Resting Into the In-Between
What is the in-between?
After more than a decade, I recently returned to the Pilates reformer. Before this reintroduction — and what has otherwise been a general uptick in movement recently — I found myself in a many-months-long lethargic lull. For various reasons, old routines were no longer working, but I also hadn't found a new routine that felt right.
This is the in-between space. That liminal space you occupy when you recognize something no longer works in your life and you begin to transition away from it. But you realize this transition is a process that requires you to be in suspension – neither here nor there – for an undesignated length of time.
Photo credit: Angela Jazmin Studio
How to recognize you’re in the in-between
The in-between can feel uncertain, uncomfortable, and at times, disheartening. It can occur in many areas of life, including a lifestyle change, emotional healing, addiction recovery, building a business, or navigating body changes, relationships, illness, a career change, or an identity shift.
Moving out of my lethargic lull was a slow transition from old to new. One that involved experiences that reminded me I was in this in-between space:
recognizing what was no longer working
contemplating a change but not yet acting on it
sitting with ambiguity, sometimes apathy
feeling restless or uprooted
How to feel reassured in the in-between
Recognize it’s a natural and valuable part of evolving: We don’t talk enough about this real, and often lonely, internal struggle of getting to a better place. So it remains this quiet battle we shamefully fight solo, which only reinforces the false belief that we’re doing something wrong if we can’t instantly resolve the struggle. Yet we’ve all been in the in-between. And most of the time, moving through it is an iterative process that spans days, months, sometimes even years.
Embody the pause: I’ve experienced the stuck-ness with various transitions, and I also sit in it with my clients. I've noticed we try to speed through it or avoid it altogether by quickly pivoting. But the adage "go slow to go fast" is true. There’s insight that comes from pausing, sitting with uncertainty, and observing it. This allows our mind to catch up with where our body has landed in space and time; to process and integrate these insights, without feeling pressure to react or the frantic, fearful energy that often accompanies.
Trust that you will be okay in the in-between: We must learn to trust that we will be okay in the in-between and capable of navigating the uncertainty that accompanies. Building capacity to be with discomfort and recognizing that it’s temporary are golden skills to have in any type of healing work. When we can reframe the stuck-ness as a normal, non-threatening, and transient part of the process, we’ll move through it with more ease and grace and gain greater clarity for the next best step to take.
