Liminal Space

 We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore. Anonymous     

The word “liminal” comes from the Latin root, limen, which means “threshold.” The liminal space is the “crossing over” space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. ... Deep in the night, it seems that there are no boundaries between realities, time, space, and thoughts.

I predict that most of us have had the experience of being in a physical liminal space. But I suspect with certainty that all of us have inhabited an emotional liminal space, not once but many times in our lives. They occur at any point of transition from:

·       one home to another

·       married to divorced

·       employed to fired or retired

·       with children at home to an empty-nester

·       the end of one decade to the start of another (i.e., age 59 to 60)

·       a loved one in your life is gone from your life through death

Each of these examples and there are many others, find us betwixt and between. We have left what was, but haven’t yet inhabited what’s next.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Walking through an empty parking lot late at night is terrifying. Still, it’s got nothing on the fear we experience during some of life’s more challenging transitions.

As a result, most of us will avoid making a transition with everything we’ve got in us. We will stay in the lousy marriage, wait a few more years before moving, or postpone our retirement date until we have amassed more money. When we finally do enter a transition, many of us will try to get through it as quickly as possible, leaping to what’s next so we can feel comfortable and sane once again.

Transitions actually have three parts, only one of which is the liminal space. The three parts, which overlap rather than occur sequentially, are:

Making an Ending. This involves more than just leaving your job, or waving bye to the kids as they move out of your house. A good ending requires that you let go not only of what you used to do, but of who you used to be. For example, when I first retired, I immediately start working again as a teacher on call to keep my hand in as did many of my friends. While some of made the argument that it was a bit of extra money and an opportunity to continue to work with colleagues and students, it was not it was about our self-identification as a teacher. After eight years I realized that I no longer self-identified as a teacher and so I began the ending and was able to make the transition to retirement. If there is no end, there is no possibility of transition and no new beginning.

Inhabiting the Neutral Zone

This is the crux of transition, the spot I think of as the pre-eminent liminal space. Once I started the transition to retirement, in the beginning, I felt I was in a time of chaos. This is a liminal space, and it is or can be terrifying. But it is also chock-full of creative potential, a time of possibility.

Making a New Beginning

When beginnings come after a definite ending, and time hanging out in the liminal space, those beginnings have great power. This doesn’t mean that new beginnings, the ‘what is next’ of our transitions are easy. Every new beginning confirms that the ending we experienced was real. I know that I felt a real sense of loss and I did worry that this won’t be the right new beginning for me. Some believe they might fail, I never believed or felt that feeling.