I have accepted it as a truth of my life that thresholds will continue to appear, beckoning me to step across. While I have a long history as a risk taker, a cliff jumper, a leap and the net will appearer, I am also truly and deeply a lingerer. I am a toe dipper. A dawdler. A loiterer. I know how to hang out in doorways, not fully in, not fully out.

Thresholds are scary. We approach them because we are called to. It sounds like a big fun adventure, or it feels like a pressure that won’t relent, or it is bringing us to the thing we can’t not do.

These are some of the things that the crossing of the threshold contains, in no particular order:

Loss
Transformation
Letting Go
Death
Birth
Fear
Courage
Grief
Joy
Shedding
Growth
Pain
Ecstasy
Gifts
Novelty
The Unknown

So, you know, lots of things. Now as I approach thresholds, I at least have a framework for this familiar/unfamiliar territory. The fact is that much of our culture exists in the false certainty of either/or. In truth, this is the land of paradox. It is the realm of both/and. As I stabilize the space inside of me, as I strengthen my container through honoring my body and my nervous system and my soul work, I am more able to peacefully and gently hold that paradox. Steady as she goes.

I know I will step over the threshold. I always do, eventually. I know that I will work with my resistance. Safely, slowly, at the pace of my most vulnerable self, I will ready myself for this next threshold that is beckoning. I know that it will likely contain all of the things, in varying degrees of intensity.

It is a deep relief to experience the both/and and not need a resolution. Yes to it all. Yes, yes, it all exists. And in that yes, I am better able to bear the unknown, better able to trust Life, and to trust the self in me that said Yes to this journey to begin with. I am able to trust the impulse that brought me to this threshold. And while stepping into the unknown will certainly require a shedding of something that no longer serves, the deep truth that is promised is that the unknown is also full of gold and gifts and elixirs and fresh new Life.

Both/And