The In-Between (Part 1)

Breathe in, breathe out.

Again.

Breathe in, and breathe out.

Did you feel that? The pause?

The space between your inhale, and your exhale.

Try it again. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Did you notice it that time?

See, there's this space, this pause, an in-between…where some believe that we die over and over again.

Inhale, exhale. We do it all day, usually without any awareness. And we most certainly don't focus on the pause between.

It's the space where what was is no longer, and what is to be is not yet.

Do you have the courage to be in this space? Because, my love, it takes courage to truly BE in this space.

Can you surrender to allowing what is no longer to fall away, without knowing what is to be?

Some call this a liminal space, which by definition is a transitional phase of a process, or to occupy the space on both sides of a threshold. It quite literally means to be ON the threshold. There is a door closing behind you, but the new one hasn't opened yet.

This space, that in-between or liminal space, is sacred.

And I was in that sacred, fucked up, holy space for at least 4 years.

I could not possibly have known that I would be in-between for over 4 years. If you told me years ago that it would take this long, frankly I'd have been pissed off. I'd have fought, and struggled, and clawed, and argued my way into a belief that I could get through it faster. That if I just did the right things, it wouldn't take me as long. If I read the right books and found the right mentor and prayed the right way and studied Buddhism and meditated enough and cried enough and laughed enough and took enough classes and worked with the guru and did the full moon burning ceremonies and the salt water baptisms and read the tarot cards and wrote my feelings and read ALLLLL the damn books… that I could heal faster. Better. More gracefully.

But healing is messy. And healing takes time. And like grief coming in waves crashing over you in your tiny little boat, the only thing you can do in that space in-between is to ride out the storm. Feel the holy water splash over your face, look up at the sky… and surrender.

And one day, you'll wake up and realize that you've made it to the other side. You set yourself adrift on the shore of the lake that you couldn't see across, and all those years later… you made it to the other fucking side.

Yes, I did ALL the things. I tried to do all the right things, and the only thing that I can look back on in those 4 years that might have been the key was to truly, deeply, and wholeheartedly surrender to that wretched, holy, fucked up, sacred space: the in-between.

The space where I had to find the courage to let go of what was no longer, and embrace that I had no idea what was to be.