I’ve been thinking about transitions and stuckness, the space where we swing between fear, insecurities, hope and excitement.
Each transition includes letting go and trusting that your next step will allow you to feel stable and grounded.
I believe that a transition is a form of loss, almost like a small death; some kind of closure, where we let go of the familiar, reaching for the unknown. No matter how steady and predictable the next steps, there is that moment where we find ourselves hovering between the two realities, the known and unknown.
That gap between the steps, that’s the space where fear and excitement dance together. That's the space that symbolises movement, the unformed potential where anything could happen. Yet we associate that space with darkness, where the monsters hide in waiting, to see us falter. This fear can stop us and make us hesitate: "What if I am making the wrong choice”, “what if I don't succeed”, “what if I am rejected and ridiculed", “maybe it’s better I don’t change”…
But Fear is useful, it shows us what to cherish and what to let go off. Then there is space for excitement, hope, and courage to push forward.
There is a tendency to go through transitions as fast as possible, to overcome the fear, to reach our end goal. However, the transition is a significant part of the process; in taking stock of where we’ve been and where we want to go, we can adjust our course, we can process what we let go of, gain a sense of closure, and then move forward unencumbered, ready for the new.
In reframing stuckness as transition, we can find new meaning, new understanding, before we take those next steps. We could pretend we can stay on the same step forever. But for how long can we fool ourselves that stuckness is comfortable? We cannot deny that change is inevitable.
So I say to myself: Take the step, breathe deeply and trust yourself that you can survive the climb. You will adjust to the new, and the unknown will become known. And then when you look back you will wonder why you found that transition so difficult? You may not recognise yourself on the new step. You may feel familiar and foreign at the same time. Why is this? It’s simple: In embracing your fear, no matter what you’ve been through, no matter how long you hovered in that space in-between, you keep evolving one step at a time.