The door is open
Nothing is as scary as crossing a completely unknown boundary. When nothing in your personal history has prepared you for what comes. When crossing it potentially means losing who you are, who you think you are, and what others expect you to be.
Your entire experience of life depends on the blueprint your brain has built. From that blueprint it predicts every action. The more it can predict, the safer it feels. To encounter something completely alien, something your blueprint has no category for, can be devastating. It is the death of identity. Loss of self-understanding. Loss of values. Loss of friendships. And yet, for some reason, this is what life asks of each of us in the second half. Half doesn’t carry a number. It happens at different ages for everyone. But the point arrives when everything you’ve believed, everything you’ve built, all of a sudden feels empty, void, meaningless. Many go to doctors to treat something whose cause is unknown.
Fear is at the center. Fear is what keeps us standing at the threshold, unable to enter. The new phase is unknown because to reach it, you must dare: must commit to staying in the dark, even with no guarantee that what waits on the other side is good. Perhaps it’s worse.
Even the metrics we use to measure good and worse will change.
I write this piece while standing at the door myself. The door is open and I am scared to enter. Because once I step through, it will close behind me and there is no going back. What awaits? What will I find?
And yet, even in utter darkness, I have my breath and my body. My body is my anchor. My breath is a beacon I’ve learned to trust even in uncertainty. When a whirlwind moves around me, even when the ground beneath my feet dissolves and I’m suspended in air with nowhere to rest, I have a stillness that allows me to observe. It doesn’t make the threshold less frightening. But it makes it crossable.
Not everyone reaches this entrance. We glorify thresholds in our culture, but only the small ones — making it on your own, the entrepreneurial dream, the career milestone. But life is bigger than that. The real threshold envelops everything. Every aspect of who you are.
I’ve peeked through the door. I’ve been tempted to return to old patterns, because here’s what nobody tells you: when you enter the liminal phase, old patterns and new discoveries get tangled. You fumble. You don’t know whether to go right or left, or deeper into the dark. I’m scared of what I’ll find if I go into the darker part. I don’t know if I’m willing to sacrifice what I’m still holding on to.
Most wisdom traditions teach the futility of holding on to anything. Nothing lasts. We only feel stability because we sleep, wake, and repeat. But each day that passes does not return. Every moment is lost. To hold something lightly: to enjoy it for what it is, willing to release it when the time comes — that is the practice. Whatever you attempt to hold on to ends up owning you.
This is the deep structure of life. We are all fumbling in the darkness. Most of us just don’t know we have our eyes closed.
The liminal phase has no start date, no end date. Once you enter the door, there is no going back — though you may try. And the darkness doesn’t arrive all at once. It deepens gradually. It becomes vast with time.
But here is what I’ve come to believe: you and I are guided. Nobody can walk your path. And if you have the right tools, you’ll learn that even in the wasteland there are roses to smell and birds to hear and vast oceans to gaze at. There are occasional companions on the path ahead.
In traditional societies, rites of passage were communal. You knew what was expected. You entered a liminal phase and emerged with a clear place in the world. Today is different. A failed rite of passage is a dangerous thing. But with the right guide, the right companions — you discover an oasis, then walk a desert, then discover another. You learn to navigate. You find new values, and you hold them lightly, because you know the truth is larger than any of us can fully grasp.
To get there, you must be willing to be crushed. You must embrace the fragility of life.
If this piece found you at the door — I’m holding a single session this July for people in exactly this crossing. Not to explain the threshold. To help you stand in it. July 16th, 18:00 CEST. $97. [Join me here.]
And this October, I’m gathering a small group for something deeper — a six-week passage through the dark. More on that soon.
Love this! Every paragraph is a piece of beauty, quotable and lovely. I am sharing this!! Thank you, Emily