The in-between

On my morning commute, while listening to my latest obsession — the My Favorite Murder podcast — I heard about the very interesting concept of liminal space. In the podcast, it was used to discuss how changing up your routine can help get the creative juices flowing.

This sounded simple and like something I’ve heard about before, yet the way it was being discussed made me curious about the concept. So I did some research on it.

Think of time as a straight line. On the left you have the past, on the right you have the future, and in the center is the present. The past has already happened and cannot be changed. The future, on the other hand, hasn’t happened yet. The only place that change can occur is the present. Sounds simple, right?

“Maryia, this is so obvious, why are you telling me this?” you’re probably thinking.

Well, I’ll tell you.

We live our lives on autopilot, a series of habits and routines. We don’t really think about what we are doing daily. We go to class, do homework, go to sleep, repeat. Or we wake up, go to work, come back to work, eat, sleep, repeat. I bet you could probably guess what you’re doing tomorrow pretty accurately, because you probably did the same thing last week.

Now what if we turn off our autopilot mode? What if we switched up our routine a little bit? For example, taking a different path to work or class. Or going to a different coffee shop. Since you are walking a different path or have new surroundings, you are more likely to pay attention to what is going on around you. Author of Liminal Thinking, Dave Gray, says, “You don’t have to know what happens when you shut off autopilot. Just shut it off, see what happens.”

Bring yourself back to the moment. That is the whole point! Stop worrying about the past and obsessing over the future, because you can’t change either. Any real change can only come from the moments in-between; the moments we have control over. Turn off the autopilot. Focus on the present. Do something different. See what happens. Autopilot is like being on a path, who knows what would happen when you step off the path.

Liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a threshold or a doorway. Instead of focusing on which door you want to walk through, just randomly pick a doorway. See what happens. Life is so unpredictable, focusing on the current moment can lead to something new. You might be inspired to start writing again. You might find a new career path. Or you might simply find a new favorite coffee shop.

Let’s stop obsessing over the “what ifs” and the “could bes.” Instead, honor the space between “no longer” and “not yet.” Personally, I’m gonna take a different way to work tomorrow.