Living in the Liminal Space of Uncertainty
The InBetween time, the space after life has been altered, but there is not yet clarity on how that will play out. That is liminal space.
This is a tough space to abide in.
In 2024, I received the diagnosis of fibromyalgia after a good period of time of not understanding what was happening to my body. In 2025, I had a total hip replacement with a very complicated recovery no doubt due to the fibromyalgia and other undiagnosed symptoms.
In addition to the symptoms of fibromyalgia, I had some other symptoms, namely, balance, and coordination and motor delay that the neurologist I eventually saw didn’t attribute to fibromyalgia. This is also the case with the fibromyalgia clinic specialists that I see regularly that don’t want to diagnose me with an additional diagnosis, because that’s not their job, but recognize there’s something neurological happening too. I saw the neurologist this past April. She wanted me to follow up with more testing. That is not scheduled and available until February 2027. So my balance, coordination and motor delay issues seem to be slowly getting worse. And I wait.
Like most people in the 21st-century that have access to technology, I excessively google my symptoms and ruminate over what the possibility of my future holds for me. As you can imagine, this is not a practice that supports my mental or emotional well-being.
In the meantime, I struggle with:
Getting dressed
Cooking
Folding clothes
Playing musical instruments (Which is part of my livelihood)
Knitting
Driving for more than 30 minutes
Standing
Walking at a brisk pace
Dancing or other movement that requires coordination
Vacuuming and house cleaning
Walking up the steps and carrying something
Anything basically that requires precision.
What life is like in the liminal space.
I release expectations and self judgment every day.
I cry every day.
I miss the parts of my life that happened with ease.
Almost nothing happens with ease now.
there is much grief.
There is also an acute awareness of vulnerability and a sense of gratitude for the very small moments where I can experience joy and connection.
I meet my limitations increasingly with compassion rather than frustration, Although grief is still a dominant experience, there are moments, glimmers if you will, where I am able to find peace.
Although curling up in a little ball with my old dog and a pile of books and tissues for my tears seems like some days the only available choice for me, life calls me.
Participating in the life of my grandchildren when I can fuels, motivates and inspires me.
Sometimes forcing myself to show up for exercise classes, where I modify many of the offerings fuels me because it is so hard for me to do some of the things and I show up and try anyway. I sit in my car after these classes and thank my body for allowing me to move, breathe and strengthen this body.
The yoga of existing in liminal space requires me to show up for myself with compassion, to make healthy choices again, and again, to have enough self-awareness to not injure myself and to make appropriate modifications and to trust that I am held and supported and loved even as my body changes, even as I wait for a diagnosis and hopefully a treatment that can at least delay some of the changes that are happening.
I am grateful for the practice of yoga to be able to have my own personal practice, as well as expand my awareness of how to serve students that have Variety of their own chronic conditions.
The Yoga of working with the fluctuating mind and cultivating qualities of the heart is my practice.
That is how I am existing and abiding, and in some moments, even thriving, in liminal space.
