional cow flying through the air like in Twister.
43:24
But you're waiting in that place to make sense of all of it and
43:27
to see it all clearly without moving before the next storm
43:30
hits. That was literally the image and
43:32
the feeling that I had for myself yesterday and it was
43:35
again, freaking profound. It's not laziness, it's not
43:38
unproductive, and it's not a luxury for people with fewer
43:42
responsibilities. That is the work.
43:45
It's quiet, it's invisible, it's unrewarded by any external
43:48
metric, and it's where everything you've been
43:51
accumulating and performing and running toward actually lands.
43:54
This is where the integrator lives.
43:56
Not permanently and not perfectly, but they know how to
43:59
come back to it. They know the difference between
44:01
the buzzing avoidance and the grounded presence.
44:04
And when they drift, because everyone drifts, they notice and
44:07
they return back to the liminal space.
44:10
So the integrator is not a state of permanence, it is a state of
44:13
awareness. And it is noticing when you're
44:16
falling into the accumulator and bringing it back to the
44:18
integrator in the liminal space. It's noticing that when you are
44:22
becoming the performer and coming back into it, it is that
44:25
continuous return to center. So by the way, that's also
44:28
enlightenment. So to close up active stillness
44:31
is not the absence of movement. It is the choice to stop moving
44:34
long enough to find out what's actually there.
44:36
So I'm not going to tell you or give you a five step process for
44:40
entering the liminal space. I am not going to tell you how
44:43
long to sit there or what to do with what surfaces because you
44:46
cannot be forced open. You only release when you feel
44:48
safe enough to trust yourself. So what I will say is this, the
44:51
thing that you've been out running is not as dangerous as
44:54
the running itself. And the accumulator in you has
44:57
been filling the space with information so you never have to
45:00
sit in it. And the performer in you has
45:02
been building an identity so complete there is no room left
45:05
for real questions. And the shiny toy cycle has been
45:08
resettling, the clock ever resetting.
45:11
Excuse me? The clock every time you get
45:13
close to the threshold and all of it is exhausting.
45:16
All of it is an enormous amount of work to keep you out of a
45:19
space that might actually give you something.
45:21
So what would happen if you stopped?
45:23
Not forever, not dramatically, Just stopped.
45:25
Let the gap stay a gap for a minute.
45:27
Let the quiet be quiet. Just for a minute.
45:30
Let whatever is there be there without immediately trying to
45:33
categorize it, process it, fix it, or turn it into content.
45:37
Hey, have you noticed that's what I do?
45:38
Turn it into content. The seed does not force itself
45:41
to grow. It stays in the dark, and it
45:43
does what seeds do in its own time when it's damn good and
45:46
ready, but it does it. So there's wisdom in that
45:49
liminal space. And I will be back tomorrow
45:52
morning, and I'm going to take this episode as I always do.
45:54
We're going to pause on the core wounds because that was me
45:57
taking the insight and morphing it into content.
46:00
And instead, yes, I'm doing similar with this.
46:03
But there's a purpose because every bit of sitting in all of
46:06
the content in this is keeping me or putting me, allowing me,
46:11
inviting me to go back into my own liminal space.
46:14
So I will see you there and have a great week.