The Liminal Zone: How to Navigate Life Between Chapters

Have you ever felt like you’re standing in the hallway of your own life — one door closing, another not yet open — and you don’t know which way to turn?
That’s not failure or confusion. It’s the liminal zone — the space between identities, where the old is falling away and the new hasn’t yet taken form.

It’s the territory between who you were and who you are becoming. 

You are in the liminal zone; and generally humans are not great at this part and why I feel so passionately called to guide and coach in this space.

What is the Liminal Zone?

Nature never skips winter.

Instead it goes through the process of shedding what no longer is needed, then it pauses and resets, before then letting a new cycle of growth emerge.

In the years of working in both corporate boardrooms and deeper somatic coaching I see the resistance we have to follow this pattern.  Brilliant minds trying to strategise their way out of uncertainty, rather than let clarity arise through it.

Autumn is a threshold season…… between the old that is ending and the new hasn’t fully arrived yet.  Your mind might be screaming for a roadmap but your heart and soul are demanding space for what can’t be rushed……..this is not being stuck, its actually an initiation into deeper clarity.

What’s really happening when you feel Stuck?

The brain hates uncertainty and in-between spaces.  We literally have neurological pathways designed to make sense of chaos as quickly as possible and they crave for familiarity even if those patterns don’t serve us anymore.

The liminal space is actually a container to hold you as you shift identities.  This is part of the path where things need to deconstruct and yes, it is uncomfortable, but it is essential for transformation.

Think of liminality as the hallway while two doors shift open and closed:

The first door – who you were – is closing behind you.

The second door – who you are becoming – hasn’t opened yet.

The temptation is to panic and start picking any door just to keep moving. The mastery however is to learn to hold the stillness long enough for real direction to emerge:  Where strategy meets surrender.

Why most people try to skip the liminal Zone

High achieving minds want immediate results so they overpower the liminal space, chase timeline, get strategic too quickly and hustle hard for answers.  Instead of saving time they just delay real clarity that will move them fully out of stuck-ness.

So how do we stay in this fertile uncertainty long enough for truth to unfold?

How to move through the liminal space:

This requires Presence and Strategy and I coach leaders how to move through this period with less panic and more grace, respecting the space that real change needs.

Here are the 3 stages I guide leaders through:

1. Completion – practice intentional endings by sensing, feeling, naming and honouring what is ending and how you experience it.
2. Receptivity – create daily anchors to stay open through daily routines that will help with being receptive to what is emerging (walks in nature, journalling with prompts, reading/listening to inspiration, weekly sessions with a coach/therapist).
3. Emergence – vision, face resistance, and take grounded, embodied, practical next steps.

We walk this together — with structure, courage, curiosity, and compassion.

And finally……

If you’re standing in the hallway of the in-between, remember — you haven’t missed your door. You’re being invited to stay with the questions until they open themselves. This isn’t weakness; it’s wisdom. Breathe. Trust the pause. And when your heart and soul reveal the way, let your mind do what it does best — execute the hell out of it.