What to do with the in-between?

Embracing the liminal space of my burnout and long Covid recovery

Hello, I’m Philippine and to be honest, I feel like a beginner at life – I am forever trying to make sense of it. You can find my attempts at this, plus reflections, musings and experiences right here, in my newsletter. Subscribing is free! For everyone who feels like a beginner at life, and wants to connect in some way.

I am starting to embrace the liminal space that I’m in, letting myself be fully in it for as long as I need, for as long as it feels right.

A liminal space is a transitional phase, the in-between of one thing ending and another thing beginning.

My liminal space exists between being ill and well, as I’m recovering from the chronic fatigue that I’ve been coping with for four years, due to burnout and long Covid. Instead of trying to rush out of this phase that’s full of uncertainty – which is what I’ve been trying to do this whole time – I now want, and believe I need, to fully embrace the liminal space of recovery.

What that means, however, I can’t quite capture in one phrase, a three point list or anything else neat and concrete. Doing so would, I feel, defy the whole point. Instead, it’s a feeling, a bundle of thoughts and associations, intentional but undefined. Nevertheless, here’s my attempt to write down this thing that I by definition don’t want to put in black and white. Just pretend there is a line going through all that I’m about to say.

Largely, I’ve already recovered. My energy has increased significantly, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve fully got it back. Nevertheless, I often jump ahead, thinking that I’m further along this journey than I actually am. For example, because it’s been so long and because I do feel much better, I sometimes convince myself that I’m already fully recovered. This line of thought can be particularly insidious, because the truth is that I don’t know what it will be like to be recovered, and I am not 100% sure that I’ll recognise it when it happens.

Before I got ill, I was always doing too much – working myself into this burnout. Therefore it’s easy to wonder whether what I’ve got now is actually my normal energy level, that it only seems less because I used to spend more energy than I had. Furthermore, it’s such a long time ago that I was well, that it seems like a far away dream I can hardly remember, so maybe this is what it was like then? Alternatively, I want to be recovered so badly that I start to think I already am. Or, another lovely option, I think I should be recovered already.

All of these trains of thought leave me beating myself up in the process, telling myself I should do more, that I’m just being lazy. Additionally, and slightly less cruel, but perhaps all the more dangerous, I’ll fixate on coming up with a solution, some kind of plan to get me out of this and to pick up ‘normal’ life as soon as possible. For a while the new strategy might seem like a success, but in the end it doesn’t work, instead leaving me feeling inadequate, tired and overwhelmed. Moreover, since it focuses all of my attention ahead of where I am, it takes away my presence from the phase I am in right now, slowing down, instead of speeding up, my recovery process.

To be able to stay in the present, the current phase of my recovery – my liminal space – I need to resist this temptation, and my inclination, to plan and solve, to think my way out of this. This won’t be easy, as I usually think my way through life. It’s how I live. Sometimes it looks like daydreaming and it’s enjoyable to think about how something might go, to plan, reflect, come to realisations and insights; sometimes it gets me stuck worrying, ruminating or obsessing. However, either way, it’s how I make sense of the world, my attempt to understand life.

Nevertheless, right now planning in a big way doesn’t seem to be an option. For it feels as though there is a thick mist obscuring my view of my life and future. I can still see some of it, but no more than what is right in front of me, meaning I can sense what I need and what feels right for that moment or for the next few, but the further away from now, the foggier it becomes, knowing less and less well what will be right.

This makes planning far in advance rather pointless, if not impossible. Plans I’ve made recently have rarely felt right anymore when they were even a day old. The longer ago I had planned something, the more it felt like the decisions had been made by an entirely different person, which makes sense, because who I am is evolving much more rapidly than normal at the moment.

In a way, planning, setting goals or determining a destination and the route there, are futile activities at this moment in my life. If I were to do so, it would only frustrate me. Instead of planning in a big way and instead of jumping ahead – thinking I’m already recovered – I want to be present wherever I am on my journey. Although there is an anxious part of me that isn’t sure if this is the right thing, I want to resist the urge to move on as quickly as I can, out of my chronic fatigue and into my new recovered, energetic, improved – probably perfect (?!) – self and life. I want to listen to the nudge I’ve been feeling to sense and feel, not think, my way through this, one step at a time, moment by moment.

However, as thinking things through is my natural way of going about things, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get rid of thinking altogether, not to mention the impossibility of such an endeavour for any human anyway. Moreover, I love it when I’m on a walk and my thoughts just flow, fantasising or just cleansing my mind, and I love it when I’m thinking in a more structured way, contemplating what would be a good way to do something, usually a more or less concrete version of ‘how to live’. On the other hand, I don’t like it when I’m worrying, going around in mental circles, or when I can’t let something go and I need to be sure, to check something, to control. I’m not sure though, if I can keep the enjoyable kind of thinking, whilst ditching the unhelpful.

Perhaps I don’t need to eliminate thinking anyway, rather I need to react to it differently. When it’s of the unhelpful kind, I can try to let it be, just observing it, and if I fail to do so, to just let that be too, and so on. Additionally, I don’t think that thinking doesn’t have a place in this phase of my recovery and life. It’s more a matter of adding in feeling and sensing, listening to the nudges of my intuition, leaning into the uncertainty of it all. Thinking, yes, but not my way out of something; instead towards this liminal space, towards not knowing, towards my gut, reminding myself of what this is all about. Reflecting, contemplating, daydreaming, wondering, and imagining, are all incredibly valuable. Rigid plans and strict schedules, however, are not. They are what will get in the way at this stage.

So it isn’t about moving away from thinking and into feeling, it is, instead, about the quality of the thinking, and its interplay with feeling and sensing. It’s a less linear and less final way of thinking, rather it’s more open, fluid and cooperative. Importantly, there is no expectation attached to this kind of thinking, to act, implement, or be productive. The thinking merely is, in the mind, on the page or in the air as spoken words.

This realisation has been slowly brewing and gradually solidifying in my mind and body over the last few months or so. It came to me first through journaling, and has come to me several times since then (through workshops, podcasts, articles – such as this one by Charlie Rewilding – etc.), as if it wanted to make sure I got the message. Apart from these continuous reminders, it has been the times when my non-plan has been challenged that have truly solidified my intention to embrace the liminal space I’m in. It was when I almost abandoned this intention, that I came back to it with even more conviction.

I’d inevitably come across a video or article about a recovery strategy or something of the sort, or I’d get a panicky feeling that I thought would go away if I just came up with a solution, thinking I could plan the panic away. But eventually I’d realise this was actually going off track, not getting back on, and I’d come back to the idea of embracing uncertainty, of tuning into my intuition at each moment anew. In the end, everything is pointing at embracing, or letting myself be embraced by, the liminal space. My challenge isn’t to hurriedly figure out a plan for fully regaining my energy, instead it is to slow down and be in the messy middle for as long as I need to.

And actually, this mess feels like incredibly fertile ground, a place where things grow, but for the time being they do so under the surface. Seeds are planted and take root. Perhaps I’m not just recovering, but transforming, like a disintegrated caterpillar inside a cocoon. Although part of this transformation will take place outside of the cocoon, at the threshold of the cocoon – the sofa, the bed, the cave, the comfort zone – and the outside world. This means that embracing this liminal space, among other things, entails both retreating, resting and playing in my safe space, and going out into the world, exploring and experimenting.

I’m not sure how I’ll go about it all, but I suppose that’s the whole point, to not have a plan. Instead it’s a kind of intentional meandering, continuously re-realising that I want and need to embrace this liminal space, and continuously re-defining what that means.

What is your experience with liminal spaces?

In this post you can find out a little bit more about me and my journey.