The Liminality of Grief: Embracing who you are becoming

This is the threshold of grief—we’re no longer the person we were before loss, and we haven’t yet discovered who we’re evolving into. So how can we stay true to ourselves as we get to know who we are becoming?

In this episode of the Grief in Life podcast, host Nina Rodriguez explores the concept of liminality in grief, emphasizing the importance of giving oneself permission to feel and operate from a place of becoming. She discusses the challenges of navigating identity shifts after loss, the tools of heart-centered curiosity, boundaries, and self-compassion, and the significance of community and creative expression in the healing process. The conversation highlights the beauty of vulnerability and the ongoing journey of personal growth amidst grief.

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Takeaways:

• Grief is a response to loss and life-altering change.
• Liminality represents the in-between space of who you were and who you are becoming.
• It's essential to give yourself permission to feel.
• Heart-centered curiosity helps in navigating grief.
• Boundaries shift after loss and need to be communicated.
• Being gentle with yourself is crucial during grief.
• Grief can lead to anxiety and depression if unattended.
• Creative expression is a vital tool for processing grief.
• Community support is essential in the grieving process.
• Embracing vulnerability can lead to profound personal growth.

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• Website: griefandlight.com
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Transcript

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This was by far the most powerful aha moment that I had in my own grief that shifted absolutely everything for me. The way I see life, the way I show up in life, the way that I relate to other people. And it was giving myself permission to feel and giving myself permission to operate from a place of becoming. You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief colored lenses. Openly, authentically,

I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the Grief in Life podcast. If you're new here, my name is Nina Rodriguez and I am your host. Today we're going to be talking about the liminality of grief and how do we operate from a place of becoming when our life has been flipped upside down. Grief can be incredibly disorienting whether you've

Experience the loss of loved one, a pet or a life altering circumstance or just something that has left you feeling unmoored, disconnected from your reality. As we know, grief is not just related to the loss of a person or pet. It's also related to all of the complexities of life really. It's a response to loss and life altering change. And in the times that we're living now, it could also be this constant barrage of chains and unsettling realities that we have to face. Some of us on top of

navigating our personal losses. So, Greece thrust us into living in a place of becoming. That means that our reality as we knew it has completely changed. Liminality is a threshold between what was and what is, who we were and who we are becoming. The version of us that we understood mostly with a sense of certainty and who we are turning into not knowing exactly where we're going. So it's that in-between stage. It's that in-between space.

And we actually have liminal spaces in our lived environment. So for example, if you live in a condo or apartment, the liminal spaces would be those spaces between the building and your unit. So a hallway, an elevator, a corridor, or for example, freeways, roads. So you're getting from point A to point B, but that in between stage is the liminal space. So think about it as a transition phase, except for in grief, it could be

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very prolonged, could be very profound and it lasts a lot longer than we probably anticipate. We still have to live life, we still have to show up in our capacity at work as parents, as partners, as daughters, as whatever role you play in your life, you need to still show up. So how do you do that from a place of becoming when almost everything you do seems to have been flipped upside down, including our sense of identity?

When we lose someone we love or when we experience a life altering circumstance, how we show up in the world also shifts. Our understanding of how we show up in the world also shifts. It's as basic as who we were in relation to that person is no longer. So if you lost your spouse, for example, just even the label, you have this new identity as a widow or...

you're no longer so-and-so's wife or are you so-and-so's wife or husband or partner, right? So it's like, how do we redefine all these labels and sense of identity and how we show up? That's part of this concept of liminality. And what I want to normalize first and foremost is that it is okay to operate from a place of becoming. This is part of what I teach, not teach, but help people understand and unearth for themselves during the one-on-one coaching sessions that I hold.

the one-on-one grief support sessions that I hold. And it's something, it's an unbecoming, it's an unlearning. The first step is to step into this new realm with heart-centered curiosity. And there are three tools, actually, I'll name those now, that I personally found very helpful early on in my grief. And a small caveat is that if you're in the very tender stages of your grief, this conversation may not be for right now. This conversation is something you could put to the side

and come back to it if you'd like at a later time because it may not necessarily make sense in the context of very early grief. Very early grief requires more basic tending. So tending to the body, tending to the immediate moment. And if you find this helpful, then by all means, if it's, I always say if it's helpful, then by all means accept it and take it in. If it's not helpful, release it and let it go. Three tools that are very helpful to me are heart centered curiosity.

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boundaries and being very gentle with yourself. And that's like navigating liminality 101. So heart center curiosity about meeting the moment as it is, meeting yourself where you are, meeting reality as it is, and then asking deeper questions like what else is here for me? Life altering change, grief, life experiences all have their own inherent wisdom. And it's up to us to be able to tap into that.

This is not the same as saying everything happens for a reason. This is not that. It is saying that there's always something to help us along the way. Life always holds its own wisdom. Life experiences hold their own wisdom. And when we learn to tap into that through heart-centered curiosity, through asking questions and making room for the answers, that's how we start to learn how to move forward with a sense of agency.

But in order to do that, we have to become an empty vessel. It's almost like you want to redo your living room or redecorate your house. Well, first you got to remove the old stuff, right? And in a way, grief and loss does that for us. The demolition process, I'm thinking of remodeling a home, for example. So that demolition process is already done for you or a big chunk of it has been done for you. So now it's about looking around and saying, okay, what is here for me?

And now that I seem to feel and see destruction and brokenness around me, if I were to remove the pieces that are no longer useful to me, what else can I do with this space? What else can I do with this time? What else can I do with this existence, right? So that is an ongoing question, at least it is for me. And years later, I still ask this. I actually ask myself this almost every day. What is here for me today? How can I meet?

this moment every single day and every day holds a different answer. Sometimes there's a pattern and there's a sense of a road being revealed before you. But I never look too far ahead. And that has been immensely helpful in understanding who I am becoming. So many people tell me, I love your perspective on grief and how you understand it. And I understand it from my perspective, but

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The more I talk to people, the more I realize, wow, this experience is so vast. It's like an ocean of experiences for people. So what I do understand is meeting the moment as it is. And each moment reveals just the nugget of wisdom that gets me through to the next step and then the next one and the next one. It's almost like little breadcrumbs, right? So find those breadcrumbs of wisdom, of understanding in each moment. The second one would be boundaries.

That's why we tend to our grief, our boundaries shift after loss and knowing what they are, how to communicate these new boundaries and our needs and how to operate in a place that honors our lived reality as we take steps forward is a whole process in and of itself. And that's why I highly recommend to have a grief tending practice. And that's why we hold the virtual monthly grief circles and I hold the one-on-ones because it is not something that necessarily

comes naturally to people. We live in the context of a grief, illiterate, grief avoidance society. So learning the language of grief, understanding what is grief and knowing how to navigate it is best done, in my opinion, in a group setting and with somebody who can guide you like a grief guide. That's why we do the work we do. The second one is boundaries. And then the third one is just being very gentle with yourself. So heart-centered curiosity, boundaries, being very gentle with yourself.

Treat yourself as you would someone you love so much. It is very helpful to me to look at myself as somebody outside of myself. instead of being me, me, me from an ego place, I almost look at myself from a separate point of view and I say, wow, she's been through a lot. She is doing her best. She is being curious about what's around her every day and trying to listen to the answers and being daring and taking another step forward. And she doesn't always get it right, but man, she's trying.

And so when I look at myself from the observer point of view, he is so powerful and there's so much compassion there. And so being gentle with ourselves, it's having empathy and compassion for ourselves. When we do that for ourselves, when we gift ourselves that, we also are expanding our capacity to extend it to other people. And we just show up differently in the world. We show up from a very authentic place. And those are three tools that

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create that opening. Living in liminality could feel a lot like being lost in the woods and the sun's going down and you don't know which way to go. You don't know if you should keep going forward or if you need to turn around and panic can set in, right? So this is where people say, I feel stuck in my grief. And that stuckness is because we are so untethered, unmoored, lost between what was, what we wish would be, shoulds and shouldn'ts and should have and all these.

stressful thoughts and confusing thoughts about who we are and where we're going, that it could lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. So while grief in and of itself is the response to loss and life altering change, and this response is physical, emotional, mental, and I would even say spiritual, if we indulge in the confusion, this is different than resting. You can rest.

But if we notice that over time, everything is getting darker, gloomier, it's more of a struggle to engage with your life. You feel you're losing your sense of agency, then it can turn into anxiety, depression, or some other mental health challenge. Or if the person already had been struggling with mental health challenges, then grief can exacerbate them. So I just want to make a bit of a difference. And again, I am not a doctor or a therapist.

So this is not medical advice. am pointing out based on conversations I've had with therapists and doctors who say that grief unattended can turn into something sinister. So we're not talking in this context of mental health anxiety or depression. We are talking about navigating grief when it feels confusing and unsettling, when there's no foundation to stand on, when we're wading in muddy waters or

where it feels like we're walking on quicksand. when, how do we get ourselves out of that? How do we keep moving forward with a sense of agency? We may feel like there's a lack of control and we live in the context again of a grief averse, grief illiterate society. So there is immense pressure sometimes to move on and get over it and what's wrong with you. So on top of us feeling lost, there's that external pressure or they can be that external pressure from others to move on. So to move forward and keep walking,

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through life, showing up as yourself, even in a place of becoming. How do we embrace becoming? How do we embrace life from a place of becoming? And this requires a shift in perspective. But this was by far the most powerful aha moment that I had in my own grief that shifted absolutely everything for me, the way I see life, the way I show up in life, the way that I relate to other people. And it was giving myself permission to feel.

and giving myself permission to operate from a place of becoming. I released, surrendered, let go of everything that didn't serve me anymore. And that mostly was the stories that I told myself about what I should be. And instead of saying, I'm this age and I should be here in life and look at this thing that ruined my lifestyle and who am I now? And yes, it's okay to have those questions. And at the same time, embrace the fact that

Humans are not a finished product ever really. Even when we accomplish certain goals, then we get to start over and have different goals. So then we operate from a place of becoming again. Even the cells in our body, they're constantly operating from a place of becoming and shedding the old ones and the new ones and regeneration. So it's this constant cycle more than anything of releasing, unlearning, shedding, and then embracing learning.

and regenerating. Think about it as a consistent process of evolution in different contexts. So when life is happy-go-lucky, that evolution might look a certain way. And when life is challenging and there's grief involved, life looks a different way. The key is to allow ourselves to be fluid and adaptable within ourselves, within our environment, and with each other. It's about letting go of rigid expectations and embracing the unknown.

operating from a place of I don't know what's going to happen next and isn't that beautiful? Isn't that the beauty of life? And think about that for a second. We are so hardwired and taught to think I don't know what's going to happen next. Well, we better figure it out. And that's okay. We will figure it out. Trust that we are built to figure things out. And that's the beauty. Isn't that beautiful? And that's something you could adopt in saying I don't know what's going to happen next. Isn't that beautiful?

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I don't know where I'm going, isn't that beautiful? And that mindset shift may feel a little awkward as any new thing does, but with time, there's something that shifts within you, even how that feels in your body when you say, I'm not sure what's gonna happen next, isn't that beautiful? And sit with that and see where that feels most true in your body. That's part of tapping into that heart centered curiosity that I mentioned earlier. And it's meeting the moment where it's at, it's

practicing mindfulness and presence and staying grounded in the present moment. It's also self-compassion and acknowledging and accepting that we are vulnerable in this state and that's okay and we don't know what's gonna happen next and that's okay. And maybe giving ourselves permission with that that's okay. It doesn't require you to believe it. It doesn't require you to think it's true. It's just holding that thought. I heard somebody say it takes 17 seconds to shift your thinking pattern.

Not sure if that's true or not, but I remember thinking, huh, that's interesting. Let me at least try it out. So if you say, I don't know what's going to happen and that's okay, and you focus on that for at least 17 seconds, see how that feels in your body. See how the next thought and the next thought shows up for you. And just understand that you're not going to think this one time and things are gonna be okay. This is something you're going to have to repeat constantly. That constant shedding, that constant saying it.

no longer serves me who I was before. I thank her and I honor her and I take the best lessons from her. And now I have to show up in a different capacity. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like yet and that's okay. I don't know what tomorrow will bring and that's okay. I've had to teach myself how to come back to center. For example, it was not in my bingo cards for my brother to pass away.

If anything, I said, well, we'll have to face these challenges when we're older, and this is how I imagine us getting old, et cetera, et cetera. And look, now that's not even an option. So if loss teaches us anything is that life is unpredictable and we can plan, plan, plan, that's part of also functioning in a society. We do need to plan and leave room for the mystery, leave room for the place of becoming. I would argue that even

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in a place of not experiencing grace, you should always leave a room for that wildcard for the unknown, for the place of becoming, for liminal spaces, because that's the space of creation, that's the place where becoming happens, and that's the place of possibility. And the more we learn to lean into liminality, the more we can tap into our sense of agency, because ideas emerge from a place of not knowing.

and it's that space of creation, it's that tapping into source. It is going to take going within. am whatever that looks like, whether that's prayer or meditation or mindfulness practice or even having a season of reflection, a season of isolation. Seasons of isolation is where you have a conversation with yourself and something greater than yourself, the unseen. You could call it God, universe.

life force, whatever you want to call it, but you tap into that, your higher self, you tap into what is true for you, your own mission, you tune out everybody else's voices and expectations, and this could be a day or this can be a season. Just remember we're also not meant to operate from a state of isolation. So see it as a tool to listen to yourself, to find your authentic voice, to gain clarity, and then

move forward into the outer expression of that. And it's okay to leverage that clarity and understanding with curiosity into showing up differently in your everyday life. So how do we do this? This sounds great, but it's like, how do we do this? And this is where creativity, community, communication and connection, I guess you could say the C's, right? All come in. So creative expression. I am a big fan of journals, journaling.

not just for the sake of exploring ourselves, but for having a conversation with the unseen, whether that's your person who has passed, your pet who has passed, your former self, your future self, the universe, God, or whether it's just to create mental space through dumping whatever is in your mind onto a sheet of paper so it no longer lives in your head. Whatever the purpose is, journals, writing, creative expression, to me is a fundamental tool for this type of change for

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finding our sense of direction and operating from a place of becoming. This could also be art, music, or any other outlet that helps you process, that helps shift everything that's going on inside to the outside. And that's very important. And this is something that hopefully you can tap into multiple times. It's not a one-time thing. So something that rings true to you. If you're more musically inclined, then go do that. But to me, writing is so key. It's taking it from the unseen in your mind into the physical space through

writing and hopefully you're not typing it, you're physically writing it, that makes a big difference. The second one is ritual, ceremonies, creating meaningful ways to honor and mark your transitions. It's not just in remembrance of our person or pet, but it's also in, this is who I am now, I'm walking through a threshold, through a liminal space.

How do I honor this change and just honor the human? And again, going back to that, seeing yourself as an other, how do I celebrate or honor or acknowledge in a marked way that we are changing and that's okay? The other one is joining a supportive community. We are meant to grieve in community. Yes, obviously a lot of the expressions are by ourselves. Like whenever we feel an outburst of tears or a sudden wave of grief, a little of traffic or whatever it is, yes.

There's a lot of lonely moments in grief and things that we will have to do alone. And grief tending, understanding grief, processing grief is best done in community. I will always say that it is best done in community, in connection with those who get it, in connection with those who are also setting time for themselves to process, to tend, to understand, and to be witnessed with love and to witness others with love. It is

It also looks like seeking professional help whenever we feel we need it. In one of my previous podcasts of, think it was with the grief girly, one of the things she said was, when should you get help? The answer to that is whenever you feel you should. So whether that's at the beginning, middle, or towards the later stages of your grief or down the line, if you feel you need help, go get help. Let this be that sign if you needed a sign, okay? And help with grief, I've talked about this in the episode with Dr. Mikkel Harris, she has.

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Five questions to ask practitioners to see if they are grief informed, which is really important that if you're going through grief, you get a grief informed practitioner to help you with your process. The other one is giving yourself permission to not be okay. As Megan Devine said, it's okay not to be okay. We have this cultural obsession with joy and happiness. I just even saw that there's a world happiness summit happening in my city in the coming months. And I was just like, that's great. And it's also necessary. And there's

a need to honor our grief and sadness as it is. We should never bypass sadness or the heavier feelings because that also creates an imbalance. I look at everything as a spectrum. Is it balanced? Is it harmonious? Balanced implies 50-50. Harmonious implies that even if it's not 50-50, it still works to our favor and in harmony with our lives. It's not disruptive.

At what point is chasing happiness disruptive to our lives? And that's a question that maybe we should sit with a little bit longer. At what point is chasing happiness at all times disruptive to our lives? We all have a beautiful sunny day, but if we only have sunny days, there would be no water. We would end up as a desert. So there is a need for rainy days. There's a need for storms. There's a need for of it.

gloomy days, sunny days, all the things in order for life to thrive, there has to be a balance and harmony in all of these different seasons and changes. It is unrealistic, I would argue harmful, to seek out happiness at all times. It is possible to seek out joy and gratitude amidst change and grief and struggle. Just understand no date of being is permanent. Not grief, not sadness, not liminality, not joy, not gratitude.

It is all shifting and changing. That's another way of embracing liminality. It's understanding and meeting life as it is. It's a balance between or harmonious understanding between observing what is, being with what is, and giving it a sense of direction. And so we go in flow with these two things. What is here for me? And where do I want to go from here? What is here for me? And where do I want to go from here? And that's with the self.

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You could also expand that to what is here for us and where do we want to go from here. This could be your immediate family and this could be you in the context of society. This could be you and your work. It could be all of it. Once you start exploring the harmonious aspects between those two questions, you expand that to what do I need to let go of to embrace who I am becoming? And those answers will shift with time. One thing in early grief could be

the expectations to return to what was, for example, that's something we could let go of, we could release, we could surrender and embrace who am I becoming? Let me get to know this new version of myself. Is there something that I like now that maybe would not have been of interest to me in the past? For example, the version of me prior to my brother's loss was very goal oriented. She loved to 10X everything. She loved

plans and certainty and had a very strong hustle mindset and was very much in her masculine energy. It's that yin yang and it was very much that masculine energy. The me after loss is softer, really appreciates authenticity and others authentic conversations. She's way more okay with not knowing what tomorrow brings and she's way more interested in meeting people where they are and meeting people

in this moment, but that took a while to embrace her to even understand that that's what she was doing because initially it felt like she had lost herself and in some ways she did. Who she is now and notice that I'm talking to a third person like who I am now is still somebody in a place of becoming and I'm okay with that. I think that's beautiful and actually really, really enjoy being in the state of liminality. Now there are

certain goals, you still have to tap into that energy to just plain and simple get things done. But I'm okay embracing this not knowing. There's so much light in liminality. It's a potential for profound personal growth and transformation. It's a space of potentiality. It's a space of discovering your new strengths, your new resilience, the new things you like, exploring with heart-centered curiosity, cultivating deeper connections with yourself and each other.

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It's where we can give our life new meaning, find a renewed sense of purpose or a new sense of purpose and absolutely new direction. Please give yourself permission to pivot, permission to pursue a new path. Liminality could be a place where we find new purpose in life and where we find the beauty in vulnerability. There's so much beauty and power and strength in vulnerability, which is kind of counterintuitive, but there's so much strength in vulnerability.

It's where I have found the most connection with people. It is a place that I have grown to love and ironically find myself anchored in and stable in a place of liminality, which is a bit of an oxymoron or feels like one. But when you lean into something, you begin to understand it at a core level. You begin to deconstruct it and really understand it piece by piece. And once you do that, you understand how to operate within its context. So lean into grief, lean into the liminality with hard centered curiosity and

Curiosity helps you relax the fear. There's a lot of fear about what's going to happen. How am I going to deal with this situation a year from now? my gosh, this anniversary is coming up and there's so much anxiety and fear in grief. But when we relax into the experience and when we, instead of looking at only the scary parts, we start shifting our mindset to, okay, I'm in this place of becoming, how can I operate from a place of not being a fully formed?

product, she will meet the moment. How can it redefine me? How can it show me the way to a different path forward? So I just want to recap that liminality is a natural part of grace. This messy middle, this in-between stage, this place of becoming is part of the grief experience. My hope for you is that you embrace who you are becoming and understand that you are a whole human being even when you feel broken.

You're not broken. This is a part of the human experience. Loss is a part of the human experience. All these heavier feelings are part of the human experience as is falling into a place of imbalance. So how can you recover your sense of balance and harmony? What does that look like for you? It's going to look different for each person. What is harmonious to me may not be harmonious to somebody else. So you have to find that ratio in your own life about what works for you.

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and that's going to look different and that's okay. Meeting ourselves in a place of liminality, a place of becoming can actually be empowering and it could show us the way to a more aligned, life. can personally attest to this. This does not mean the pain of the loss doesn't go away. That will always be a sort of scar in our lives. The key is to practice self-compassion as you take each step forward, as you learn who you are becoming. My question to you is, what is one thing you can do?

to embrace liminality today. And I would love to know what that is. I don't hear from you unless you message me and I would love to continue this conversation with you on social media. I am most active on Instagram at grief and light. So feel free to send me a DM reference this episode. So you could say liminality, this is what I did today or this is how it showed up or this is what shifted for me.

but please feel free to reach out. absolutely love hearing from you. I absolutely love hearing how these conversations unlock something within or help you navigate forward. It really fills me with joy. So at grief and light, or you could also email me info at grief and light.com. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next time. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the grief and light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories.

Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight. Or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.