It's okay not to know

I am feeling very 'empty' at the moment. I know I am in between things - that newness is on its way, that I am transitioning between things inside myself. On the outside, my life looks the same, but in my internal landscape, all the leaves have fallen off the trees and I am gently listening and feeling my way as I wonder what wants to land. I have been here before and I am learning to trust this place, however uncomfortable it feels. 

And trust is so key because we are living in a time where it's not easy to be In Between, to Not Know. Where changing jobs to follow a calling, taking time to feel where our soul wants to lead us, or simply not being sure what our next step is in any area of our lives, is hard to explain and not always readily supported.

And we need encouragement to let stillness, silence, space, emptiness be present without being afraid of it. 

I always like to compare these times of emptying, readying, preparing, to the 'transition' phase of birth, where one set of hormones leaves the birthing mother's system in preparation for a whole new set. And this whole new set of hormones brings about the moment of birth - and makes the final push possible. 

But in between the two, we can feel lost, like we want to give up, like we can't go on and definitely like there is no way we can imagine giving birth to a baby. 

And when this happens, we are surrounded by midwives and doulas and people with experience of what we are going through. 'It's okay, it's normal to feel that - we've witnessed hundreds of women go through it. We're right here' is what we need to hear when we are feeling this in-between-ness, this lost-ness, this how-am-I-going-to-do-this.

And so, right here right now, in this moment, if you are experiencing any kind of transition in your life - where you just don't know what's coming next, where you cannot imagine what is going to appear, where you are feeling empty, maybe lost, maybe lonely, disconnected, not trusting, not being able to see, I am here to say 'It's okay, it's normal to feel that. You are not alone in your experience because so many people are going through the same thing.'

Because when we get to feel validated in the Not-Knowingness, in the gap between things - when we can let emptiness just be, without filling it with things - we create a landing strip for great wonders and new awareness and whole new stages, relationships and creativity. 

We're not always meant to be able to see where we're going and what's coming. We're not meant to be able to summarise our life purpose or what we want to do in one paragraph or in a 15-minute interview. Many of us are living lives that simply don't fit into the 'norm' because we are living in a time where we are carving new grooves, finding new ways, living from our hearts rather than our heads, and following our instincts. 

And we need to hold hands while we do this - while we birth this newness, this more trust-full, soul-informed, love-inspired space - inside ourselves and in the world around us. 

And so I offer my hand to you now so that you can offer yours to someone else and we can hold each other and sit quietly in the knowledge that it is absolutely, completely, wondrously okay to let our bowls to be empty.