The Messy Middle

(I hate it for me; I love it for you.)

I have a thing about showers.

You’ve probably experienced this yourself - that moment when you’re in the shower (or driving, or just about to fall asleep) and suddenly you have crystal clarity about something that’s been avoiding you for weeks. The insight you’ve been chasing finally lands, fully formed, perfectly clear.

It’s the best and the worst.

Best because: clarity! Finally!

Worst because I often can’t capture it in time and end up losing it. (Then I get grumpy about having lost it. Womp womp.)

But not this time.

This time, I ran half-dressed from the bathroom to my computer so I could make notes before I forgot.

(Yay, me!)

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I’m working on a website for a friend, and I’d been feeling stuck on something about the project but couldn’t name what. Until that shower moment.

EUREKA.

I understood what felt stuck, and I knew I’d need to ask some hard questions - questions that might not feel great to be asked.

Questions like…

• Why are you holding back?

• What scares you here?

• What are you hiding?

(And listen - almost none of us enjoy these types of questions, though I was thrilled to find that my friend was into it and was willing & able to really roll with me!)

But here’s what I really want to talk about: what made that clarity possible.

It wasn’t the shower. The shower didn’t give me the answer.

It was my willingness to be in the not-knowing long enough for the answer to find me.

I’d only just recently started on this project, but had already been feeling stuck (and not able to name why). But instead of forcing it, instead of trying to think my way through it, instead of pushing for clarity before it was ready - I just... lived with the question. I let it sit there, unanswered, uncomfortable, unresolved.

I stayed in the messy middle.

And that’s the thing about liminal spaces - the in-between places where you’re neither here nor there, where you’ve left one thing but haven’t fully arrived at the next:

They’re fertile. But only if you’re willing to actually be in them.

Most of us (definitely me) want to rush through. We want to skip from “what was” straight to “what’s next” without spending any time in the uncomfortable gap between them. We want the clarity NOW. We want to know where we’re going, who we’re becoming, what the answer is.

But transmutation doesn’t work that way.

The insights - the real ones, the ones that actually change things - they need that space. They need you to stop forcing and start allowing. They need you to be willing to sit in the discomfort of not knowing.

And I need to be honest with you: I hate this for myself.

I’m someone who spends their professional life as what I call a “threshold-keeper” - I literally guide people through liminal spaces, through identity-shattering moments, through the messy middle of transformation. It’s my archetypal territory. It’s what I do.

And I HATE that feeling of not knowing. I hate the discomfort of being between. I hate waiting for clarity that might or might not come.

The paradox is almost funny. Almost.

But here’s what I’ve learned to love about liminal spaces - not for me (I’m still working on that), but for the people who find me there:

The messy middle is where something truly magickal can be birthed.

But only if you’re willing to be in it.

Not rush through it. Not pretend it’s not happening. Not force clarity before it’s ready.

Actually be in it. Sit with the questions. Live with the uncertainty. Let yourself not know.

That’s what I was doing without realizing it. I wasn’t thinking about the website in the shower. I was just... being. Taking a shower. Letting my mind wander. Not forcing anything.

And the insight found me.

Because I’d been willing to carry the question without demanding an immediate answer. I’d been willing to be in the stuck place without making it mean something was wrong. I’d been willing to not know.

The people who find me are often in liminal space. Often in the messy middle. Often between what was and what’s coming. They know something has to change, but not yet what or how.

And I love that for them.

Not because I’m sadistic, but because I know what’s possible when you’re willing to stay there. When you don’t rush through. When you let the liminal space do its work.

I know that the clarity that comes when you finally stop forcing - when you let yourself just BE in the not-knowing - is real. It’s trustworthy. It’s been trying to reach you all along.

But you have to be willing to be in the middle long enough for it to arrive.

The messy middle isn’t a problem to solve. It’s not a place to rush through as fast as possible. It’s not evidence that you’re doing something wrong.

It’s the space where real transformation becomes possible - if you’re willing to actually inhabit it.

So if you’re there right now - in the gap, in the uncertainty, in the excruciating not-knowing of it all - I see you. I honor how hard this is. I won’t minimize it with spiritual bypassing or tell you it’s all happening for a reason.

But I will tell you this: you don’t have to know yet.

You don’t have to force the answer. You don’t have to figure it out right this second. You don’t have to skip ahead to clarity.

You can be in the messy middle. You can carry the question. You can let yourself not know.

And when the insight is ready, it will find you.

Maybe in the shower. Maybe while you’re driving. Maybe at 3am when you finally stop trying to sleep.

But it will come.

If you’re willing to stay.