- Kat
A Liminal Space: Bittersweetness, Honesty, & Radical Love
With my fun gap year ending and my brand new chapter approaching as a full time PsyD graduate student at the University of San Francisco, I have never moved in the way I am about to now.
Emotions of bittersweetness have come in waves during these past few months. I have experienced amalgamations of basking in the joys of each present moment and sinking into the sadness stemming from the change of what is about to come. In 2 months from now, I will be undergoing my biggest move yet; switching from one city to another, one routine to another, and different friends to another. Transformation is coming: I will need to shift my priorities, lifestyle, and attention in ways that will simultaneously be challenging and exciting.
Coming from a college town and relocating into a big city will be an adjustment, and it is entirely new for me to have to be moving somewhere else despite being incredibly happy and content with everything I have now. I feel saddened to be leaving my first job where I have established strong rapport and repertoire with my professional connections, and deep rooted enrichment for the kiddos. Moreover, I know that it will be harder to nourish and cultivate my current friendships with consistent quality time.
There is gratitude in feeling blessed to have connected deeply with such genuine friends this past year, but there is also sadness in them making goodbyes feel so difficult.
Despite all these ups and downs though, one thing remains true:
How beautiful it is to know that you loved and cared so much.
There is an intangible, nuanced kind of strength in being sensitive. There is power in being attuned to how you may use gentleness and conscientiousness as fuel for longer-lasting, deeper, and more authentic connections. For yourself and for others. Because when you show up for yourself with radical honesty to leave no space for denial of all moods and emotions, the level of depth you have met within yourself will show up in the relationships around you.
When you are honest and comfortable with yourself, your surrounding connections will strengthen from deeper honesty and comfort, rooted in the foundation of YOU.
I am still in the process of transition and adjustment. I know that the current contentment I hold for my life now has molded my perception of my future as one that is filled with loss. My present life transition and what is about to come has been residing in this complex and difficult space of liminality, as the expectations of moving across one medium to another has directed my focus towards the fleeting transience of life. The dichotomy of depression and exhilaration I have felt from this forthcoming move has been overwhelming during these times, but I am remembering again to be intentionally invested in the thoughts that serve me:
I am not losing anything.
My move will just be a continuation of what I already have, in addition to the progression towards my passions.
What is truly meant for me will not pass me by.
I must be brave:
Being brave by being honest and real with yourself will not only embed the trust within yourself that you can handle anything that comes your way, but it will also nourish your own integrity to let others trust you better.
Knowing your internal world is critical for bettering this external world we live in.
By sharing your heart and mind – safely and authentically – to those around you, you allow yourself and others to fully live within the spaces of vulnerability and trust you have better established.
Cultivating trust also means letting your words match your actions. After true self-expression, actions of self-accountability and taking responsibility for the purpose of growth and progress will serve you towards the foundations of trust and kindness with others. Coupled with vulnerability and gentleness, the highest source is created for our ultimate well-being: love.
To end this off, I’d like to share a quote I stumbled upon that I forever will live by:
LOVE OTHERS SO RADICALLY THEY WONDER WHY.
This is how to live freely, with liberation of unease and tension of the heart.
I am happy to be feeling so deeply, with all the goodbyes and all the new beginnings coming my way.
I am letting the nervousness from challenge, excitement from novelty, and dichotomous emotions from change all in.
I am forever feeling, processing, releasing, and learning.
For that is how I truly and fully live.
And I hope this encourages you to be brave enough to do the same.
As always, sending my love and light to you all, and thank you for reading! <3
- Kat