Burnout and the Liminal Space: Between Who You Were and Who You're Becoming

One Conscious Breath: Issue 04

There is a space between who you were and who you are becoming. Most of us rush through this space. This is your invitation to slow down. To pause. And notice it.

Eye-level view of a serene therapy room with comfortable seating and calming decor

As I sit to type this, I take one conscious breath to ground myself. Right here. Right now. Not because it is the name of my newsletter, although it is. But because I’ve learned how to show up in moments, breath by breath. And I still have to consciously remind myself, remind my nervous system, that there is safety in the pause.

More importantly, at this moment in time, with all that is happening in the world right now, an individual (and collective) pause may benefit us all. We can get back to what is needed in the collective, but I want us to do it from a more regulated place of presence within our own selves first. So, for now, let’s find what this place feels like within. At least while you’re reading this letter. Or even for just One Conscious Breath.

Our breath is a perfect reminder, always, that when something old is dissolving, something new emerges. In breath. Out breath. And we live in the space between them. The threshold, the doorway. Full of potential and possibility. Or fear of the unknown. How we experience this in-between depends a lot on how well we’re able to stay flexible and open with the unknown.

Within this liminal space.

Many of us never learned how to be in the in-between. We haven’t built up the capacity to stay long enough, to pause, in the liminal space. We have been conditioned, on every level, to move through transitions as quickly as possible. To find stability on solid ground. To have an answer, a plan, a resolution. Anything to not have to sit with the unknown. Uncertainty feels dangerous to a nervous system that learned, early on, that not knowing meant not being safe.

So, we run. We rush. We fill every space, every silence, with doing. We reach for the next escape before we’ve fully landed.

But rushing through misses the lesson offered. The liminal space is not a problem to be solved. It is a sacred passage to be witnessed, honored, embodied.

Here is what I have learned from liminal spaces, from my own body, from over twenty years of sitting with people in theirs: the nervous system that is still scanning for threat, still bracing, still running the survival strategies of a much younger, less resourced and more vulnerable version of us doesn’t update on its own.

It doesn’t update in certainty.

It updates in safety.

And safety is embodied one conscious breath at a time. Our nervous systems are designed to move us into survival when survival is genuinely needed. That is not the problem. The problem is remaining stuck waiting for an impact that already ended. In liminal spaces, we learn to trust that our nervous system will rise to meet a real threat when it arrives. Until then, we get to rest. We get to soften. We get to be here now, in the safety of this precise moment.

For many of us, the survival loop has been running so long it begins to feel like who we are. Or it’s necessary to keep us moving through our lives. It isn’t. It just keeps you stuck surviving, long after the threat it originally protected you from, has passed.

We first have to become aware that the threat is over, even though our body continues to brace for its impact. Noticing, pausing in this liminal space, allows us, one conscious breath at a time, to return our body from survival into safety.

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hat’s what this liminal space actually offers us.

A pause.

A breath.

A moment to check in. We don’t have to sit in meditation for an hour in the morning and the evening to find it. Although, that doesn’t hurt. And it isn’t something to put off until we’ve completed our workday either. That is a surefire way to burnout. We resource ourselves, moment by moment, breath by breath, whenever we pause and remember throughout the day.

The question to ask is: in this moment in time, is this nervous system response necessary and helpful?

Most of the time, the answer will be no.

Our nervous system begins to update with this presence. In this moment of safety. With compassionate, patient, embodied attention to what is happening right now.

One conscious breath at a time.

I want to ask you something, and I want you to feel it rather than think it:

When, in your life, have you truly felt safe?

Not “when did the hard thing end.” When did your nervous system receive clear enough signals of safety to stop scanning? When did it get to rest? To return to safety and simply soften?

For many of us, the answer is: rarely. Or only in brief, flickering moments. Your nervous system may still be running a survival strategy for a threat that ended long ago.

This is not weakness. This is neurobiology doing exactly what it was designed to do, help us survive. It just needs reminding that the threat is over. And herein lives our power. Our capacity to update our nervous system to the present.

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he liminal space is a beautiful opportunity, and reminder, for us to begin to return to safety. Not to remain braced in the space, but to open in it. This may feel, at first, counter-intuitive. But this is how we update, we move, slowly, gently, safely into the unfamiliar. Knowing, trusting, full well, that we have more resources today than we ever had when this survival strategy initially protected us.

We don’t update by force or trying to convince ourselves to feel safe when we don’t. And certainly not by bypassing the very real uncertainty of this particular moment in our lives and in the world. We update by bringing gentle, honest awareness to what is happening inside our bodies and minds in this one moment. Simply notice your breath, your jaw, your shoulders, the particular quality of tension you have been carrying so long you’ve stopped noticing it. Or perhaps worse, normalizing it. Because it feels so familiar. Just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s safe.

Right now, I invite you to take one conscious breath.

Feel the air enter your nostrils. Notice it. Follow it with your awareness. Allow your shoulders to drop, soften your jaw. Elongate your exhale. In this moment in time, for this one conscious breath, you are returning safety to your nervous system.

Your breath was already happening before you gave it your attention.

When you consciously attend to it, you send a clear signal to your nervous system:

I am here. I am present. I am safe.

This is not simply a mindset shift. It is a nervous system update. And as safety returns to our body, our mind gently follows.

The liminal space is uncomfortable because it invites us into the unknown.

Let me reframe this, as I often do. This liminal space, the in-between is not empty. It is full. It is dynamic. It is necessary to enter in order to allow what is meant to end, to release what no longer serves us.

The pause is the opportunity to open. To create the space needed for what is becoming. To create the space for you, your nervous system, to learn, slowly, breath by breath, that it is finally, fully, safe to be.

You have survived everything that has already happened to you.

Now comes the quieter, more powerful, essential work: reminding your body, breath by breath, moment by moment, that you in fact, did survive.

You deserve more than to simply survive, you deserve to thrive.

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With love and One Conscious Breath,

Jody

P.S. ~ If you’re new here: I’m Jody Allen, a somatic psychotherapist in San Francisco and Berkeley. These letters are where neuroscience meets the heart ~ the foundation of a book in progress. If someone forwarded this to you and it resonated, you can subscribe at jodyallenlcsw.substack.com. It’s free. It always will be.