Navigating the In Between

To my kids when a new phase of life feels uncomfortable:

Sometimes you end up in a place called The In Between, where one thing has ended or changed and you haven’t yet found your footing in the new place. Maybe it is literally a new place or maybe a relationship ended or maybe you’ve dropped a bad habit or started a good one. Maybe you chose it or maybe it was forced upon you, but either way, things are unfamiliar. Unfamiliar can cause warning lights to flash in our brains.

When discomfort jumps in to ride shotgun he’ll tell you to turn the car back to the Known. He’ll whisper that the fix is to go back to the familiar. But let me urge you to try tolerating uncertainty for a while instead. Maybe even trust the force that brought you here, whether it was your own decision or Life itself that added the plot twist.

Mario Martinez writes about ‘mourning the known misery’ which is when we feel nostalgic for something even if we know it is better left in the past. Mourn if you must, but don’t let the mourning convince you something is necessarily wrong.

Open yourself to the possibility that things might work out. If you chose this change, trust the you that made the decision. If you didn’t choose it, allow space for the idea that there might be something worthwhile ahead. As the song goes, God bless the broken road and all that.

Do you have the patience to wait,
‘Til your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving,
‘Til the right action arises by itself?

                        Lao Tzu

Unmoving can be a very wise choice in the In Between. As Nancy Levin said, honor the space between no longer and not yet. It’s kind of simple, all you have to do here is nothing. Just for the moment don’t move. Don’t rush back. Don’t doubt the decision. Just wait. Let the mud settle. Gather some data on this new place while you wait. Realize that tolerating uncertainty is a superpower that you will use repeatedly in your life. Believe that something New is on its way but it will only arrive if you don’t rush back to the Old. Will the New be better? Who knows? But the Old is done, its time is past.

This is the story of life, finding a way through, not back. And those with the courage to wait out the In Between often find a whole big life waiting on the other side.

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