By Susan Temple, MA, BCC, ACEP
Several years ago, I went through a divorce after 30 years of marriage. I felt like all the pieces of my life had been thrown up into the air. My primary relationship was fractured beyond repairing. I had to sort through the 27 years of life that was stored in the house where we raised our five daughters, and get the house sold. Relationships with family and mutual friends were uncertain. I moved (twice). I changed jobs (twice). I needed a series of non-life-threatening surgeries that set me back physically, each time. Financial concerns arose, as now I was solely responsible for all expenses. I was 60 and feeling like I didn’t have a lot of time to rebuild. And most importantly, I didn’t know what this would mean for my daughters and me. What would “family” look like now?
Thinking of my future, I felt like I was staring into an abyss, a completely blank space. I felt a responsibility to myself and to my young adult kids to create some kind of new life, but I had no idea what that could look like. Fear, confusion, grief, and anger were running rampant in my heart and mind.
I know now that I was experiencing what French ethnographer Arnold van Genepp called “liminal space.” The word “liminal” comes from the Greek word, “limen,” which means “threshold.” Liminal space is a period in your life when something is ending, and something new is trying to emerge. You are in between what was, and what will be. Your life is changing, whether or not you planned for it, and whether or not you like it. It can feel extremely uncomfortable, and full of exciting possibility, all at the same time.
You don’t have to have a huge life event like I did to find yourself in liminal space. For some people it can be more internal, just a nagging feeling that something is wrong, that you just know you could be happier or you feel that something is missing.
What I learned from my experience is that I couldn’t navigate it alone. I needed support and guidance to deal with the past, develop self-love and self-trust, and create a life where I feel like me, where I can be content. This does not happen in one or two sessions with a professional.
I sought help from a therapist and others during that time, and I continue to work on my healing and growth in a variety of ways to this day.
Many of the people who come to me for coaching and tapping (or to any of the practitioners at The Healing House) are in some kind of liminal space. Are you? In my work, I support you as you learn to accept, allow and process all feelings, including the ones that aren’t pretty, or that you’d prefer not to feel. I help you see your own strength and the glimmers of what is possible for you in the next stage of your life. And I am there for you as you take the first steps towards those glimmers, and as you begin to create something new for yourself.