Have you ever been in the In-Between Space? I define this as when one chapter of your life is ending but the new one hasn’t quite begun yet.
This space feels awkward and weird–and no one ever talks about it! So today we’re talking more about the weirdness and magic of the In-Between Space, so you can EMPOWER yourself to deal with it the next time it happens to you!
In This Episode:
Find out what the In-Between Space is (with a few examples)
Learn more about why this time feels so wrong
Get powerful mindset tips on how to deal with it
Much more!
Listen Here:
How To Deal With The In-Between Space | Episode #41 Transcript
Hello, gorgeous welcome back. I’m so excited to be here with you today. Our topic is Super
juicy and I want to get right into it. Today we are talking about the in-between space.
Never heard of the in-between space? I actually had not heard of it referred to like this until
very recently. I saw a video on TikTok about it to be honest and I was like, “Oh, of course,
exactly what that is.” So what is the in-between space? The in-between space is that weird void that
we fall into at different times in our life. So I can think of a few times where I fell into an
in-between space. An in-between space happened right after my marriage ended. So to recap, if you’ve
never heard the story before, I went from living with my ex partner in this beautiful apartment and we
broke up really fast. So I went from that to moving into my parents basement, being single, of course,
and since I had a business with my ex, also not having a business. So I went from having all of these
things on paper, at least, to having nothing. And that is the biggest example of an in-between space
that I have ever personally encountered. And I definitely wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone. But
again, recently, I encountered another in-between space. So my cat recently passed away, as I’ve mentioned
on this podcast. And right after it happened, I was back in-between space. And I know people that
don’t have pets maybe don’t understand this and like you think that that relationship isn’t as intense
or as important as it is. But these relationships are some of the most unique in our whole entire
life. I truly believe that we are given pets as an exercise in unconditional love. So when you have a
pet, you love that pet unconditionally. I mean most of us do, I should say. We put our energy and
love and attention into them, even though we know maybe they’re the not the cutest dog at the dog park.
They’re not the most well-behaved. They are not the smartest, right? We love them anyway. Even though they
are this thing outside of us and they are flawed and they have issues, we love them anyway. Someone’s
going to say, of course, loving a child is the same way. And yes, I think it is the same way for a
while if you are lucky, you had parents who loved you unconditionally when you were a baby toddler,
young child, but I think at a certain point in time most parents at least they start to play the game
of conditional love. So that means I will love you more. If you listen to me, I will love you more if
you get straight A’s, I will love you more if you do this. So even at parental love at a certain
point in time I think becomes conditional as do our romantic relationships. You get up there and
you swear to love this person until the end of time no matter what, but let’s face it, if this
person starts to do things that were wildly out of character with who you thought they were at the
beginning, if they start to, if they quit their job and start gambling or something like that,
I mean, that’s just a completely random example. You just might find that you are not loving them,
the same way that you were and therefore cannot stay in that marriage container. What I’m trying
to say though is the pet is one place where you, for most of us at least, will just unconditionally
love them no matter what. So that is a big emotional experience. It was for me. Actually, I just had a
friend write to me this morning going through the exact same thing and they are feeling the exact
same way. So even if you’re not a pet owner, I think maybe that shed a little insight onto the power
of that dynamic, which is why it shouldn’t sound so crazy that after my cat passed away, I was just kind of
lost for a few days at least. I just felt completely unhinged and like, I mean, I know that’s normal.
Like, of course, I’m going through the grieving process, but I had these thoughts in my mind,
like, I just don’t know what to do with myself. Like, I suddenly have way more options. And that’s true
because I have made many decisions in my life based upon my cat. Like, I really wanted to be a digital
nomad and that never really worked out because I had pets. So I just basically moved to Germany and
never moved anywhere else. But my original thought when I left Canada was that I was going to bounce
around, but it’s really difficult to bounce around when you have a pet. So suddenly now I’m like, okay,
I can move. I can do this. I can travel more. I can move apartments more easily. I can do all these
things that I could not do so easily in the past. And even though that there’s some newfound freedom in
that, it felt very weird and very overwhelming. And I started to have these really random thoughts
running through my mind like, okay, I’m going to move to Scotland. Was I thinking about moving to
Scotland a month ago, a year ago? No, I was not. So that was just a completely random thought that
came into my mind. And when you’re in these spaces, these in-between spaces, it’s so disconcerting,
right? Like everything you thought was your reality is suddenly moved. And yes, again, that is
what it felt like even with my cat passing away. With after my marriage, like everything literally
was different, but with the cat passing away, maybe on paper you wouldn’t understand that, but that
is exactly what it felt like. You can also have this in-between space. Maybe you got let go from a job.
Maybe you lost an important contract. Maybe a friendship ended. There are so many ways that we can
find ourselves in this space where it’s like suddenly the world that you lived in is no longer there.
And you don’t really know where you want to go yet. And that is the part of why it’s so uncomfortable.
And that is why it is the in-between space. One chapter has just ended. And yet, we don’t know which
door to open. We don’t know which path to go down. We kind of have to rethink about our whole entire
life. Even if this is something you knew was coming. So for example, with the cat, I knew she was
getting old. I knew that this was going to happen eventually, but that really didn’t prepare me for
the in-between space that happened afterwards. So first of all, I want to just let you know that if
you have ever experienced this or if you’re experiencing it right now, welcome to the club. This is
a normal part of life. Like we experience these little endings to little chapters of our life
all the time, but we don’t really talk about it that often. Like you don’t really talk about that feeling.
In terms of romantic relationships, I feel like society just kind of rushes you to try to find
the next person because then if you’re in another relationship, you can’t possibly be hurting, right?
Even though that’s not true. So not only collectively do we feel uncomfortable with this, but we might
find that our friends don’t understand it, society at large kind of pressures you to just get over it.
And it can all just be really confusing and really lonely because unless somebody sees you and
recognizes you for being in that space, like you are kind of their lost. And humans at the end of the
day, the thing that we want, we want to be seen, we want to be understood from your friends. That is
really what you want from your relationships, from your romantic partner, we want to be seen and
understood that is a basic human need. And because you’re in this space where it’s so confusing and
weird feeling and society at large doesn’t talk about it. And we are also kind of rushing you to get
out of it. It can be very lonely because no one has the words to express, to tell you that they
understand or that they’ve been there. No one can see you there because we don’t recognize this as
being a very real place. So just me making this episode today and sharing this with whoever might be
out there. I hope that that brings you a little bit of understanding not only to your own world,
but also to understanding and having empathy for the people around you when they are going to go
through it. Because again, we all go through it. We’re all going to go through it at a certain point
in time. We’re all going to enter that in-between space and we’re going to feel weird and lost,
confused and lonely. The next point I want to make about the in-between space is that you are not
supposed to stay there forever. I mean, I hope that that’s obvious. It is a weird feeling. It is so
strange to feel like your life is uprooted, like your identity is shifted, and to feel confused about
where you might want to go next or what you might want to focus on next. But it is uncomfortable for
a reason. And the reason being is that you are not supposed to stay there forever. I think that one
of the reasons why this feeling is so weird and dark and overwhelming, aside from the fact that no
one else seems to be aware that this is happening, is that we think that this is just going to be the
way life is now. Because this thing ended, because this chapter ended, because whatever happened to
you happened, we think that this is just going to be how it feels. I’m going to feel this loss,
this anger, this resentment, this sadness, whatever it is. I’m just going to feel this forever.
And I want to assure you that that is not the case. And of course, everybody goes through pain
differently, and it can take a long, long time for you to come out of it, or maybe you bounce back
quickly. It is not a race. There is no right or wrong. But I just want you to know that this is not
forever. This place, this lost feeling, this discomfort is not going to last forever. It is normal,
it is part of life, and you will move through it. So finally, I just want to wrap up with my final tip
on how to deal with this. Every single time I’ve entered the in-between state,
and I think for most of us, this is a case, it has not been joyous, it has not been happy,
it has not been something that I ever wanted to have in my life. And yet, this is one of the times
of my life where I learned the most about myself. Because I started to ask myself questions
that maybe I hadn’t asked myself in a while. I started to think about possibilities
that previously were not available to me, and most importantly, I just really started to get clear
about the question, what do I really want? So what you really want outside of expectation,
outside of what your parents think, what society thinks, outside of all of that, what do you really want?
Coming back to that question is something that is going to help to keep you
steered in the right direction. It’s going to keep you moving toward your North Star, no matter
what that might be. Many times, we wrote a book for our life and our mind. Like, I think we do this
especially in romantic relationships. You have this certain expectation about what the rest of your
life is going to look like with this person, especially if you get married, right? And then if you
break up or you get divorced or something happens, then you’re like, I’m mourning the loss of that.
And so it is okay to mourn that. It is okay to go through those dark feelings. It is okay to mourn
whatever just happened to you to feel those angry feelings of sad feelings, whatever. It is also
okay to mourn that assumption you had in your mind about what life should look like. But in this space
in this in between space, there will be new opportunities. There will be new happy endings. There will
be another rainbow around the hill. Okay? You don’t have to rush into figuring out what everything is
going to be. But if you keep coming back to that process of asking yourself, what do you really want?
What do you really like? What lights you up? What feels good to you? You are going to start to create
answers. And then might come slowly. It might come really fast. Who knows? But over time, you are going
to get better acquainted with the person you are right now. The person you are right now with all
of this previous experience, who is the person you used to be only with a bit more to go on, right?
A bit more knowledge to go on. Even though it is scary, this is such a beautiful opportunity
for you to take those reins back and for you to truly start to design your life,
to decide on what you want and decide on who you want to be. So I hope that this episode today
give you some hope. If you are in the in-between place, I hope that you really believe that I see you,
I feel you, I understand you. I hope that you take this message that this is only temporary
to heart and you don’t let this space overwhelm you as uncomfortable as it may be. And I really hope
that you use this as a beautiful opportunity to not only learn more about yourself,
but to take control back over your life and where you want to go. So thank you so much for listening
to this episode today. If you would like to learn more from me in a workshop environment,
I highly suggest you come over and check out my healed membership. It is a virtual healing studio
where we have workshops on healing your anxious attachment style. I’m communicating
better in your relationships on managing anger, grief and so much more. It is a wonderful space
for you to begin your healing journey all from the comfort of your own home for a very reasonable price.
So if you want to get started with that, I will leave that linked in the show notes.
Have a beautiful week, gorgeous. I’ll see you in the next one.
