I’ve been thinking a lot about Liminal lately.
The space between what you have let go of and what is still to come. A holy pause between chapters when you’re no longer who you were, but not yet who you’re becoming. Not a place to stay, but a place to pass through.1
Over the past two years, so much of my life has changed on the outside. It’s been a series of shattering heartbreaks and beautiful breakthroughs, and through all of it, I joyfully leaned into the chaos and welcomed the next chapter with unwavering trust.
And then this past Spring happened.
And I found myself in The Belly of The Beast.
And it felt like ten years went by in three months. And all of a sudden, that faith I once held seemed to dissipate as I struggled to hold onto any former notion that, despite everything falling apart around me, it would turn out okay.
I’ve done my fair share of therapy and personal development over the past decade. I’ve meticulously added tools to my kit to keep myself afloat when life unravels—as it always does. But this past Spring didn’t just feel like a chapter ending abruptly; it felt like the end of an era. And all of a sudden, the tools I had acquired weren’t equipped for the new job requirements, and I was submerged into another traumatic experience of too soon, too fast, too much2 when the universe decided it was time now.
And I fell apart in a way I had never before. It felt like a dance between resistance and receptivity, interlaced and moving through my being as I begrudgingly surrendered, letting myself descend into the darkness. Down and down and down. And around and around and around. It almost felt like I had no choice but to allow myself to feel everything all at once: the sadness, the grief, the anger, the betrayal, the rejection, the abandonment, the hollowness, the victimhood, the 30 years of abuse I continued to tolerate over and over again. But the only way out was through. And with each shadow that dared to come up, I opened the door, offered it a cup of tea, let it stop by, stay for a while. It was excruciatingly painful. I won’t deny there were moments when I wasn’t sure I’d make it out or if I even wanted to. At times, I didn’t even feel like I was in my body as I watched from afar everything unfold, all the illusions and masks unveiled, like I was on some sober trip somewhere between this world and the other side.
Over the past several years, I’ve been in and out of these states, each time thinking it could never feel worse, only to be met with darker days and even darker shadows.
But I’ve always believed that you must go into the darkness to see the infinite light. That there was beauty I could feel when I allowed myself to befriend that thing so many of us called The Beast. That each time I went further down and dug through the heaviness, the further the light would stream up through my veins, emerging from the darkness within.
Buddhist teachers will tell you,
You need to descend to ascend.
This unraveling, while tumultuous, led me to what I can only describe as an Ego degradation.
The life I had built for myself no longer seemed to fit. The direction I was going in, the areas I was focused on, the things I strived for all seemed to dissipate into thin air. None of it mattered.
For over a year, my famous words had been, ‘I’m burnt out.’ And this was the tipping point. The truth I had to face, that I wasn’t just burnt out or needed a break—I was uninspired and uninterested—in my work and in my life.
This time, there were no new directions or next steps to follow. No action to take but to sit with my own chaos and embrace this holy pause in between chapters.
And so that is what I did as I slowly began to remember who I was before the world got its hands on me. And in many ways, I am still very much doing this every day; the practice of remembrance.
I’ve thought a lot about how I never cared much about credentials or accolades. It’s always been more about the devotion to one's craft that has inspired me. How, I never even considered my own degree as a matter of judgment to my success, nor did I ever really associate it with my career in tech.
The truth is, I couldn’t even get an entry-level position at an agency with my Digital and Interactive Marketing Degree, even with multiple internships under my belt and a Magna Cum Laude standing. I ended up working in mortgage for two years. During that time, I signed up for coding classes on the weekends and started to learn Web Development and UI/UX Design. Then, I started searching for work on the freelance platform, Upwork. I accepted my first contract for $11/hr, minus taxes and fees, and I was making about $6/hr. But I was determined, and so I kept going. Slowly, I started being offered higher-volume contracts until, over a year later, I was discovered by an agency to work with them—my lucky break. An opportunity I will be forever grateful for. At that point, I was sort of this ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of None,’ which led me to work alongside high-level designers and developers as I continued to learn through them refine my expertise in SEO, UX Design, and Webflow Web Design and Development.
And so, it wasn’t my degree that got me to where I am today. It was the devotion to my craft.
College taught me about as much as High School did—how to look up the answers teachers wanted from Chegg, and how to show up on time. Which, quite frankly, I failed at that in High School as I was notorious for having ISS (In-School Suspensions) for skipping class or being late, until I figured out that if I just didn’t go to school, then they couldn’t give me ISSs.
I’d pretend like I was going to get on the bus, and then I’d walk down to the island on the river behind my house, where I’d work on my assignments and deep dive into my textbooks all day. When I did go to class, I might as well have been a million miles away in another dimension, tuning out anything the teacher was saying.
By the time I was ready to graduate, I needed a note from the doctors excusing my absences to obtain my High School diploma. I didn’t hate learning. I hated the school system. And there was no way I was going to let that system dictate how I learned, so I paved my own way. In fact, I was still an honor student who graduated early despite my lack of presence in the classroom. My Ego definitely had a field day with that one, as I quietly escaped the flawed system to spend the remainder of my senior year in Brazil with my vovó, soaring off into the night sky with a ‘take that mouthbreathers’ ruffling through my mind to no one specifically. I imagined most teachers (and definitely my principal) were happy to see me go. They realized they could not cater to my oddities or intrinsically curious intellect with what it needed to thrive—and I think they even felt a little bad because they knew I was never really happy there or had many friends.
In the entirety of my time in the public educational system, there were maybe a handful of teachers who truly recognized who I was beneath the masks I wore for other people, and the ache, pounding in my heart for something more.
One was an elementary school art teacher who managed to develop a program for ‘gifted kids,’ which I think was just code for ‘troubled kids.’ We got to go painting in a picturesque countryside village every week near our school. I was never particularly good at painting, but I think she recognized how I’d get lost in making art, whatever that project may be, how it soothed and calmed my anxious little heart.
Another was an English professor who mainly taught at some prestigious university in New York but also led a night class at my public university. He tried to instill the love of writing in us, encouraging everyone to journal. I’d been journaling for as long as I could remember, so I resonated deeply with his teachings. The last words he said to me were with a type of concern and genuine care in his voice I’d never forget, ‘Take care of yourself, Gabriela.’
I gave him a soft smile as I walked out into the Wasteland, which would covertly consume me for the next seven years until something else would collide onto my path, divinely interrupting the direction in which I was heading.
Like a canary in a coal mine, I felt this collision coming for a long while. I’d had a feeling that something big was going to happen, that change was on its way. I could feel it all around me, though I could never quite put a finger on it. I was on my way to getting married, so naturally, I figured that must be it. But I never made it down the aisle, as our engagement came to a halt, and we separated.
We hadn’t been planning a big wedding or anything (though that topic was a classic family debacle). But there was certainly a level of relief I felt when I no longer had to answer the looming questions brides receive, like, ‘Who will be in your bridesmaid party?’ when I did not have a single friend to stand by me — the betrayal and heartbreak I thought I processed of lost friendships, coming back up to pay a visit as my throat bobbed and I found myself holding back the swelling in my eyes as I answered, ‘It’ll just be me.’
Not to mention, I was mortified by just the thought of being in the limelight and still am in many ways. I suppose that’s why it’s taken me so long to blog from the heart or share my more personal story. Privacy has always been of great priority to me. I’ve always appreciated the joy and peace I’ve found in more intimate settings, and the solitude while working behind the scenes and independently, often moving in silence and just below the radar where no one would notice me passing by.
After that, though, my life collapsed overnight as my journey into the unknown really began, and I started to pick up the lost pieces of who I was before I made a home in a heart that was not mine. That was over two years ago now, in the heat of the summer of 2023.
Around that time, I began to feel a pull to deepen my spiritual practice. I felt this sort of holy tranquil peace of something bigger protecting me. I was completely unraveling while simultaneously in a total state of bliss and awe at how marvously messy life was. There was no going back, even if I wanted to. And my life has never looked the same since that pivotal moment, encapsulated in time.
Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principles of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. ~ David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
‘God’, had always been close to me growing up, as I always felt a presence of spirit with me as a child and throughout my teenage years. I was raised in the Roman Catholic church, which is where my foundation of faith was built. Though even as a little girl, I never fully resonated with the teachings of our sermons and often resisted the principles of the bible being taught—fighting and challenging what we were being told (I suppose I’ve always been one to detest the system). Somewhere between 8 and 11 years old, I stopped being forced to go to church altogether. Though my faith always prevailed through the years. And, I do believe without those roots, I would not have the spiritual depth I feel so connected with today.
It was those roots that led me back into the Christian church scene during my turbulent separation as I was trying to make sense of everything unfolding. But, less than a year into listening to the minister on Sundays and attending bible study weekly, I experienced another heart-wrenching moment that brought me to my knees. I could not comprehend how such a thing could happen, as I began to feel disconnected and unable to find the answers I was seeking in the traditional Christian setting, all while a soul-stirring feeling was rising within me that there had to be something more to all of this.
In the dead of winter of 2024, Tennessee was blessed with an unusual blistering cold spell that would bring the confirmation I had been searching for. I had just moved into my 1920s crumbling house that fall and was not prepared for what was to come next. I woke up to frozen water pipes and a blown-out HVAC unit.
The uninsulated pitch black crawlspace I had been avoiding was now calling my name as I needed to get down there to unfreeze the copper pipes before they burst. In that pit of darkness, I felt this urge to lie down. I don’t recall exactly what I was thinking; perhaps I was just exhausted, or that at 29 years old, I felt as worn down and neglected as my little old house. But as I made my way onto my back, sprawled out like a snow angel, becoming one with that space, I felt an unwavering presence of serenity enter my being; a gentle stillness and silence of the purest kind. In that very moment within the dark, cold, dampest of places, I felt more connected with everyone and everything on this planet than I ever have before; a divine knowing washing over me that all that transpired in my world was meant to be, that everything was connected, that we are all one.
The path ahead will become clear, and what once felt like a battle you’d never get through will become a story about how you found your truth. As difficult as it may be while you're walking through the valley, take your time, don’t rush through this part of your journey. Don’t run from the moment that you’re in. Walk with confidence, knowing that you’re here to learn & grow as a person. Meet your current circumstances with a heart that’s ready to experience it all, a heart that’s open to discovering something new. You chose to be here when you took the leap of faith, and when you left the familiar. You took a bet on yourself & chose to search for more meaning, more purpose, & for more answers. This very desire to uncover your potential & purpose has brought you to where you are now. ~ Shawn Fontaine
My trauma, paired with my neurodivergent tendencies, has had a way of isolating me from connection. I could not begin to share the number of times my words have been harshly misjudged or misunderstood, starting from an early age. My speech delay, difficulties with language, and lack of expression and tone have often failed to convey the sincerity of what I meant. And while I know I've played a role in causing that confusion, it doesn’t soothe the sting in the moment you feel the people you admire most back away from you. When your kindness is mistaken for cruelty or self-absorption, and you are left to wipe your tears after another downfall as you slowly back away into the abyss, feeling like you’re the reason for other people's suffering. But you also know you didn’t have the emotional bandwidth or social aptitude to explain yourself, and the truth you hold that people can only meet you as deeply as they have met themselves, and you are praying one day you will meet those people that feel like resonance to your soul.
It’s been an incredibly challenging life for me thus far. I wish I could say my twenties were full of adventures, new friends, and wildly pleasurable memories—but that’s just not my truth. It was grueling, often living a life from my shadows, continuing to wear multiple masks as I did through my childhood and adolescence.
There are days when it had felt like I had experienced 50 years of trauma wrapped up with a nice little bow by the time I was 20, my spirit crushed from the weights placed on my shoulders from early life challenges and the intergenerational trauma as I crawled inch by inch up the mountains to my freedom; the face of adversity, testing me at every cliff hang, the addictions I hauled along, the chaos I contributed to, the emotional and physical abuse I endured and the domestic violence I’m all too familiar with.
Trying to navigate through this world when you have a lack of a support system yourself can feel like swimming against a current that won’t let up. And I guess I’m beginning to share my story because I want the person out there who feels like the odds are stacked against them, who may be struggling to hold their faith to keep going. Keep going. This world needs your magic, and we need to keep advocating for each other.
It can be easy to want to rush through the in between to get to our next destination when it feels like the waiting never ends. And I won’t pretend as if I’m a holy preacher encouraging you to ‘embrace the slowness’ when I have days when my own patience is tested. This past summer, I’d felt an anger I’d never experienced before — righteous but vicious. I didn't try to dismiss it or calm it down this time around, I let it rein and run its course. But let me tell you, the Universe had no problem giving me that energy back as I woke up to a rat in my kitchen (RIP Ronaldo) and then walked outside to a shattered windshield and flat tire seemingly out of nowhere on a holiday weekend; right when I thought I was about to get a break.
There I was, cleaning up another small mess. But I don’t need to tell you that those small messes can add up over time. And sometimes it only takes one more small mess to throw you off the edge. The system wants you to feel defeated, to lose hope, to submit. It wants to rush you so you’re not thinking clearly or breathing wholly, to make you feel like you’re missing out or that you’re behind.
But I believe, when we subtly rebel and allow ourselves to live a simple, gentle life, we take back our sovereignty. Not with force, but with ease. Each time we decide to pause instead of react, to be present with every task and challenge we are given, we welcome in a new energy that holds the lost magic of this world. It comes from within us. And each time someone takes a bold stand to live differently than how they were raised, taught, or subjected to, we all heal, we all rise.
We are all fractals of God—each unique but also the same. We are all part of one consciousness. This unity means that what we do for ourselves, we do for everyone. We are all connected and our actions affect the whole. For the good of all involved, we should act with love and compassion, knowing we are all one.3
Last Notes
As this year has unfolded, the year of the nine, the year of closures, I have been learning to embrace exactly where I am at this precious moment in life, when the plans I have created have gone astray, and I am navigating my way through the Liminal.
These past few weeks, I have felt a divine current of change sweeping through my life as if I’m entering a new dimension, a new timeline where a long-awaited justice is virtuously being served. Not just for me, but for my ancestors as well. And for the first time in a long time, I am excited for the next 30 years of my life to unfold; a newfound zest. I have no doubts there will be great challenges ahead, but I will keep my faith that there is beauty beyond anything I could ever imagine ahead. While society will tell us to hang on to our youth, I look forward to embracing aging with grace, welcoming each new chapter in this brief time we have on this planet.
I get tired of “under 40” lists. Show me someone who got their PhD at 60 after losing everything. Give me the 70-year-old debut novelist who writes from a lifetime of love and grief. Give me calloused hands and tender hearts. ~ Doug Murano
I have this memory of me as a little girl in a white t-shit sprinkled with purple lavender flowers, walking in a field as a sunset begins to settle on a bluebird sky day behind the horse meadows, running my hands through the tall grass, feeling the wind gently grace my cheeks.
Her reckless faithfulness gives me hope and inspires me to keep going, even on the hard days. Her soft nature, tender heart, and elegance in surrendering to the moment right here, right now, remind me of the solitary joys found in the mundane.
There have been a lot of quiet days around here with just my cat and me sipping tea, writing, reading, singing to my plants, dancing in the kitchen, basking in the sun, and enjoying the last days of summer before the lovely autumn brisk winds arrive, followed by the bitter bite of winter—my favorite season.
I have been reminded to gracefully take the gentle path as I learn to allow the mysteries of life to tenderly reveal themselves when the Universe within me feels I am ready. And I invite you to sit with the holy mess and embrace this space with me as well.
I’ll leave you with a little poem for now. Until next time, my loves.
Be with Grace.
If this story speaks to you, feel free to pin or share it—your support means the world. ❦
References:
1Anonymous, 2Britney Piper, Body First Healing, 3Anonymous
