The Space Between

As a coach, my work is often with clients who are going through change. Change can be difficult. It often requires a different perspective and a letting go of places, people and familiar mindsets. It can feel overwhelming. And when we feel overwhelmed, we get stuck. This is a natural place to be; our brain responds to the “threat” by freezing.

There is nothing wrong with being stuck for a while but prolonged stuckness comes with heightened anxiety and stress. There are many ways to deal with that anxiety and anxiety has become a business of its own. So many are looking for ways to soften the sharp edges of reality. This post is not about dealing with anxiety as such but is a reminder that we don’t have to leap from one way of being to another. It’s important to take time to come back to self.

What does that mean? Our lives, with the often high pressure demands of work and family, move us away from our inner landscapes and the focus rests on what seems to be immediate.

When we enter a sacred space, we cross a threshold. The threshold is the frontier that separates one place from another. It stands between two often opposing worlds. The threshold in a church is meant to take us from the outside world into the spiritual sanctuary of the inner space. The threshold is a point of transition and change.

To pay attention to the threshold that you may be standing at now, to pause and feel that space, is a return to what it is sacred to self. What can or should be left behind? It is not a place without pain but a place where we can face pain that has been stored and left unattended in a busy life. The more we avoid pain the more we create threat and danger in our thinking and the harder it is to move.

The way out of pain is to cross the threshold and go through. That new world may be welcome or unwelcome but whatever it is, we can choose the path of thinking if not the physical path. I know it’s not easy; if it was I wouldn’t have just ordered another book on dealing with anxiety.

Take one small step. Find sanctuary. Give yourself the gift of your own quiet space. Leave when you are ready but know that the next step will be there when you’re ready. Mark that step into your new world with a rite of passage; set it on your life path.

Find a sacred space.

In-between

It’s not the last step,

It’s not the next step,

It’s the space in-between.

It’s not the last step,

Turning on the narrow edge

For a glimpse of familiar faces,

For the warm touch of another,

Hands letting go,

Leaving a cooling space between.

It’s not the next step –

Finding the first stone of solid ground,

Matching that to this,

Eyes and ears suddenly new,

Hands reaching out and in

To warm the space between.

Over the threshold now:

Settle into the sacred space of self.

Wait.

Release that, and that, and that.

Pain is not gone but –

The cage of tears is opened,

The foot that finds the path is washed,

The impossible step is clear.

There is more to leave than you ever thought.

There is more to find than you ever believed.

“What is the way? Leave.”

Ruth Everson

(Ruth is a qualified life coach and certified Martha Beck Wayfinder.)