Think of a problem or challenge you have now.  Are you stuck in a silo perspective?  Sometimes friends will point out a perspective of opportunity that we were blind to for years, unable ‘to see the forest for the trees.’

Einstein knew this.  He famously said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.” 

We must move instead from a siloed stuckness to solution-seeking, and use our visual/mental/emotional/creative lenses.   In drawing for example, the artist knows to step back and look at the drawing from a distance and from different angles to ensure they are achieving the desired outcome. 

​ After you notice you’re stuck try these steps… 

1. step away and take a breather.   A few in fact.  Slowly exhale. 
2. move your body! back up, look up, look around, physically change your perspective and the scenery.  Go higher or go lower.  I.e. climb a hill or lay on the ground. 
3. Be in nature (as above, a healing walk can do wonders for shifting perspective)
4. Sleep on it
5. Write down the problem before bed and let your subconscious work on it
6. Don’t be shy about asking for help. Ask for guidance, from a friend, mentor, lover, your higher self, your  journalling pages or the universe 
7. Do research 
8. Be willing to open and learn what you don’t yet know.

​I am a huge advocate of journaling to get past stuckness. Journaling creates a reset opportunity.  Journalling is in fact your personal research project.  I’ve done many creative webinars and encouraged journalling for over 30 years with clients. My own journaling experience began more diligently by age 10.  (Naturally,  I have acquired quite the pile of journals over time. ) 

Journalling is a stabilizing force. It changes your perception. Your perspective.

Journalling lends the power of perspective, expands creativity, serves as our  expressive medicine.  There is a  palpable, restorative value of mining your inner world daily.  It declutters and untangles the mind and emotions. 
​

​If your inner rebel is going “Ugh, no way”…may I gently suggest to try committing for seven days for 3 minutes.  We will not change if we don’t make new choices and take new actions.  One of the cognitive distortions of depression for example, is that myopic lens that narrows our perspective, which also directly syphons off motivation towards a new possibility as a result.   Whereas Writing allows you to physically ground your inner voice through and out your body to see it. 
​

​​Not all great love stories involve humans.

Liminal is latin for threshold. In architectural terms it is spaces between; doorways, hallways –places of transit or holding.  Liminal space refers to a place or person enduring a transitional phase or period.  It refers also to rites of passage –anthropologically and psychologically.   Marriage, divorce, childless to a child born, death--passages from one place to another—moving, uprooting, unemployment, graduating......
they are times with associated rituals and markers...
New Year’s eve and Birthdays among them. 

It’s a gap.  In physical form like a doorway, or a hallway that explores transition, or emotional/psychological like a divorce or a death, or metaphysical like a decision.   

It’s also a gap, such as the ethereal space between your inhalation and exhalation.  A profound part of the breath cycle, when you tap in deeply.  Make peace with this space.  Breathe more fully into this space.

This is also where metamorphosis happens.   

Everything has a beginning, middle and end.  Where are you most comfortable? Familiar? It can be unsettling when we are at a place during a time that's not routine.  Unknown.    Uncertain.  The in-between.   Out of the comfort zone.

This ‘betwixt and between’ can be unsettling.   

The in-between a completion cycle and a new beginning, can often feel like you are suspended.  Ungrounded.  Even stalled, or stagnant.  Expectant...perhaps even a forlorn atmosphere filled with nostalgic notes, full of the energy of both longing and letting go.    The liminal space between ‘what was’ and ‘what’s next’. 

Liminality: In essence, the experience of early pandemic was a global suspension in liminal space. Society was disorganized and overwhelmed, rife with uncertainty. 

There is a psychological need to accord space, time and place for liminal feeling. (Although we often don’t).

As such, there are two main risks associated with liminal space – we either provide no ritual space at all in our lives to digest and integrate’-- or....we stay in it too long.  Stuck.
 
Our cultural tendency is to bypass it altogether, speeding along as we do to the next thing.  Ignoring our gnawing feelings and compartmentalizing to a fault. 

Take an extra long exhale here.
Check in with yourself.
Do you tend to just, ‘push on’?

Twilight is a perfect example of liminal time –between day and night, emblematic of the middle ground between light and shadow.    The polarity of light and shadow ties well to the tension between nostalgia, longing and letting go--
any liminal space requires transitional processing of the individual or group. 

If liminal space then, is the space between one destination and the next—(an airport is the architectural holding tank of this concept)—how can you bring more acknowledgement and awareness to whatever passage you yourself are traversing?   Completion of a cycle, likely comes with some grief and joy, the old compliment of mixed emotions.  Even an ordinary heartfelt goodbye at an airport is usually layered. 

Take an extra long exhale here.  Check-in with yourself. 

Allow.      Allow.      Allow.  

Allow the breath to unleash feelings otherwise being swept away or hidden.   These thresholds are significant in our lives, yet also mysterious.  Unnerving.   Allow the noticing; The honouring of this passage. 

Why do we have so much trouble taking deep breaths?
Speed. Tension. Distraction. Overwhelm. 
Are you good at taking time for digestion, acknowledgement and processing of cycles?

This space is a tenuous passage in which transformation is allowed to take place. 

Allow.  Allow.   Allow.  

       At times it can be rough as in the play, “Waiting for Godot,”  the characters vacillate between hope and hopelessness.  It is a waiting period but different, as only through a condition of liminality can we often finally see the way forward. 

If you’re feeling betwixt and between, simply embrace it and allow.

Appreciation = gratitude.

These energies when really FELT not just thought, deeply shift us. It’s allowing yourself to be moved by gratitude for your own life. Your loved ones. Your morning latte. The night sky. The evening chorus of frogs.

Travel is a circuit breaker in our stale thinking and dulled routine. We simultaneously unplug waning energy and plug back in fully charged.

The next best thing is our imagination. Open your channels of creativity or find someone that stimulates you into new possibilities.

Go to a gallery. A science exhibit. An archeological dig. Do a science experiment. Research a secret passion you never have time for. Take yourself on a trip to your own inner secret world.

Have a conversation with someone you have nothing in common with and stay open and curious about them.

So much is happening all the time, we often don’t get enough space and quiet for integration and exploration of our inner truth.

Yet, space and quiet are essential for self-care.

How do you make space for it? How do you broaden your self-regard, trust and compassion? Set boundaries? Allow some silence into your day?
Don’t agonize, simply organize yourself.

How gentle are you with your mistakes and disappointments? Could you be kinder to yourself?

What’s the belief that prevents this?

Ambitious drive does not have to equal relentless and unforgiving. Self-care and compassion will lead you to greater success however you define that. And make sure to Define it through your own lens.

Divine living is in the design.

Get intentional with your life, how you live your days is how your life unfolds. It matters. How we do one thing is how we do everything.

So master daily self-care and watch your inner garden blossom. Water the seeds and dreams you want to cultivate.

Take inspired action on your wellness. This means not just external goals, it must include:

- learning to unplug, especially when you are stuck or sluggish or stressed out.
(And, getting good at it will avoid those undesirable states.)

Learn to do nothing well at least 15 mins a day guilt-free. Reboot the mission.

(When Your computer forces its shutdowns to reboot and update, instead of the ?#@*&%! diatribe, —try to take notice and do the same reboot!)

Breathe deeply and quell your stress with slow exhalations and a few closed eye body scans,

Drink water; take each sip mindfully and remember you are nourishing and cleansing the inner ecosystem and mirroring in your body what you want to do with the mind.

What about a Creative reboot?
Simply try something new.

Look, we all need reminders, we can all fall off the track of great self-care.
Focus on the long game. Remember it’s progress over perfection.

Please be kind to yourself. This is the greatest gain you will ever make in your quality of life and relationships allowing greater peace and wellness In your body. Your Compassion will always be incomplete if it doesn’t include yourself.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....”
(-Charles Dickens)   ​

This timeless truth was written in 1859 and could be just as true today.
​Or, any period in human history. (Outrunning sabre tooth tigers anyone?....)
​
Life is rarely a cakewalk. 

But it can be so much more than the self-defeating limits in which we unwittingly cage ourselves.  How do you negotiate Self-doubt vs self-trust? Instead of, ‘I can’t' or 'it won’t work’....  How often do you ask yourself,  ‘WHAT IS POSSIBLE?’

What about,​

Magic.     Joy.     Light.

What do these words bring to mind for you? What feelings arise?
How do they dance on your tongue?   Does your ear welcome them?  
Breathe them in.  

What images come to your imagination?
​We need these aspects to settle our frayed nervous systems.

​Light and Dark will always be hand in hand.
What you allow to be stronger within you will depend on a whole lot of forces,
including your context, the toxicity vs the safety of your environment, 
your choices or lack thereof, even what you had for breakfast!

You choose whether to entrain with bitterness from being hurt or whether you commit to healing.

And learning. 

And growing.

It’s a choice whether your heart opens or closes.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” 
― Charles Dickens, (1859) A Tale of Two Cities

These days, if you think that to be happy and content and have a good life, it should be easy and sunny,  then you are going to be challenged, especially moving into fall, more darkness and the 4th wave of the pandemic.   This is one of the things I’m feeling really heavily in my bones right now.   I don’t know about you but, I need to change my mindset.   When I catch these negative thought loops and heavy discouraged feelings, they need attention and self-care.

Since the nights are getting longer, what if the light we need now is a starlight twinkle, rather than a bright sun?

When I was out kayaking this summer, I was enthralled with bioluminescent phytoplankton on a midnight paddle. Have you ever experienced it?
The magical neon blue light flashes against the night ocean as your kayak paddle dips into the inky darkness,  carving your glowing signature in its wake.  
Your own magical presence dancing with the sea’s hidden mysteries.  

This is joy.    This is magic.    This is light.