In airports and on flights, as on trains and in automobiles, in elevators and hallways, we’re moving from one place to another—and during these times, we might feel like we’re not really here or there. So too during transitional periods of our lives—when we’re between jobs, between homes, newly single, grieving, preparing for a child, relocating, or otherwise leaving behind a familiar phase of life to enter an unfamiliar other. These times can feel like waiting periods or holding places—“somewheres” between where we’ve been and where we’re going, between what was and what will be, between what we’ve known and what’s yet to be revealed

These “somewheres” are liminal spaces.

Sometimes we enter liminal spaces willingly; other times they’re thrust upon us.

The word liminal comes from the Latin root “limin,” meaning threshold, or gap between spaces. Liminal places are thresholds we cross into futures yet unknown.

The chrysalis is one of my favorite liminal spaces. It’s a threshold caterpillars instinctively create for themselves. Within the chrysalis, metamorphosis occurs: caterpillar genetics give way to butterfly genetics. In this unique space, caterpillars transform into or become butterflies. 

I believe, like the chrysalis, the liminal spaces we humans occupy in times of transition can be uniquely transformative. I see them as thresholds for our own becoming. Liminal spaces can be disruptive, are sometimes disorienting, may be painful, and are often wrought with uncertainty. Frankly, liminal spaces can be downright terrifying, sometimes even debilitating. At the very least, they’re usually uncomfortable. They’re also necessary for growth and evolution. As a friend likes to say, liminal spaces are “both and”—they’re both challenging and rich with potential. 

In his “Parable of the Trapeze,” Danaan Parry writes “Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars…” These moments of hurtling are liminal spaces. Perry goes on to talk about knowing he has to let go of one bar to reach for another and that “[e]ach time it happens, I hope—no, I pray—that I won’t have to grab the new one.”*

I’ve found myself in so many liminal spaces in my adult life that it sometimes feels like they are my normal. Every time I’m in one (and suffice it to say I’m here right now), I’m uncomfortable. The space feels unsettling, and I feel unsettled and restless within it. Of course I want to avoid these uncomfortable, unsettling phases of life. I’m not unlike Perry or caterpillars in this way. 

It’s fascinating to me that caterpillars instinctively resist metamorphosis. Their immune systems literally fight against the “imaginal cells” that will eventually turn them into butterflies.**

Oh, that caterpillars could see what lies on “the other side of” their chrysalises! And, oh, that we humans might see the potential in our “somewheres” between.

Is it always, as the saying goes, rainbows and butterflies on the other side of liminal spaces? 

No.

But I’m being completely and totally honest when I tell you that, for all the liminal spaces I’ve come through in my life, I’ve never once come out the other side regretting all I gained from the experience of going through it. Never. Once. 

Each time I’ve crossed that threshold, no matter how disruptive, disorienting, painful, uncertain, terrifying, debilitating, or just uncomfortable the liminal space might have been, I’ve always ultimately been grateful for having entered it—or for what I gained from having it thrust upon me. I’m not saying I’ve never wished I could go back and do some earlier phase of my life over, live it differently, manifest an other future reality, not at all (though I believe there’s No Wrong Choice). And I’m certainly not saying I wish challenging times upon myself or others. Still, when I look back—when I really take stock of who I was before and who I am now—I can always recognize that I’ve learned and grown from each liminal space, each unfamiliar, in-between “somewhere” of my life.

Every time. And always.

If we knew there were only good things on the other side—or if we could clearly see how valuable the experience would be—would we then enter liminal spaces without trepidation?

Probably not. Because change can be really really unnerving. 

We can only trust that any outcome will be for our own and others’ highest good. We can only have faith. And my faith—in myself, in the Universe, in my life’s path, that no more than I can handle will be put on me—deepens with each liminal space I survive and grow through.

While we might always feel some fear at letting go of one bar to reach for the other, may we also remember that every butterfly was once a caterpillar resisting the chrysalis. 

May we even come to see the moments of hurtling as our own imaginal cells emerging.

Here’s to life’s liminal spaces. 

And here’s to our own metamorphosis. 

*To read all of the “Parable of the Trapeze, excerpted from Perry’s book Warriors of the heart, visit https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/financial-life-focus/201402/the-parable-of-the-trapeze.

**To read more about imaginal cells, visit https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2462.