Getting Comfortable with Uncomfortable Transitions

Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more self expressed. I'm your host, Erin Keating.

Today, I want to talk about being in the in between, when you are neither here nor there, when something has ended and nothing else has swooped in to take its place. So much of our life is lived. In either periods of feeling like I'm stuck in a rut, I'm stuck in a pattern, I'm doing a thing over and over again, I'm a perpetual motion machine, I am going through the motions, and then suddenly there's upheaval, suddenly there's change, and after the change there's exhilaration, and after exhilaration there is this moment of liminality.

Or you are neither here nor there. You are neither one nor the other. You have just ended something and nothing has yet begun. That's a space that can be really fertile. It can also be really uncomfortable.

So a dear friend of mine was just laid off, and that's what made me think about this. It made me think about when I was laid off and how angry I was to have my agency taken away to have a power greater than myself that is not my higher power, but that is my employer say, you know what, we don't need this role anymore. We don't need this department anymore. We don't need this team anymore. We don't need you anymore. All the beautiful work you've done, thanks so much, there's the door.

It's infuriating, on the one hand, and if you have severance, on the other hand, or some sort of cushion to fall into, it can also be extremely liberating. I didn't have to make the decision. I was unhappy. I didn't want to be there anyway. Now I'm free. This is my fate. This hand of fate has come in and made a change for me, and I have no choice but to accept it.

This is the universe's way of saying, get out the door, make the change here. I'll give you a little help.

I felt this sense of liminality, the sense of in between this for a long time at the end of my marriage as well. When I knew that I was done, that my spirit could no longer fight for the relationship, when I decided it was over, but we were still in it. And then I felt it on the other side, once the truth and the reality of the separation and then the divorce sunk in. This sort of sense of like, okay, that part is done, and now I can begin. Again, and I don't know where I'm headed. It's like you're in a tree, then you're on a swing and you're not quite to the next tree and you're not sure if you're going to grab on to the next tree. Is this a good metaphor or a terrible metaphor? I'm not sure, but it feels visual and clear to me that you're in that space swinging between two concrete things and you've got nothing under your feet and you're holding onto a rope for dear life. That's what being in between can feel like.

I'm in that place professionally. The podcast is my rope swing. I left a chapter of my career and ended that. I grabbed on to the idea of speaking my truth for whatever value it will provide to other women over 40 who might be experiencing similar things. To share my story. But the rope isn't all, right? The rope is a vehicle. And the vehicle is taking me to a destination, and I don't know what that destination is. I jumped off and grabbed the swing of divorce. I got divorced. And then, I landed in another relationship, and that relationship also doesn't feel like it has a destination or it is concrete in the same way as a marriage, right? Being with the Marine, I feel like we are an in between space because we're undefined. What are we? We were lovers and now we're boyfriend and girlfriend and we're in love, but it's delicate and we're navigating it slowly and carefully and we have no defined destination.

My kids are tweens. That is the ultimate in between ness. You're not a child. You're not even a fucking teenager yet. You're not even in the defined middle area between childhood and adulthood. They're in the waiting room of the waiting room for adulthood, which is why tweens are so weird and they're so beautiful because they're childlike, and they're so frustrated with being children still without any of the agency of even being teenagers.

Ooh, they are the definition of liminality. I feel for them. I feel for them.

And so what brings us out of this in between ness? My therapist says you can't force clarity. People say, oh, well, just get clear. Once you're clear, you'll be on the road. You'll know what your destination is. But you can't force clarity. You can't force vision. You can't make a thing happen that still needs time to cook. And I just want to talk about being in that spot because that is what my life looks like today. There is such a thrill to blowing something up, right? There is such explosive power to the wrecking ball of a divorce, of a layoff, of a massive change in circumstance. There's such energy that's released as a result of that.

My God, I was a maniac when I first got divorced. I was dating, fucking, experimental, libertine, liberty seeking, pot smoking. Fuck, I was really, really fun. I gave a sense of my idea of fun. I felt so free. I exploded out into the world. I felt so free with the release of the job and the big burdens of the career and the keeping up with the Joneses and not unlike that wrecking ball, it crashes into the  building and the building goes tumbling down and then there is a huge explosion of dust and rubble and debris and mess, and it takes time for that dust to settle. And the people who have been spectating the explosion, the decimation of the building, the detonation, they walk away, they go back to their lives. And what you're left with is a big, giant, dusty pile of rubble and potential, right?

There's an empty lot where there once was a decrepit building. There was a thing you could no longer repair that is replaced by nothing but pure potential. But what is still there is all that rubble and that rubble doesn't take care of itself. That architect for that new building doesn't hire themselves. You have to plan for that new building. You have to take away, cart by cart, stone by stone, all the mess that is left behind. And I think one thing we don't do in our lives, in this sort of fast paced, crazy America we live in today. Is we don't allow ourselves transition time. We expect that everything is going to get tied up in a bow, right?

One thing ends, boopie boop, and then the next thing begins, boopie boop, and we are through to the other side. But when you are making a massive change in your life or when a massive change occurs to you or for you in your life, you have to take the time to clean up the rubble. And you have to build the new thing thoughtfully and brick by brick.

And to build that thing, you need to take time to imagine what you want that thing to look like, what you want that new structure to be able to do, to contain, to support. And I've been thinking a lot about that because I don't know what I want the building to look like. I don't know what I want the career to look like. I know the sort of blurry contours around the edges of it. If I knew what the there there was, I could hire the architect and I could go interview contractors and I could find the right people to help me build that building. In my love life, I don't know what to ask for, because I don't know what comes next. And so much of this liminal period is enjoying being on the journey.

Certainly in my relationship, I enjoy being on the journey. I am uncomfortable with not having clarity about, like, where are we going with this? However, what being in between makes you realize is that being on the journey is the whole fucking point. Spending the time with the person that you care about, even if you don't know what to call it or how all the puzzle pieces of your life fit together, enjoying Being in real time with someone or being in the muddy middle of a process of rediscovery. We are so uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. And I guess that's the task, right? Of this fertile in between period that we've all been in, in our lives, in one way or another. We're lucky to have these in betweens, these, I don't know, but I'm on a road and I don't know where it's going, but I'm trusting myself and I'm putting one foot in front of the other and I'm taking whatever action feels intuitively correct, even though I don't know where I'm headed.

That is a really good metaphor for being alive. And I certainly know that I feel more alive in this in between period. Regardless of how yucky and uncomfortable and imperfect the whole thing feels, regardless of how much I want clarity and vision and a fucking light bulb, please light bulbs show up in a thousand different ways. I want all of that, but I think that's where faith comes in. My theme for this year, I think that's where not skipping parts of your life comes in. I think it's okay to be dreaming dreams and to feel like you're headed towards something that might be a mirage and it might be real. I think it's okay because liminality, the in between, is the human condition. It is a fundamentally in between state of being. It is in between birth and death.

Our whole existence is this experience. that I'm talking about today. Our whole existence is this fumbling through and trying to figure out the next thing and trying to figure out what you're supposed to be and who you want to be. And, you know, we ask kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I think the answer for most kids now. should be a list. It should be a list of things they want to be when they grow up, because they're gonna have to be a whole bunch of different things. They're gonna live a long life, and it's gonna have lots of chapters, and because it's gonna have lots of chapters, it's gonna have lots of in betweens, and it's gonna have lots of liminality, and it's gonna have lots of twists and turns, and corners around which they can't see, until they actually turn the corner and can see the next chapter.

And so that's what I wish for all of you, is that you enjoy the ride, you set your goals, you set your sights on things that you know are going to make you happy. And you learn to endure and maybe even enjoy the discomfort of not knowing there is no there there. Because the moment you arrive in the new place, the moment you arrive at the desk in the job that you dreamed about, once again, you will be in between. You will be in between being an expert and being a newbie, right? There will be so much journeying to do, even when you arrive at the next milestone.

It's very rich, this in between period. It's the opposite of being locked in or trapped or stuck. I did not like being locked in and trapped and stuck. I do not love this! In between this, maybe the problem is me and how I think about things. Maybe the problem is the human condition. I don't think we can sit and wait. I don't think we can rest even uneasily and not take any action at all. I think that is a formula for never finding the next goal, the next brass ring, the next place we think we will find more fulfillment. More success, more joy, more positivity, more whatever it is that we're looking for in this next chapter that's coming.

I don't think you can sit still and wait for the universe to sprinkle fairy dust on you. I think you have to take action. I think you have to be in motion. I think you have to fumble. I mean, all of a sudden you wake up one morning and things feel like oh, yeah, I know what I'm going to do. And then you can run real hard at that one thing. And then you can get that one thing. And then there will be other things that are in between because we are in between my friends, especially at this period of our lives, when we have become all the things that we set out to become, or we have lived into the aspirations of our youth. And we are in the process of inventing what we want our future to look like.

Enjoy the invention. Dig into the discomfort. Get comfortable with things feeling unresolved, feeling unclear. If you see a tiny bit of clarity, take advantage of it. But don't forget to be in the now. Don't forget to be in the moment while you're aspiring towards knowing what's next. Where are you in between? How is that going for you? Where does your life feel stuck and stopped, and you want to blow it up? And where does your life feel muddy and confusing? Where are you searching? Where are you seeking? And how can you be more okay with that? That's what I ask myself every day. How can I trust that everything good is on its way to me?

And that maybe what I have today is better than I think it is, maybe just because I'm uncomfortable with the not knowing. Doesn't mean I'm not okay. I'm okay. I feel weird. I feel confused. I feel in between. But I'm okay and so are you on some fundamental level, you have yourself, and you have your heart, and your relationships, and your community, and your strength, and your intellect, and your emotional intelligence, and you have all your experiences. And all those things are going to add up to the next thing. We're just not in charge of time and timing, just like my friend was not in charge of the timing of her being laid off, you know? It's not what she would have chosen. She would have chosen to run the ship, but such is life. We're not in charge. Enjoy it.

Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. Have you been listening to our weekly advice episodes? Have you been enjoying having more Hotter Than Ever in your podcast feed? Are there issues around love, sex, career, ambition, divorce, relationships? In between ness tweens parenting. Oy. Ah! Are there anything else you'd like my very biased feedback on?

I clearly do not have all the answers, but I have a lot of opinions. Do you need permission to do something you know you're already going to do? I'm here for it. DM us on Instagram @hotterthaneverpod or call and leave a voicemail or text your question to the Hotter Than Ever Hottie Hotline at 323 844 2303. I'd love to answer your question in a future episode.

Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Girard and PodKit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.

Come back next week for some deep talk, some jokes, and some more conversations that will hopefully make you say totally I agree, I didn't know anybody else felt that way. OMG, you're speaking my language. Or what the fuck is she even talking about today? Oy, Erin, get it together. Maybe I'm talking about stuff you can relate to, maybe I'm not. Maybe you're thinking, thank God I'm not alone. That's what I hope, that's what I hope. I hope this podcast makes you see that we're all in the thick of it and in the middle together.