“It is a time when all the old clarities break down and everything is in flux. Things are up in the air. Nothing is a given anymore, and anything could happen. No one knows the answers: one person says one thing and someone else says something completely different.” (William Bridges)

That description seems to fit the world in the present day. I know I’m in the middle phase of the transition process due to the global pandemic and the changes it has sparked and catalyzed. William Bridges calls this time the Neutral Zone, because “it is a nowhere between two somewheres, and because while you are in it, forward motion seems to stop while you hang suspended between was and will be.” 

As I study transitions, I recognize the Not Knowing Place is part of my transition process. In the past I placed too much emphasis on getting out of the Not Knowing Place. Bridges writes, “when change is deep and far-reaching, this time between the old identity and the new can stretch for months, even years.”

I noticed that time became fluid during the pandemic/Stay at Home order and the boundaries of time (such as self-imposed deadlines and schedules) washed away. This fluidity changed my routine behaviors and offered new currents of awareness, connection and creativity. It required a new way of seeing things.

Life has not been static, but dynamic. There’s been a lot of movement while not moving. I learned about my relationship with time. The passing of time is fluid and I am in it, not just observing it. I used to be on the shore but now I’m in the water. Thankfully, I built a raft.  This is part of the creative meander.

Stephen Levine writes, “What we describe as “our life” is not the sum total of what has passed through our hands but what has passed through our minds. Our life isn’t only a collection of people and places, it is a continuum of the ever-changing feelings they engender.”

…”The mind is in a constant state of flux. No thought, no feeling, no sensation lasts for more than an instant before it is transformed into the next state, the next thought, the next sensation. Our life lasts only a moment. Note those moments.”