In the face of unprecedented times and intense uncertainty, I thought it would be helpful to share one of my contributions to our more and more timely project An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping. This piece is titled Liminality and I hope it might give you some solace in these coming days.
Liminal comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. In 1909 anthropologist Arnold van Gennep coined the term when referencing indigenous rituals of rites of passage.1 In his writing van Gennep described rites of passage as divided into three separate phases: first, is the separation phase or a pre-liminal phase where the individual separates from a social group or identity. Then there is the phase of transition, this would be the liminal or in-between space, where the alchemy of change happens; and third, there is the incorporation phase. This is where re-integration or re-incorporation of the changes and new learnings are integrated into the liminal traveler’s social environment. In other words, liminal space can be understood as territories of life where we are in-between what was and what is not quite yet.
Entries into liminal space can happen in two primary ways. From a place of personal agency. Meaning we chose to enter some form of change in our lives. This looks like actively pursuing a new job or career change, moving to a new city or country, or entering a new relationship. More often liminality is imposed on us. This happens in job loss and layoffs, divorce, or a break-up, or death of a loved one. There is no escaping the disruptive and destabilizing experience of liminality in our lives. These in-between places of waiting and uncertainty are everywhere and inevitable.
Unfortunately, many of us do not do uncertainty well. We are always in the struggle of manufacturing control in a world when, if listened to, our inner knowing understands there is none to be found. In my role as a therapist, I have come to see my job as not so much helping folks manage pathologies, but rather helping folks lean into and move through uncertainty. I no longer view myself as a “therapist.” I prefer the title of Liminal Space Tour guide.
When goals, new intentions, or personal development projects ultimately don’t come to fruition, I don’t fault the many hopeful folks for their attempts at goals, new intentions, and personal development projects. I know how hard real change is. Not meeting the career goal, not starting the new business, the relapse, what gets characterized as self-sabotage are not personal failings, but rather a turning back to what is known and familiar in the face of liminal space, or uncertainty.
In a world that is losing many of its Rites of Passage. I think it’s important to acknowledge markers of potential transformation and change. We live in an increasingly challenging world. Where the old is at battle with the new. We are being called to build a new world, a new way of being with each other. But we are losing the skills needed for the job. Here is where an understanding of the journey toward changes and transformation, found in rites of passage for example, can steady us for the small and large sacrifices and patience that real change requires. We need world builders now. And moving through the structure of a rite of passage can teach us much about the skills needed for the challenges ahead.
Regardless of the it being voluntary or imposed, separation and entry into liminal space will often start with the experience of failure. We live in a culture now that doesn’t understand the fruits of failure. If we are to make any significant changes in our lives, communities, or world. We need to make friends with failure. No deep change can happen without the experience of failure. If the fear of failure is keeping you from doing the hard thing you want to do, or know you need to do. I get it. Risking failure requires us to take some uncomfortable counter-cultural positions. Risking failure will require us to abandon aspirations of perfection in ours and others eyes. Risking failure will require us to trust in our abilities, wisdom, and sense of worth, rather than outsource these things to others. And risking failure will require us to be okay with failing.
We need a new understanding of failure. Failure should be regarded as a signpost of doing, effort, and courage. In his book the Queer Art of Failure. Jack Halberstam writes that:
“Under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world.”
I couldn’t agree more.
So, what is it you need to separate from in the coming months or year? Is it a job or a relationship? Is it old ways of being or old identities? What sort of separation do you see on the horizon that may be imposed on you? How do you want to meet the impending changes? With a death grip on the way it used to be. Or with a free fall into the liminal?
Peace.