The In Between
Our culture values clarity, knowing, certainty, and goals. But so much of life is a process of transition, change, not knowing, and feeling lost.
Years ago, a mentor did a simple exercise with me. We were sitting in her living room and she asked me to find all the blue in the room. I tracked the room and took a mental note of what was blue. Then she said. “Ok, now close your eyes.” I did that. Then she said something that surprised me: “Michelle, tell me what is red in my living room.”
I was in a tough spot in my life and was deeply focusing on what I did not have, aka the “blue,” and was unable to see that there was an abundance of other things in my life, aka the “red.”
When clients are in career transition, the focus can often become, on what she does not know, or how stuck she feels, or how lost she feels. But what if you turned that upside down? What is the job you don’t like is actually teaching you about what you want? What if you gave yourself full permission to feel lost? What if you surrendered into the moment and let go, truly let go? What may come available? Life is not linear, clean, or direct. It ebbs and flows.
Not knowing, or what I like to call the “In Between” is where the magic happens in life. None of us would grow, change, evolve, or find more meaningful work if everything was easy and clear.
We can choose to lean into the not knowing and embrace it as a precious time in life. We can choose to be counter culture and say, “ I do not know, right now, but I trust my journey.” Imagine how much lighter you might feel if you embraced this time of the “in between” and really allowed compassion to wash over you and trust that you were being guided and opened into a new chapter of opportunity and challenge.
How might you live your life different if you embraced deep down to the bottom of your toes that everything changes? Nothing stays the same, life is a series of chapters, some long, some short, but always evolving.
Good things “TO DO” in the “In Between” are the following:
★Go for a walk in nature
★Go to an Art Museum
★Walk/drive or bike a new way home
★Go to a body of water and watch the water
★Take a Yoga class or a new Yoga class
★Read a fun book
★Try a new adventure
★Go dancing
★Go to a park and lay in the grass
You may be thinking won’t this just distract me? No, this is an opportunity to expand, explore, let your imagination be sparked through something new, creative and fun. Our imagination and creativity needs white space to spark inspiration.
Michelle M. Olsen - Career Purpose Coach
GreenLight Your Life
