Not places most of us would choose to enter, but places we find ourselves when forces beyond our control remove the protective coating of safety, real or perceived, internal or external.

Like a snake that has shed its skin, a crab that has outgrown its shell, a seedling that has just broken through the soil, it is of nature to be exposed in periods of loss, transition, and transformation.

It is tender. Our fresh new skin is sensitive, soft, and thin, feeling everything acutely.

It is uncertain. Our steps are shaky and our ground has moved, and we are no longer who we thought we were. We don’t yet know who we are becoming.

It is humbling. We are not in control and we cannot make it move any faster, cannot escape the discomfort of this process, cannot see when relief will come.

We are in liminal space, the in-between world where nothing feels quite right and we can’t go back and we can’t fast forward, and we are unavoidably, uncomfortably here.

Sigh.

Ok, I guess we’re doing this thing.

The surrender comes when we realize we’re too tired to continue to resist, escape, control…

And it wasn’t really working anyway.

So we let go. We let go over and over and over again because there is truly nothing else to do.

And we listen in the wind for the whispers of a promise, a rebirth, a fresh start, a new chapter, a Springtime. We are reminded that things always change and evolve and become, and the in between doesn’t last forever.

We can stand it. We are still here. We are not alone in it. We are indeed held by something greater than we can imagine and we don’t need to have it figured out. We just need to keep showing up, however naked, undone, or lost we feel.

This process is not pretty, or easy, or fun. But beautiful things come into being when we create the space for them. We can’t get there without the vulnerability and surrender of letting go.