When the Old No Longer Fits

There are seasons when the old no longer fits.

The work that once made sense doesn't feel quite right anymore, a relationship shifts, your body changes, your understanding of your faith or identity begins to unravel. Something you once trusted no longer seems able to carry you forward. And yet, the new thing hasn't arrived. You're somewhere in between.

I have been living in that space myself. The last six months have taken me through a threshold of my own. A season I didn't choose, but one that has asked me to slow down, listen differently, and get honest about what my body and my life were asking of me.

Earlier this year, a job loss brought me into a full-time spiritual health position in a hospital setting. I was grateful to have work, but the pace and intensity of crisis response took most of my energy and capacity.

There was very little left for the work I love so deeply: BodyTalk, spiritual direction, embodied work, and creating spaces where people can explore the transitions in their own lives.

I kept telling myself: “Just hold on a little longer. Another position will open up. Things will change.” But my body was telling me a very different story. “You're maxed out. You can't keep going at this pace. You're not resting. You're not taking care of this precious body.”

Eventually, I had to listen.

It took being unable to leave my house for over a month because of heat exhaustion to really understand that my body was asking me to stop. At the end of July, I went on stress leave from work. It wasn't the way I would have chosen to arrive at this particular threshold. But sometimes thresholds come through rupture. Something cracks open, and suddenly we can see what we couldn't—or wouldn't—see before.

The old way isn't working anymore.

Thresholds are the potent space between what was and what will be.

They can be disorienting because we are no longer fully who we were, but we don't yet know who we are becoming.

There can be grief in that space.

Longing. Restlessness. Uncertainty.

Sometimes even a strange sense of relief.

Something in us knows that what once held us can no longer carry us forward. I think this is one of the reasons transitions can feel so unsettling. We often want to move quickly through them—to figure out what comes next, make a plan, find certainty, get back to solid ground.

But perhaps the threshold is asking something different of us. Perhaps we are being asked to pause. To listen. To let what is true become clearer. 

For me, August became a month of Sacred Rest. I needed to rediscover what rest, play, connection, and wonder felt like for me now. Not rest as something earned after I've accomplished enough. Not rest simply as recovering enough to get back to work, but rest as a way of listening.

So I made things.

I sewed. Painted. Hammered flowers. Went thrifting. Wore fun clothes. Cooked lovely slow meals with veggies from my garden. 

I connected with nature: explored parks with my nieces and nephews. Swam. Watched sunsets. Forest bathed. Tossed pompoms to the kitties.

I reflected: I wrote morning pages. Pulled oracle cards. Enjoyed slow mornings on the porch with coffee.

None of these things are particularly remarkable. And somehow, they were remarkable.

They reminded me that my life is more than what I produce. That creativity matters. That play matters. That wonder matters. That my body is not simply something I carry around while my mind gets on with the important work. My body is part of the conversation, maybe it has been leading the conversation all along, gathering truth. 

I'm beginning to feel myself stepping toward the other side of this threshold. Not because I have everything figured out. I don't. But because I've gathered enough truth to take the next step.

I know I want to devote more of my working life to the work I truly love.

More BodyTalk.

More space for spiritual direction to include the wisdom of the body.

More groups, community, ritual and seasonal gathering.

And I know that my life outside of work needs to contain more of what actually nourishes me: creativity, nature, reflection, connection, play, and rest. The threshold has helped me become more honest about that.

Maybe you've experienced a threshold like this yourself, a season when something has changed and you're left asking: Who am I now?

Maybe the change came through grief or loss. Maybe your body changed. Maybe your faith changed. Maybe a relationship ended or began. Maybe the life you worked so hard to build suddenly doesn't feel like yours anymore. Maybe nothing dramatic happened at all, and you simply woke up one day with a quiet knowing that something needs to change.

Whatever brought you there, you don't necessarily have to know what comes next.

There is wisdom in the space between. We can resist the urge to rush toward certainty. We can listen for what is asking to be acknowledged. We can gather our truth. And, when the time comes, we can step forward differently. I'm learning that a threshold isn't simply a place we pass through on our way to somewhere else. Sometimes it is a place where we meet ourselves more honestly. And perhaps that is part of its invitation:

to pause long enough to listen for what is true.

Standing at a threshold of your own?

You don't have to navigate it alone. Explore working with me

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