Moving Through Liminal Space: Finding New Perspective
A New Perspective: Changing Your Mindset
Last summer, I was in discussions with a large pharmaceutical company about designing and facilitating large women’s leadership programs, thanks to recommendations from former colleagues. After several rounds of proposals, they asked if I had a YouTube channel or social media they could look at (besides my website), as they needed to “market me” within the organization. I had to admit, this hadn’t been a priority. They suggested they could “plant this seed” with me to be more visible. This invitation opened the door for this website redesign/refresh project (Liminal Space 2.0) - to sharing more about the work I’m doing in a more visible way.
Around the same time, the New York Times published an article on Dr. Roland Griffiths, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, after his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. I found the article so incredibly poignant and beautiful, I was left with tears in my eyes. I posted it on LinkedIn. And a few hours later I took it down because I had still not updated LinkedIn about starting my own business and what would this pharmaceutical company think if they searched for me and this was the only thing I’d posted in the past year?
The Liminal Space 1.0 website served as a starting point, a North Star, guiding me towards a calling that I had been fortunate to follow first within my role within the Product, Design and Engineering team at Yahoo, working with leaders and teams through great times of great uncertainty and change. After the acquisition by Verizon, I moved into the People team to create a new Executive Coaching function bringing in many of the mentors and teachers I’d had in my own training and having a playground to experiment and iterate on not only 1:1 executive coaching, but also in building women’s programs for high-potentials and executive women, co-creating VP and CEO/Leadership Team offsites with wonderful and inspirational colleagues, and designing group coaching cohorts for leaders as we saw the global pandemic unfold around the world. Together, we worked with over two thousand women in the organization, designed and facilitated multiple offsites for key leadership teams and began partnering with Verizon on how to meaningfully bring forward awareness around inclusion and belonging in the organization.
I’m in deep gratitude for those that supported me and opened up opportunities as I got clear on my purpose and had a vision for what was possible. Zachary John, Rachel White, P.P.S. Narayan, Rohit Chandra, Montse Sanz, Allison Allen, Peter Miller, Sandy Gould, Garnesha Ezediaro, Spencer Deering, Nella Barkley, Abby Wambach, Glennon Doyle, Genevieve Hughes, Fannie Boulanger, Barbara McMahon, Kate Spear, Gayle Karen Young, Aaronde Creighton, Judy Schwartz, Lynn Carter, Tiffany Tran, Kristen Corcoran, Candice Hawkins, Laura Scanlan, Andrew Mainwaring, Julie Jackle, Jo Ilfeld, Jocelyn Courtney, Didier Sylvain, Ivan Markman, Kelly O’Connor, Allison Butler (and her son Matthew, my biggest fan of guided meditations), Stephanie Blair, ConnieAlice Hungate, Agnes Liu, Emmy Negrin, Adam Rosendahl, Jenny Sauer-Klein, Amy Day, Larissa Conte, Lisa Moore, and many more.
Discomfort as an Opening
However, even though the business was growing organically working with both corporate clients and individuals, I’d not shared more widely about my work (even with those who had been asking). I felt I was still in a kind of chrysalis and wasn’t quite sure how to describe what I was doing.
Executive Coaching, Team Dynamics, Program Consulting, Workshop Design and Facilitation for Senior Leaders. Collaborating with leaders I greatly admire (Paradox of Leadership with Valia Glytsis and CHIEF, the private network for executive women). This is work I’ve done for years and can communicate about.
At the same time, in these few years, I’d taken a significant amount of time to learn to care for my well-being as I went through some health challenges, learning to slow down, establish new routines and personalized approaches to medicine. Thanks to the partnership of holistic healers, doctors, friends and colleagues (thank you Karin deNevi and Zach Boucher) I began to prioritize this above every else as I could no longer take it for granted. This was a huge shift after a 20+ year global corporate career which left me chronically dehydrated because I never took time to drink water (too busy) and a nervous system in a state of chronic dysregulation due to the constant demands and stressors of modern work environments as well as my own personality patterns.
Sneaky, as I intellectually understood all of this. In fact, I was coaching and training others about it. Yet the first step toward reclaiming my well-being was to acknowledge this, and then to take the time to not only build new skills in reconnecting to my body but honoring it and its wisdom above all else. This healing work took me into the origins of some of my own reactive patterns (and personality type), whether earlier in life, or what I’ve inherited through my ancestral line (or experiencing through the collective) and deeper into somatic and trauma-informed work and healing modalities.
This was all happening as I also began to spend a lot of time with family in Southern California as my Dad’s health began to decline further and we came together to care for him in hospice at home.
A decade ago, I knew this time was coming. Wanting to be fully and present for my parents aging process had required me to seek out wisdom and spiritual guidance from many teachers and mentors. I am, again, so grateful that the universe has shown me over and over again - when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
I was introduced to working with sacred medicine (entheogens) in expanded states of consciousness in the lineage of medicine carriers going back thousands of years (and in the unbroken lineage of the Mazatec healers in Mexico). Through working with these medicines, I was given a “draft card” to learn to do this work guiding others drawn upon this path in a way that was built on safety, integrity and deep respect, combining indigenous and spiritual wisdom with more modern somatic therapeutic and trauma-informed approaches, neuroscience and accountability through trusted mentors, apprenticeship, experiental training and community.
The Path Unfolds
This gets me back to why I found the New York Times article so moving, and why it has taken me time to find my own way to share about this work.
After years in the corporate world, communicating about my new business of executive coaching, team development and program consulting seemed pretty straightforward. However, I now had first-hand experience in how vital well-being is not only for performance in the workplace but for our entire physiological health, finding calm and clarity in crisis and change environments and in what it means to be fully present through thresholds with those closest to us, including end of life and grief. I struggled putting pen to paper (or the digital equivalent). How to explain, much less communicate all of this? Or which part(s) of it? And to weave the connections how it is all absolutely relevant to interpersonal conflict, focus, innovation, team dynamics and …leadership.
Realizing I was stuck, I raised my hand and asked for help. I was greeted, yet again, with an extraordinary array of talent individuals to help in this creative process.
Getting Unstuck
Hilary Young became a wonderful thought partner and supporter helping me put into words the work I was doing and the vision and values that guide the work. As words took form, it became clear it was time for a new, refreshed look and feel for this website. I’d taken note of the fantastic work of Liz Ellery years ago, as she’s worked with several friends and colleagues and I’d loved how her intuition has an almost magical ability to capture someone’s essence. Little did I know that she’d want hundreds of pictures of me for this project. I’d somehow missed the point that the reason I liked the websites she did is because they capture the people they are designed for. The date got pushed out months as I realized I needed to attend to some additional inner work to care for parts of myself not quite on board with the upcoming photoshoot. Liz suggested working with Bry Penney, not only an amazing photographer, but with a special talent to help people feel comfortable in front of the camera (especially those, like me, who might feel self-conscious). Liz also proved her mastery in design and creativity as I had a clear vision of the symbolism and colors I wanted to express but needed her ability to understand and feel into this in order to bring it into reality. Afterall, the ‘work’ is to embrace both the darkness and the light, and bring it into wholeness. And through this alchemical process, celebrate life itself and experience love and gratitude. I never would have expected I’d have a website decorated with purple, magenta and gold but these came through as the visual representation holding this for all of us. Thank you Liz for your partnership, your depth and your creativity. I am also deeply grateful to Lotus Wong, who had inspired me with her work on “Soulstyling” for years. The images on her website celebrating women of all ages, shapes, sizes and backgrounds embody this celebration and confidence. Thank you Lotus for partnering with me! She helped me not only feel (more) comfortable going shopping and stretching my comfort zone for style and fashion, but she helped me embody different archetypes that live within side of me and live within Liminal Space. And to see style as an expression of this creative life force energy that we all are, and finding our unique expression through color, clothes and symbolism.
This project could literally not have gotten past the finish line without these amazing folks helping me develop a deeper, kinder and more compassionate self-love than I have ever had before.
Understanding the Process of Change
I thank my amazing clients, past and present, who have generously given testimonials describing our work together and who have been the inspiration for the work I do.
I felt humility in recognizing that the challenges I was working through were similar to many my clients face when they came to work with me. Different people, different scenarios, but the work is similar.
People don’t usually come to coaches because all is going well. They come because in some aspect, things are feeling stuck. Stuck at work, stuck in interpersonal dynamics and stuck in unhelpful patterns. Disconnected from our inner wisdom, disconnected from our bodies, disconnected to what matters most.
It’s at these points that life gives us the chance to stuck in a pattern or go out of our comfort zone into our fears, into the unknown, in order to grow and evolve into a higher-order version of ourselves.
Thank you to Angella Okawa, Agnes Liebhardt, Bianca Hearfield, Lauren Mugglebee, Amy Fox, Siobhan Kelly, Victoria Sotomayor Davies, Katie Gay, JoQueta Handy, Rouba Chalabi and my husband, Simone Conti (in addition to Liz, Hilary, Bry and Lotus) for inspiring me and supporting me through different phases of this creative process.
This project also prompted me to consider if the name of my business was ready for a refresh. However, the name "Liminal Space" insisted on staying, resonating deeply with those who feel drawn to this path. This in-between space, while often uncomfortable and awkward, is a necessary part of the evolutionary and alchemical process where change and transformation occur. It is in this space that new innovations and ways of thinking can emerge, leading us to embody a new way of being.
I am humbled by the realization that I am not beyond this process myself. I am reminded time and time again of the creative process inherent in life itself, where change and growth are constants, and embracing the unknown is a key to transformation.
Evolutionary Outcomes
As I reflect on my own journey of transformation and growth, I am reminded of the profound impact that reaching a certain threshold or plateau can have on our lives. Embracing the discomfort of the unknown, stepping out of our comfort zones, and navigating the liminal spaces in our lives can lead to profound personal and professional growth.
For me, this journey has led to a deeper understanding of myself, a greater sense of purpose, and a passion for the work I do.
As an executive coach, I have had the privilege of guiding others through their own periods of change and transition. I have witnessed firsthand the transformative power of embracing change and stepping into the unknown. It is through these experiences that we are able to grow, evolve, and ultimately become the best versions of ourselves.
If you find yourself at a crossroads, unsure of which path to take, I invite you to embrace the discomfort, step into the unknown, and embark on your own journey of transformation. As scary as it may seem, I can assure you that the rewards are well worth the effort.
If you’re ready to embrace change and embark on your own journey of transformation, I invite you to reach out. Together, we can navigate the liminal spaces in your life and unlock the full potential of your personal and professional growth.