For several months now I have felt like I am in a liminal space, caught between old versions of who I was and who I am becoming but aren’t quite yet as old identities and ways of being release and new ones form.

In the last few days, I have experienced an incredible turnaround in an unexpected way.

It has been a welcome surprise and gift to return home and discover that I have been released from the rut I was in. I have more energy, drive and inspiration, as well as a renewed sense of meaning and vision. The pathlessness I had experienced for so long is finally starting to dissipate and open up. New opportunities and possibilities are starting to appear.

In this article I will give you the process that took place and explain how and why it helped.

I was going to write an article about how our inner critics work against us, but now that I’ve sat down to write, the words have frozen inside me and it feels like a drawer-bridge crashed down in front of me so I can’t move forward and write. My stomach is constricted. Feelings of dread, horror and shame arise. My arms feel jittery and weak. I want to go and do something else that doesn’t feel as hard or scary.

Have you ever experienced something like that?

Maybe it wasn’t as result of writing. Perhaps you wanted to reach out to someone to take the next step in a friendship or relationship, make contact with someone you haven’t spoken to for a long time, apply for your dream job, go somewhere new on holiday or take a creative class alone, speak in public or bring up a conflict or issue in a relationship. You may have concluded that you’re on the wrong track, that what you’re feeling is an indication that you shouldn’t proceed. If it feels bad, maybe you’re just not meant to do it? Or maybe what you long for just isn’t for you? Why would doing something you love or really want to do feel so bad? But this often isn’t what it signifies at all.

Instead of writing about inner critics in this article or even a more soulful piece as I love to do, I am sharing about navigating the freeze response on your growing edge – where you want to step towards something you long to experience but freeze and get stuck and can’t go towards it. It can be very painful, lonely and upsetting. Without a map – a clear understanding– of what is happening you can stay stuck for too long or give up and never get to where you long to be.