Traversing the Transition: Existential "Liminal Spaces"
Liminal spaces can seem like endless transitions—inducing burnout, apathy, and feelings of despair—but they are also significant for learning, personal development, and passing into brighter places if properly explored.
The Backrooms, a liminal spaces internet psychological horror game
What Is a Liminal Space?
A liminal space is both a physical and psychological "location." Physical liminal spaces include hallways, stairwells, tunnels, and other such transitional areas; they deliver us from one point to another and are unintended for lingering.
Likewise, psychological liminal spaces consist of mental states of uncertainty, precariousness, or ambivalence. If the end goal of a physical liminal space is reaching a desired destination, then the mind's liminality also craves a stable resting point. When in transition, though, this is not yet possible—yielding discomfort and angst to the liminal individual.
What Causes Liminal Spaces?
Liminality, by its root word, limen ('threshold'), indicates a "stuck" feeling that accompanies one's crossing into a new stage of life. Liminality is existential limbo, a suspension between forward motion and back treading previous steps. It's not quite stagnation—by its definition, it suggests anticipation and passage—but it isn't progressive enough to stave off the inflicted restlessness. Envision it as the door you cannot fully open or a labyrinth beckoning you deeper into murky confusion.
Certain activities and life changes trigger one's "entrance" into the limbo of liminality. Liminal spaces are often preceded by:
Upcoming moves
Pending job approval
Paused projects
Shedding of friendships/hobbies/other life constants
Pregnancy
Divorce
Relationship uncertainty
Any slow-moving or undetermined development
Anything promising nothing but incertitude can quickly thrust one into the proverbial gray zone, shrouding the liminal individual's gaze in a haze of apparent nonsense.
How Does It Feel to Exist In a Liminal Space?
Liminal spaces are uncomfortable. Just as one wouldn't dream of being trapped in a hallway, it's similarly agonizing when the hallway becomes your mind and the apparent trajectory of your life. A verse from the Shinedown song "Save Me" occurred to me while writing this: "I live in a hallway with no doors and no rooms."
Place yourself inside that hallway, which seems to stretch eternally into nowhere, and imagine the resultant anxiety, listlessness, and despair. It's hardly a fun time for the liminal individual. This threshold state is distinctly marked by its, well... lack of distinction. Not knowing what the future holds, the liminal person wrestles endlessly with ennui, fear, and contradictory thoughts and feelings regarding anything pertaining to the liminal space.
Where will they move next, and when? They know it's time to relocate, but those questions hinder decision-making. Will they get the job they applied for? The diagnosis results? Do they even know what they want, and are they intrepid enough to pursue it?
A deluge of questions lacking a stopper of answers summarizes the liminal person's spilling soul. They seem to lack a safe place to land. Everything is up in the air, a plane burning through its fuel in a desperate, drifting search for a runway.
How to Navigate the Liminal Space
Liminal spaces are simultaneously aggravating and exciting. They tease and torment but also suggest expansion into greater places once the person exits the gray zone. Perhaps a rainbow awaits them on the other side of this discoloring apathy—the liminal person won't know until they're through.
Method #1: Address It
If you're wandering through a liminal space, one of the first recommendations is acknowledging it. Where are you right now, mentally and spiritually? Is your situation imminently destructive, or can you rest easy? In your dark doorway land, you may feel prone to "liminal dwelling," enabling your emotions to overtake you.
Refrain from acting on impulsive, emotional splurging whims; reserve indulgence for special occasions.
Instead, when you're not in a position or location to explore the emotional side of things, reason it out. Even if you've done it many times, ask yourself why you're feeling this way and assure yourself that you're feeling it because you're in a transition. This is positive and not something to resent or fear, even if your current state induces agony.
Method #2. Seek Wisdom
Not sure what to do with a situation or person? Ask.
Ask God, relatives and friends, therapists, mentors, or even a stranger, if you feel so inclined. Remember that liminality thrives on uncertainty, so if you can clear up even a cloud or two of confusion by seeking guidance, don't hesitate.
Method #3. Engage in Creative Play
Considering its fascinating "neither here nor there" qualities, the liminal space can inspire us. One method of grappling with it is exploring and depicting the gray zone in strokes of creative color. Experiment with this by creating:
Grayscale or contemplative art/graphics
Music (with atonality or lyrics expressing liminality)
Stories, characters, or poems with threshold themes
Films, videos, or photography (playing with light/shadow effects, imagery, etc.)
Models, sculptures, or something eerie and imbalanced
A journal or prayer log
The intent is to channel your frustrations into art and mediums that fully capture and "understand" where you're coming from. This way, you can untangle your complicated feelings and possibly connect with others in a similar situation.
Method #4. Consume Creative Content
Your ambiguous art might inspire someone else, but if you're not feeling up to creative play, you can always consume existing art that "gets" you. As someone who has never experienced "liminal limbo" until late last year (2022), I realized something that my mental state was doing to me: tuning my music tastes. Instead of entertaining my usual genres, I ventured into new bands, albums, and/or styles I had only grazed the surface of before. Thanks to my liminal exploration, I can recommend the following genres for musically representing your threshold:
Psychedelic pop/rock
Synth/Retrowave
Lo-fi
Trance
World
These genres effectively capture liminality—both lyrically and melodically—because of their strange, bizarre, "spaced-out" sound. Atonality, dissonance, the unnatural and atmospheric synth instruments, and pulsing or sluggish beats have strongly connected me to my feelings of disconnect. I can't recommend this "coping mechanism" enough.
Abstract art, movies, literature, or anything that strikes you as unsettling or off-kilter may also lessen your sense of aloneness in the liminal space. It's a bizarre sensation, to be sure, and not one you want to feel stranded in if you can find art and experiences to keep you company.
Method #5. Distract Yourself
Don't want to think about gray zones, borderlines, and ambiguity anymore? I can hardly blame you; such things shouldn't be pondered relentlessly.
It's sometimes most effective to fill your life with productive distractions if you're feeling restless—note: not unhealthy coping mechanisms.
If you have the time to read, enjoy hobbies, travel, play games, cook, spruce up your home, or whatever you like to do, try to rekindle the joy in those activities. In the liminal space, apathy and burnout are common afflictions, so you may even consider expanding your current skill set and undertaking new hobbies.
Method #6. Resolve Unfinished Business
Liminal space anxiety intensifies when we neglect certain tasks or duties we must complete before our transition. If you're shouldering unnecessary weight on your journey, don't be surprised when it impedes the speed and strength with which you move.
Create a "must-do" list, sketch the activities into your schedule, and cross them off once completed. Doing so doubles as stress reduction and passing the time that, in a liminal period, seems to crawl.
Method #7: Stop Caring
If the liminal space has become maddening and unbearable, cease thinking about it. Stop caring as much. Don't expend precious energy mentally micro-managing, scene-setting, imagining, worrying, or manipulating things in your favor. Life will unfold how it's supposed to, and if that means letting go of old people/habits/hobbies or accepting new ones, trust that these losses and gains are essential.
Does the Liminal Space Impact Creativity?
From my experience, it does. Creativity tends to flatline when the apathy and unease associated with liminal spaces deliver their slow-sweeping poison through the mind. Expect higher doses of unprofitable despair, a term I use to define sadness and dissatisfaction that I struggle to spin into anything useful.
Burnout is a common ailment in liminal mode because, like the decisions and directions in your upended life, your creativity also staggers. Consequently, you may not feel like accomplishing much creatively or intellectually; to attempt to do so may prove supremely challenging or even "impossible" in your compromised state.
Does Any Good Come from the Liminal Space?
Yes. Liminality is a life season like any other, intended to advance you to deeper maturity and place you on a higher rung on your ladder of calling. It's a valley for contemplation, a pausing point that allows low moods to settle. Liminal spaces afford you a unique opportunity to pull back, slow down, and critically assess your life.
You're likely to notice interesting things taking place when in this state: epiphanies, loss and acquisition of new friends/relatives/partners, discarding of old ideas/hobbies/habits, and a renewed desire for personal growth.
You may find yourself desiring slower, gentler activities: reading, journaling, withdrawing from social media, listening to music, walking, etc., while distancing yourself from faster, more aggressively-paced events and adrenaline highs.
Ultimately, the liminal space is a preparatory period for cultivating patience and excising unnecessary "filler" from your life. Harsh as it may seem, this includes disconnecting from unserviceable or destructive people—inviting loneliness for a time. (Remember, it's not a comfortable place to stand; you weren't meant to stay here!)
Embrace all this space brings (or removes) from your life. If you feel yourself drifting from old passions and people and it's truly best to let them go, unclench your hand. Whoever doesn't hold it during this season likely isn't meant to transition with you into the next one, and this is just as well; we each have fresh places to be and new levels to achieve in life.
Conclusion
If liminality has found you and the stairway to Heaven seems an endless, shadowed spiral, let this be your sign to hold onto the railing; beautiful changes await you on the next floor if you maintain the path. Keep up your stride!
A Liminal Poem
The only way through
Is to dance to the tune
Of the shadows
That mock you
Gawking at you
From their silvery perches
In rafters you can’t yet reach
You drift in dark dazzle
Each shadow an echo
Of songs sung pre-twilight
As you grope through gray emptiness
The sour lyrics taunting
But do not be daunted
Your symphony awaits.
