Who Am I?
I am being called to be okay being in the liminal space. The word liminal comes from the Latin word “limen,” meaning threshold. Liminality describes the experience of being on a threshold, between two conditions, identities, roles, or stages of life. You are no longer entirely who you were, but you have not yet become who you will be.
Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) The French ethnographer introduced the framework in his 1909 book The Rites of Passage. He observed that significant human transitions often follow three stages:
- Separation – Leaving the familiar identity.
- Liminality – the Unknown
- Incorporation – Entering a new identity
Let’s consider some examples of liminality which I’m sure many of us have experienced. We lose a spouse or partner either in divorce or death. Our identity was so wrapped up in our relationship that now we must find our identity without that person. I have had people come to me for counseling with exactly this challenge.
Then there is the challenge of retirement. People who retire often struggle to find their new identity.
Liminality for me is the place of the unknown in which I have let go of the past and am not quite ready to move into the future. In past times of liminality, I didn’t realize the power of this place, I would rush to my next endeavor. For example, I would leave a job I didn’t like to find another job where I created the exact same challenges as in the job I previously had.
The time of liminality is a time of discovery. It can either be frightening because we feel that we feel totally without identity or it can be the most powerful place as we discover ourselves without our labels and identities.
I remember a time when every morning I would wake up and write a blog. I’d say, “What do I need to know?” and then I would put my fingers to the keyboard. After six years or so of doing this everyday and more than 3000 blogs later, I decided to stop. I don’t remember why I stopped. I was just done. I remember getting up the next morning and wanting to rush to the computer to write a blog. I stopped myself. I was lost. That identity had been mine for so long, I didn’t know who I was. After a while, I realized that although I enjoy writing more than anything else, I didn’t need to be “Rita the Daily Blogger.” It was okay to let go and see what was waiting to come forth as me.
In quantum physics according to Mel Schwartz in his book, The Possibility Principle, he states that three primary principles show up as conception that allow us to live the lives we choose: 1) Embrace uncertainty because it is the place where new possibilities exist. 2) The universe is in a pure state of potential. In other words, we are in a constant state of flow not a fixed state of being. Anything is possible. We have unlimited choices. 3)The universe seems fundamentally inseparable. In other words, everything in the universe interconnected. You are a part of me, and I am a part of you.
What does this have to do with the liminal space? What if the purpose of the liminal space isn’t to prepare us for a new identity, but to free us from the belief that any identity can contain us? What if liminality is not the space between two versions of ourselves, but the space where we finally realize we were never limited to either one?
I am blessing the feeling of liminality in my life right now. I am also understanding that being in the liminal space doesn’t mean you have to leave where you are. It simply means, to me, that you must let go of the emotional attachment to who you are in the physical space you are in. In the liminal space, I don’t have to rush off and become something new. I simply must be open to the unknown, get to know myself, truly, and open up to revealing more of who I truly am.
As I look back on my life, I can see that I have been experienced in not being comfortable in liminality except in one case. It was right before I met Patrick. I was unhappy where I was. I felt stuck. I felt the Divine Urge to do something; change something I couldn’t change. In fact, one time, I ran off to L.A. and another time, I quit a job. It wasn’t until I realized that I needed to become the thing which I was saying I wanted that I was comfortable in what I didn’t know at the time as the liminal space.
I embraced more of my non-identity and simply lived in passion and doing those things which made me feel like I was more of Rita. Then one day with the Bebop Comet, there came Patrick. I was a whole person when I met him. I didn’t need him, but I sure enjoyed him. We were a match in consciousness. The rest as you say is history.
So, where am I today? I’m in the liminal space. I am between this life here at CSL Kaua’i as Rev. Dr. Rita and working on losing that identity to move into unlimited possibilities. I don’t know where I will take me if anywhere at all. I just know that as I shed past identities of limitation and ideas about what I’m supposed to be based on some idea of myself, an opening will appear for my next incarnation.
Ernest Holmes once wrote, something like “…stay where you are until Truth gathering its own speed picks you up and places you where you need to be.” It’s a paraphrase but you get the point. Truth is the Principle of our identity as God or the Unlimited Source of all being. When we embody that Truth, I believe the liminal space will be a natural way of being as we will be ever-evolving beings of consciousness.
I’m not afraid to let go of the Rita I have known without knowing the Rita I will become, because I know she is already here. I just haven’t allowed her to totally come forth.
If I am no longer defined by my career, my marriage, my past, my failures, my successes, or even my long-held beliefs, who am I? Who might I become when I stop insisting that I already know?
I have been singing one of my favorite songs lately – Defying Gravity. In the musical Wicked, Elphaba stands on the threshold, the liminal space: The world she believed in is not what she thought it was. The authority she trusted has been revealed as a falsity. The identity she has tried so hard to fit into no longer serves her. She can return to the familiar, continue seeking acceptance, and remain within the boundaries others have created for her. Or she can step into the unknown. And she chooses the unknown.
And just like Elphaba, when we release identities, approval and opinions of others and every identity we thought we were, we discover that we had the power all along. And maybe, just maybe, what we thought was gravity was only the weight of everything we believed about ourselves. And now, it’s time to let go.
Love and Aloha,
Rita Andriello-Feren, Author, Co-Founding Spiritual Director CSL Kaua’i
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