The light outside is changing, slowly losing its decisiveness and sinking into those intermediate hours of twilight when the world seems to have stopped, holding its breath between day and night. It is precisely in this hour of silence that I open the pages of my Therapeutic Journal — Threshold and Transition — to encounter that which scares me most and yet attracts me most powerfully: the unknown. Today, I am not writing to solve problems or to plot plans upon the map of the future. Today, I write to acknowledge a state that my mind desperately tries to avoid, but my soul recognizes as home.
I look inward and see that the internal landscape has changed. The clear outlines of the familiar are gone; the paths I once walked with the confidence of habit have vanished. Instead, there is a threshold within me. This is not a door that I can close or open with a single movement of the will. It is not an end, though it carries within it the taste of a goodbye. It is a place between — between the old, which no longer works, and the new, which has not yet taken shape. It feels like standing in a corridor where the echoes of the past still ring, while the future is but a breath of a draft coming from somewhere the eyes cannot see. I stand here. I do not rush. Or at least, I try to convince my impatient heart that rushing is useless. I quietly admit: I do not know what comes next. And in this moment of honesty, something in my chest releases. I realize that this, too, is allowed.
From the perspective of depth psychology, I understand what is happening to me. The threshold is a psychological state in which identity temporarily loosens. The Ego I have built over so many years—that social mask that says "I am this" and "I do that"—is beginning to crack. This is a liminal space, the desert of transition through which everyone must pass to reach the promised land of their wholeness. This journal is for precisely these periods of transition, when the old structures of the ego crumble to make room for something more authentic. I feel a loss of orientation, as if my compass has been demagnetized, and this awakens an ancient, primal fear of the unknown. But perhaps, just perhaps, this getting lost is necessary. This text is my attempt to release the need for control, to stop the desperate clinging to the shore while the river carries me. I remind myself that transition does not require action. It requires presence.
And so, I extend to myself an invitation to stop. The world demands that I run, achieve, and be productive even in my suffering. But here, on this page, I choose something else. Before you write, pause, my inner voice whispers. I set down the pen. I place my hands on my thighs—this simple gesture grounds me, returning me to my body, which is my only anchor in the storm of change. I feel the warmth of my palms, the weight of my bones, the rhythm of my blood. I take one deep breath that fills my lungs with the air of the present, and I exhale all the scenarios for tomorrow. I say mentally: "I am not obligated to know." The words echo in my mind like a prayer, like a forgiveness for the sins of pride that wants to know everything.
I move deeper through the journaling prompts that stand before me like lanterns in the fog. The first question pierces me: In what part of my life do I feel that I am "between"? The answer does not come immediately; it surfaces slowly. I feel it in my professional path, where old ambitions no longer have a taste, but new dreams are still fragile and indistinct. I feel it in my relationships, where old patterns of communication are crumbling, leaving space for a greater, though frightening, intimacy. I am in the crack between "who I was" and "who I am becoming."
The next question is even more painful, yet necessary: What old thing is falling apart, even if I don't admit it yet? Here, I must be ruthlessly honest. My illusion of security is falling apart. My need to be liked by everyone is falling apart. That part of me that believed if she followed all the rules, life would not hurt her, is falling apart. This is a process of mourning, of a quiet farewell to a version of myself that has served me faithfully but is now too tight. Psychoanalysis might say I must "kill" the old parent within me so the adult can be born, but the spiritual feeling is softer—like a leaf falling from a tree, not because it is rejected, but because its time has run out.
I ask myself: What am I trying to hold onto so I don’t fall? I hold onto routine. I hold onto memories of past successes. I hold onto the opinions of others. I hold onto my fear, because even it is more familiar than the abyss of freedom. But what if falling is not a failure? What if it is flight? What would happen if I stopped rushing toward an answer? If I just let the question hang in the air, unresolved, open like a wound that breathes? In the silence of this question, I find that God does not speak with answers, but with presence. That answers are walls, and questions are doors.
I turn my attention to the physical sensation. How does my body feel when I allow myself not to know? (Write slowly. There is no solution here.) Initially, I feel a tightening in the solar plexus—where the will for control lives. But as I continue to breathe into this "not knowing," the tightness changes. It turns into a soft sadness, into vulnerability. My shoulders drop. My jaw relaxes. What is my body telling me? It speaks in a language without words. There may be tension, emptiness, or fatigue. And I accept this fatigue. It is not from a lack of sleep, but from too much "doing." The body says: "This is not a breakdown. This is a pause." It teaches me that winter is not the death of nature, but its deepest rest, its time for dreaming of spring.
In this state of liminality, I discover a hidden resource. It is not something I possess, but something I am. I have an internal capacity to be in uncertainty without falling apart. This is the soul's ability to bear the tension of opposites, as Jung used to say. I can remain awake even when there is no clarity. This wakefulness is my light. I do not need to see the whole path; it is enough to see only the next step, or even just my feet, planted firmly on the ground in this moment.
I reach the moment of integration. How do I gather these pieces of insight into a whole? The phrase emerges on its own, crystallized from the fog of reflection: "I allow myself to be in transition without forcing myself to arrive." This is an act of supreme mercy toward oneself. To stop treating the present moment only as a means to reach the future. To realize that the corridor is as sacred as the room. That transition is the very essence of life, because we are never fully finished, never fully arrived. We are an eternal becoming.
To conclude, I make a small closing gesture, a ritual for the soul that has no need for grandiose ceremonies. I close my eyes. The world disappears; only the inner space remains. I imagine I am standing on a threshold. I see it—an old, stone threshold, worn by the footsteps of my ancestors who also stood here, also feared, also hoped. Ahead is fog, bright and impenetrable. I do not step across. Not yet. I am not ready, and I don't need to be. Just breathe. I inhale the mystery of the moment. I exhale impatience. I inhale trust. I exhale control.
This is my reminder for the days to come, when anxiety will again try to grab me by the throat. The threshold is not a place for decisions. Decisions made out of fear or haste are fragile. True decisions are not made; they are born when their time comes. It is a place for ripening. Just as the fruit does not "decide" to ripen but simply yields to the sun and time, so I yield to this process of transformation. I stand on the threshold, humble and quiet, waiting for my soul to catch up with my body. I wait for the new name I will call myself to be whispered to me by the silence. And in this waiting, strange and paradoxical, I already find peace.
Creative Support:
https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/U4UDB5H7RYTCJ
Comments
Post a Comment