. . .
We spend so much of our lives searching.
Searching for the right relationship.
The right job.
The right city.
The right version of ourselves.
We search for belonging, certainty, validation, safety, and love. We convince ourselves that if we can just find the right person or reach the next milestone, something inside us will finally settle.
Then we get there, and for a moment, it does. Until the feeling returns.
The loneliness.
The doubt.
The restlessness.
The nagging sense that something is still missing.
Because the problem was never that we lacked validation. The problem was that we were looking for an external solution to an internal need. This isn’t groundbreaking wisdom. In fact, it’s something most of us already know. I’m not here to tell you something you’ve never heard before. I’m simply here to remind you of something you may have forgotten.
The things we seek most desperately outside of ourselves are often the very things we’re being asked to cultivate within. Not because other people don’t matter. They do. Not because connection isn’t important. It is. But because no amount of love from another person can permanently replace the relationship we have with ourselves.
When we rely exclusively on the outside world to provide what we’re unwilling or unable to give ourselves, we become trapped in a cycle that can never truly satisfy us.
The validation feels good, until we need more of it. The reassurance helps, until it stops reaching the part of us that’s hurting. The relationship soothes us, until we begin looking to it to heal wounds only we can heal.
What starts as a search becomes dependency. And the more we search, the emptier we often feel, because we’re moving further away from the source.
What if the emptiness you’re feeling isn’t actually emptiness at all? What if it’s information?
We tend to interpret discomfort as something that needs to be eliminated as quickly as possible. Loneliness becomes something to distract ourselves from. Sadness becomes something to numb.
But emotions are messengers. They tell us where our attention is needed. They point us toward the places that are begging to be acknowledged, nurtured, healed, or understood.
The pain you feel may not be evidence that something is wrong with you. It may be evidence that some part of you has been trying to get your attention for a very long time.
Unfortunately, modern life gives us endless opportunities to avoid listening. We fill every quiet moment. We scroll. We stream. We text. We consume. We keep ourselves surrounded by noise because silence feels unpleasant.
Silence asks things of us. Silence reveals things. Silence forces us to hear what we’ve been trying not to hear. And yet, it is often within those quiet spaces that our deepest wisdom emerges.
Think about the last time you sat alone without reaching for your phone. No music. No podcast. No television in the background. No distraction. Just you and your thoughts.
For many people, that experience feels unbearable at first. But eventually something begins to happen. The urgency softens and the thoughts underneath the thoughts begin to emerge. And suddenly you realize that the answers you’ve been searching for haven’t disappeared. They’ve simply been drowned out.
This is why liminal spaces are so important. A liminal space is an in-between season. It’s the period after one chapter has ended but before the next has fully begun. It’s the space between uncertainty and clarity.
Between who you were and who you’re becoming. Most people hate liminal spaces because they feel unproductive. Nothing seems to be happening. There is no obvious progress or dramatic transformation. Just waiting. Just stillness.
But seeds grow underground long before they break through the surface. And many of the most important shifts in our lives happen long before anyone else can see them. Including us.
Sometimes life slows us down on purpose. Sometimes disappointment slows us down. Sometimes failure slows us down. Sometimes exhaustion slows us down. Sometimes we arrive at a point where continuing the way we have been becomes more uncomfortable than changing.
Humans are remarkably adaptable, but we are also remarkably resistant to change. Often, we don’t change because we’re inspired. We change because staying the same eventually becomes impossible. The discomfort becomes too loud to ignore, and the pattern becomes too obvious to deny. And while those moments are painful, they often become our most transformative turning points.
They force us to ask different questions. To imagine different possibilities. And to make different choices.
Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this feeling?”
We begin asking, “What is this feeling trying to teach me?”
Instead of asking, “Who can fix this for me?”
We begin asking, “What do I need from myself right now?”
That shift changes everything.
When I’m feeling lost, I often think about two versions of myself.
The youngest version.
And the oldest version.
The youngest version of me was unapologetically curious, unfiltered, and creative. Unconcerned with how she would be perceived. She explored because she wanted to. She dreamed because it felt natural. She wasn’t constantly evaluating whether she was doing life “right.”
Then I think about the eighty-year-old version of myself. The woman who has lived an entire lifetime. The woman who knows how the story ends. The woman looking back on every risk taken and every risk avoided. And I ask myself:
What would she want for me?
Would she want me to play smaller?
Would she want me to stay silent?
Would she want me to keep postponing the things that matter most?
Or would she want me to trust myself more?
To be brave enough to be seen?
To stop waiting for permission?
The answers are usually obvious.
The challenge is creating enough silence to listen. Maybe that’s the invitation. Not to search harder. Not to consume more advice. Not to wait for someone else to tell you who you are. But to come back to yourself. To trust that the wisdom you’re looking for may already exist beneath the chaos of the outside world. To recognize that uncertainty isn’t always evidence that you’re lost. Sometimes it’s evidence that you’re evolving.
The next answer you need may not arrive in a breakthrough. It may arrive in the walk without headphones. In the journal entry you almost didn’t write. In the feeling you finally stop trying to outrun.
Slow down long enough, and you’ll hear it. The voice beneath the noise. The wisdom beneath the fear.
And when you do, you’ll remember what you’ve known all along: You were never as lost as you thought you were. You were simply being invited to come home to yourself.
. . .
Photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash
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