Liminal spaces and momentum for taking action in your life
You're never completely stuck
A formal definition
I had heard of subliminal, I hadn’t heard nor read liminal. I always assumed subliminal was like ruthless; an antonym/related word with its root fallen into disuse. That all changed about six months ago because one of my friends, Catherine, explained it in our WhatsApp group — I’m always curious to see what her latest thorough explorations uncover. She’d been looking at it from a psychological standpoint, which is how it has recently re-entered the zeitgeist. As a primer she passed on this article about it by Kimberly Dawn Neumann.
The main points I took from the article and the concept:
The definition: “Liminal space refers to the place a person is in during a transitional period. It’s a gap, and can be physical (like a doorway), emotional (like a divorce) or metaphorical (like a decision).”
Examples of physical liminal spaces: hallways, bus stations, buses, airports, streets, water slides, … . They are spaces that we don’t pay attention to unless something is “off” about them.
The crux of emotional liminal space is going from the known to the unknown, and all the uncertainty that this conjures, and how that can affect us, scare us; changing jobs, burgeoning adulthood, new habits, … .
Learn to recognize these liminal moments and spaces as opportunity for personal growth, instead of getting stuck in them by being uncomfortable in them.
Our own liminality
I was quickly enamored with the idea of liminal space. As the Buddhist adage misunderstood quote of Heraclitus’ (link) goes:
“the only constant is change”
When I have something important — that I am worried about doing wrong — or something menial or have a laundry list of things to do, I can feel stuck or paralyzed. Autobiographically, that comes out as seeing myself as completely stuck. As a counter to this, the idea of being liminal really tickled me; some part of me is always “liminal.” My hair and finger nails grow; my heart beats; I breath; depending on how much stress eating I’m doing my waist line changes; … . Something around me or inside of me is moving, is changing in some way even when I am fixating on where I have stuck myself.
And any of these things could be a source of momentum to help me get unstuck. Even procrastinating could help.
Procrastination as a run up
Hear me out, hear me out, I’ve got an example.
In December 2023, I launched my book on Amazon print on demand and I had to work on the advertising campaign for it via Facebook/Instagram ads. But I was frozen on it. Paralyzed by a fear of failure. Instead, I created a spreadsheet to calculate how much of each ingredient I’d need for a homemade electrolyte powder mixture, and sourced the requisite salts in bulk from various places.
I was aware that I was procrastinating.
But I accepted it. I was doing something I had control over; could make progress with, and as inconsequential as it was, I could say I succeeded at it. It was soothing.
Once I finished it, I had built up a healthy bit of momentum, enough to open on the link the the online advertising portal and get cracking.1
This was an important experience for me.
In the past, I would felt shame and anger about procrastinating, which just caused me to double-down on the procrastination pattern, leading to a vicious circle, where I would procrastinate more and feel worse about it, and so forth.
But in this instance, I made my peace with the procrastination, allowed myself to enjoy the process of doing calculations that I knew, sourcing ingredients that I knew, for something that I could just as easily buy online as a product. A little — inconsequential — part of the world that made sense to me.
It did my soul good, so it did.
Getting entrained in the liminal
In a previous post, I mentioned how absolutist terms (I’m always, I’m never, worst, best, …) are associated with emotional or behavioral challenges. Remembering how much is changing around us can also be an interesting tactic to manage that brand of intrusive thinking;
“I’m stuck!”
“Yes, I might be stuck with that thing, but look at this here - that’s ticking over nicely, and that too, and — oh — that as well… I’m, like, 99% non-stuck.”
Some other places, where I’m been able to grease the grooves by tying together an easy liminality to a sticky one: having a phone call while cleaning my apartment; 2 clearing out pending tasks on the bus.3
I feel much more excited about the possibilities around me when I realise I am stuck. Where can I still move; where am I already moving? And as I settle into the feeling there, noticing when the stuck piece of me starts to get pulled along with the flow, entrained.
Opportunistically liminal
Obviously, I’ve perfected that, and now I am never stuck or feeling bad for not doing what I think is important to do.
I bet I got you with that one - hehe.
In truth, there’s been a drop in my sense of stuckness on important things. But they are still there. I can think of 3 big things I stalled on the last few months since having this “breakthrough.” Sometimes I’m rushing around so much, I don’t even realize that I’m avoiding something. Other times it still feels like a bit too much for me. Once I realize the stuckness is there, depending on my energy levels, I’ll push through the task or I start chipping away at it with this opportunistic — Aikido-like — take on liminal space. Recognizing where I am moving and using it to nudge the stuck looser.
Much like the “Is that so?” post I reference above, this framing of liminal space, is a tactical thing. A way to play with internal conflict and doubt that I have; a plaster on a cut. Something to get me through the day to day as I learn to love myself more and more. Making time for noticing and being aware of how I am is the essential element; if I don’t realize it, I won’t have the trigger to borrow momentum, and more generally I don’t realize how I am treating myself.
That being said, my book isn’t cracking any bestseller lists just yet. But it was a first step in the process that I’m giving this year to.
I’ve used the call while cleaning (let’s make “CWC” a thing), quite a few times when I’ve felt a block about getting started on cleaning the apartment. I’ll arrange a call with a mate while I’m at home, and it seems to short circuit the resistance I had to getting started on the cleaning. The conversation is the liminal thing, I’m either talking about what I have been going through the last while, or I’m listening to them do the same. The cleaning of the apartment simply gets entrained with it.
On bus journeys are some of my most productive times of the week. There I am in speeding from home to the office, and since no movement is 100% efficient, some of the momentum of the bus ends up in my fingertips and mind to focus on clearing tasks that had been pending for some time.