Welcome to the void between an insight and an action that never materialises…
The place where you go in circles, distracted, and your energy goes out the door?
There is a soft edge between insight and embodiment, where tenderness stops being avoidance and becomes a portal to aliveness.
Exploring this slower transforming cadence, I’d like to trace the shimmer of cocooned truths, learning to trust the rhythm of becoming without rushing the unfurling of wings…
What are we learning when we act not from the pressure to prove, but from the pleasure of resonance?
I gathered a few questions…
When the energy goes out of the door…
“I don’t understand, I am setting myself goals, a plan, a strategy, etc, but I find myself jumping off the carriage before the task is completed. I am no longer present. I want to believe I am compassionate with myself by thinking my actions are good enough, but in fact, I start to see that I am avoiding the challenge altogether.”
“I have a staff member who’s hitting the ground running but lies through his teeth, confronts, plots and divides the team… Shall I educate him, tell him to explore his past, his current collapsing marital situation? Shall I share that self-development book… Some tips? What do you think? Deep down, I know we’re stuck. I’m going in circles.”
“I want to know what I should do in the next phase of my project. Maybe these oracle cards might tell me something… Although I know that nothing will come out of it.”
These are the day-to-day dilemmas, the urge to control, soothe, please, or appease. The modernist approach seeks to fix, solve, and wipe away stains and pains. And in this drive, there’s an underlying resistance to doing anything.
And that hurts.
There are some truths in these situations, though…
- Compassion and kindness directed to ourselves contribute to better thinking
- Sharing learning or stories of lived experience shapes our understanding and perspectives
- Consulting various sensemaking means (oracles, poetry, movement, films, craft, gardening, sports, etc.) expands our narratives
But what we can’t overlook in these processes is the composting of the stuff that weighs us down.
Change and obstacle overcoming is about learning to move with the full-body rhythm of complexity, contradiction, and collapse.
Asking…
“Who am I when I am not perfect, when I have no answer, when my values are trampled?”
“Who am I when my old skin is disintegrating? Who am I when I am not helping?”
“What do I want instead, later, when all is calm?”
“What do I notice about myself, and what do others notice, when I am re-weaving with ease, wisdom and a layer of lightness?
Composting takes time
Recently, I used the process of reading oracle cards (you can use anything that offers you a pause, a ritual that invites you to contemplate your situation step by step). Although I love the calm pause and the idea generation, it’s a strange liminal space that I come out of far too quickly. I realised I am not implementing many of the changes that I revealed to myself during the reading.
And yet, it is that liminal space between insight and action that we could explore more in depth.
And in that space, you find…
The revealed wisdom from the mentor that doesn’t yet reshape your rhythms.
The page in the book that whispers, but doesn’t yet shift your day’s choices.
The cocoon that doesn’t want to break to unfurl its wings.
Here’s a dish of questions to nimble, to sieve the moving sands…
- What makes insight feel safe… and action feel dangerous?
- What threatens to unravel if you DO do the thing the messenger is gently inviting you to look at?
- Who or what do you feel you might disappoint?
- What parts of you are invested in “the insight only” version of you, even if it’s uncomfortable?
- Where does loyalty to your old self entangle your steps?
Sit with this… without judgment.
What small bits do you see when you tend to the space between idea and embodiment?
- The Insight: What truth wants to be honoured?
- The Resistance: What part of me is afraid of this change?
- The Ghost: What old story is haunting this threshold?
- The Resource: What capacity is already present in me, waiting to be trusted?
- The Relational Tether: What relationship (inner or outer) needs to shift to make space?
- The Embodied Step: What small action honours the insight without forcing transformation?
Sometimes what’s “blocked” isn’t “you”. It’s that the relational ecology around the insight hasn’t been tended.
The good news is that we can explore the relationship(s) between the insights and the action.
For instance, you want to sell your services and you realise you need to generate and approach leads.
The insight? You want to focus on calling 30 prospective clients.
The response? You call 5 of them. Then a low mood dominates you. You want to escape, you seek distractions, you go to bed.
The ecology? You know that in another world, you are excited and “transported” when you have “conversations that matter” (that’s your raison d’être).
The tending? In that case, is cold calling the right vehicle to help you here?. “Nope, I’d rather organise a panel discussion or even a TedX talk, I’d rather shine in a salon…!”
The juice? Soak into the value or the quality that makes you feel alive. It’s where the action is.
So when you’re stuck between insight and action. Don’t resist. Relax your muscles and sit in it. Perhaps the insight is a seed, but the soil hasn’t been turned yet, nor watered.
This tender, layered, shape-shifting seed/cocoon is doing its work in the dark. Not a wall. Not a failure. But a protective chamber spun by love and fear, or both.
What grows out of it is your energiser, your solar power.
So, what’s coming up for you?
