Thresholds

If you read my last blog, you’re aware it has been a massive year for me. There’s been so many thresholds, big and small, and as I was reminded recently by my therapist and mentor, thresholds are activating. No matter what the threshold is, it brings with it change, novelty, and mystery. Our nervous system lights up and so do our threshold dynamics; the particular ways we have learnt to approach different stages of cycles, the way we move between spaces.

So what exactly are thresholds?

A threshold is not just a physical doorway. It’s a transitionary moment. It’s the delineation between spaces. And by spaces I mean physical spaces, yes, like the door between rooms, and I also mean the other physical, psychological, emotional, energetic spaces that we move in and out of, on both a micro and macro level. Think of the physical places you move between daily - home, work, gym, cafe, home - like work, home, social events, as well as energetic and emotional spaces, and big ritual events like birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, buying a house - we are entering into different layers of energy, power dynamics, connection and relationship. 

We are also moving through creative cycles, the cycles of life.

Preparation

Beginning

Middle

Ending

Integration

And we each have thresholds and phases that we feel comfortable with, and others that we resist, avoid, override and generally try to pretend they don’t exist, because they’re coupled with powerful experiences that feel overwhelming or unpleasant.

Personally, I love to prepare - learning, researching, organising - and once I’m into the middle, I’m happy as a fairy in glitter, but beginning has been so difficult for me. In the last two years I’ve come to understand that I had a difficult beginning in this incarnation, along with a bunch of ancestral patterns which have shaped my relationship to getting started on.. anything.

I need quite a long lead time, along with a strong level of holding and support as I cross that threshold. I know that now, and I’m doing things differently and more consciously, but in the past I’ve used activation, speed and urgency to get over the beginning quickly, and then I wonder why I’m burnt out or not where I expected to be. Because I haven’t faced the threshold head-on, and oriented to what I’m saying yes to, it becomes disorienting and I end up pulling back to reassess, whereas if things followed their natural course, I’d be building momentum.

I also find endings difficult. I generally jump on a momentum wave and speed up where the natural energy is tapering, or grip and brace and hold on for wayyy too long past the expiry date, especially in relationships. Having access to Fight in my nervous system has helped me embrace endings and have better boundaries.

And I love integration - I can reflect on the lessons I’ve learnt, and the meaning of experiences, and then look towards the future and start preparing, with ease and enjoyment. Optimisation and problem-solving comes naturally to me, but can be influenced by perfectionism, and it’s difficult to begin… see how it flows?

How about you? Does this reflection open up something for you? Comment or reply and let me know!