Liminality - where the light searches for a new way in
E74: On seasons, sabbaticals and transition states
betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown
— Fr. Richard Rohr —
Over 10,000 people are in a liminal space right now - hunting for new opportunities, searching for a grip on the unfamiliar slippery rock face on a climb they did not choose. Their minds are struggling to find new frameworks, a new rhythm to their day.
No matter where you are on Planet Earth, you stretch out your arms and you will find someone within six degrees of separation who is victim to the layoffs.
These are unsettling and disconcerting times. I can tell you, from experience, that “this too shall pass”. But I know - also from experience - that the phrase is little comfort in the moment.
With these layoffs as a lens, I am sharing a “flight” of essays. Each deals with transition from a particular position on the timeline.
I have an ulterior motive for paying attention to the liminal space. As a society, we are also headed into this ambiguous place while moving out of the structured Industrial Era and into a new world of work. We need to understand transitions so that we can make them manageable.
Three Essays on Sabbaticals
These three essays explore sabbaticals from different stages of the journey :
Enforced Sabbatical: When someone you know - a member of Tribe Tilt - has been touched with loss, it hurts. A simple tweet from
was the first I heard about him losing a job where he had invested hours of his life. With no notice, he found himself in the liminal space. No longer where he'd expected to be the next morning.My favourite section: … Every event in a complex system has unimaginable ripple effects. One seemingly small “bad” event could be the seedling of something great that cannot be fathomed.
That’s why I chose to view my firing event in a new light. I hadn’t been fired. I had been forced into a sabbatical. Sabbaticals sound sophisticated. Maybe not how I would have drawn it up, but a chance to take a step back nonetheless.
Choosing a sabbatical:
and each write about their journeys in choosing sabbaticals as they explore where they are and where they want to go next. Here is one of Michelle's many essays on the topic:Michelle’s sabbatical also started with an enforced separation. She shares her experience with others. Along the way she has “become famous for not working”
My favourite section: … I see how I had to adjust my mindset so that I could freely be curious and enjoy the present moment.
A sabbatical was a blessing because I had the opportunity to step away from the rat race and learn to build a life that was centered around what brought me meaning. …
I don’t define myself by whether or not I’m working.
Liminal Creators: Chris Wong
shares the roadmap in this liminal space in his newsletter Unknown Unknowns. [Yes. All these essays refer back to each other. Because so many in the circle of those we care about are being impacted by these layoffs, or - worse - the worry that the layoffs aren’t done yet.]
Chris also got off the career treadmill and is making a new life as a creator. He talks about that in-between space while you explore who you will be next:My favourite section: Liminal Creators need to focus on experimentation. They can't be cowed by failure and need to find the energy and resolve to continuously iterate. They also need to self-reflect and introspect constantly. A third necessary mindset is independence. Liminal Creators are not dependent on an employer, client, or customer.
The common thread linking these three essays is the power of focusing on mindset while in this liminal state. That is where we find agency along this journey.
Transition states
Liminality deals with all states of ambiguity. It could be the time of being pregnant, waiting to become parents. Waiting for the keys to your new car or condo so you can move in. Or engagement, waiting to be a couple. Or dealing with the loss of a member of the family. Or a layoff.
It is all those events where you hold onto a little “something old” while simultaneously re-scaffolding a structure that will support your life going forward.
Some ways to manage transitions include:
Recognizing and acknowledging your physical sense of unease
Maintaining a few simple habits and hobbies that preserve a sense of continuity
Creating a new structure (sometimes identity) that you can move towards
In other words, managing your mindset and developing 21st-century skills that help you control transitions.
Finding the light in the liminal space
Liminality is one of my “magnet” words. It has a magical quality to it. Partly because it deals with states of change, and how we exist in the “in-between” - when we are no longer here, but not yet there. We put our hands out seeking familiarity and are disorientated when we grasp at air. That sounds negative. But in the word “liminal” I find a search for light, which makes it hopeful.
Liminality and transitions are one of the four core pillars of my work in the Future of Work. Over the next few decades we, as society, will often feel like familiar structures are being wrenched from beneath us. This sense of uncertainty will be disconcerting.
But knowing that it is coming allows us agency and some degree of control. That can make all the difference.
A bird’s tweet pinged me in my not-yet state of wakefulness this morning. It is the edge of dawn. The days are already edging longer. I realize that spring is coming.
It is in these little spaces of knowing that we allow in the light.
There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible … This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed. If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy.
— Fr. Richard Rohr —
In the grand scheme of time
This week we celebrated life events in our family. We welcome the newest baby addition to our clan.
AND we celebrated the 95th birthday of my aunt. Her mother (my grandmother) lived to the age of 93. Her grandmother (my great-grandmother) lived to the age of 97. All before the interventions of modern medicine.
That new baby - like you - has a good chance of living to 100.
Whatever you are going through in the next six months - good, bad, wonderful or ugly - it is a blip on the timeline of your life. (cue Tim Urban’s Wait but Why Your life in weeks visual)
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See you next week. Stay healthy - from there all else becomes possible.
Karena
I work with a lot of organizations who are in the midst of change initiatives and looking for help about how to succeed, but it is rare that anyone talks about the need for a relationship to liminality, acknowledging the challenges inherent to transitioning. I'm really impressed this so clearly on your radar, one of your pillars for Tilt the Future. And the Richard Rohr quote is such an eloquent bulls-eye. "If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy."
— Fr. Richard Rohr —
Thank you for sharing my writing and for putting together this piece 🙏 a lot of people are finding themselves in this liminality right now and as you know, it can be scary and exciting!
Also as a side note, I always love how you think of time spanning generations and centuries. I find myself stretching my own imagination to 100 years old, and what a difference that makes!