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Yingzhao Liu

Liminal Space: When Falling Apart Becomes Falling Into Place

What are Liminal Spaces?

Liminal spaces are spaces of transitional or transformative quality, spaces between the familiar and the completely unknown. Learn what it means to powerfully navigate the unknown and be with it, in it and act from that space as a leader, entrepreneur, consultant, and human being

Looking for a definition we find them manyfold, all circling around thresholds, actually, the space in between thresholds, pointing tospaces “in-between”, transformative as well as transitional spaces, some name them “waiting areas” between appoint in space or time and the next, still unknown, invisible, remaining in the dark of what´s next.

Talking about liminal spaces, to many people the falling away of “everything” comes to mind, accompanied by sensations such as doubt in all possible shapes and forms, the being on the verge of something, anxiety, disorientation, loss of control, “not-knowing-any-more”, the emptiness of some strange kind, unpleasant-ness at least.

And of course, this is what it means to cross the threshold into the unknown, the other shore not visible, not even graspable if there might be any at all – so one might end up or remain in no-mans-land forever.

Approaching it from that shore, actually, a choice we have taken and cultivated in a lifelong practice, all that makes perfect sense, as we are acting and perceiving from the realm of “Is-ness”, “Fixed-ness” and “Stability”.

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Reconsidering it as a “choice” real choice steps in – and liminality all of a sudden might appear as the “deep Not-Knowing”,“Presence of Everything”, pure potentiality still showing in its unexplored-ness, in its true nature. The absence of anything turning into the presence of everything, and many wisdom traditions pointing to that moon when cultivating that “deep Not-Knowing”, in Zen we call it “Beginners Mind”, others speaking about the “great Void”, “Emptiness”, “Gods eyes”, “Consciousness”, “Presence”, “Tathagata”, different label for one great seeing and knowing, seeing things as they really are.

Living from that choice, actually cultivating our lives from that reality one would live, embedded in presence, in and out of endless abundance – honoring life in its true nature as rather being the ocean than the waves. 

In our last Conscious Conversations, our monthly community meet-up, we explored the idea of liminal spaces. The Conversation was hosted by our Advisors Yingzhao Liu and Christian Mayhofer. In case you missed the meetup you can watch the teaching about Liminal Spaces here:

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