The Liminal In-Between

That weird space where you're fine, but not really

Recently I put a call out for topics to write on and got an answer from someone asking about how to find meaning again when you’re feeling flat. This is my answer to that. So thank you for the inspiration!

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There are days—maybe weeks—when life flattens out. I’m sure we all have these times every once in a while, don’t we? When we can’t seem to find any meaning in our days and they all seem to blur together.

Not where we go into some catastrophic low like depression, really, but more into a numbing grey. A kind of blahness. The kind where nothing hurts exactly, but nothing shines either. You go through the motions - living on auto-pilot.

You reply to messages with emojis you don’t feel, and also because you don’t have the energy for deep conversations.

You eat because you should, not because you really want to or enjoy it (a bowl of cereal or toast is my go to when I’m in this can’t be bothered state).

You work, sort of — half-assedly.

You’re a ghost of yourself —a not-really-there thing. Something 2-D, not 3.

Even beauty—sunlight through curtains, the dog’s tail wagging, a good song—feels like it’s behind glass – there, but distanced - removed, somehow.

And the worst part? There’s no obvious reason. No breakup. No funeral. No global crisis (or at least, not a new one). Just this sense that your inner world has been put on Airplane mode. Things are in a lull. In stasis. It’s quiet in all the wrong ways.

What Even Is This Feeling?

Let’s be honest: “meh” doesn’t get enough credit for how devastating it can be. These doldrums. It’s not dramatic enough to justify burning it all down. But it’s corrosive. It wears away your connection to yourself, to other people, to anything that has some life about it.

Psychologists might call it anhedonia, or the absence of pleasure. But it’s more than that. It’s the absence of urgency. Of pull. You’re not necessarily sad, you’re just stuck in an I-can’t-be-bothered vortex.

When You’ve Outgrown the Usual Advice

The world will tell you: go outside. Drink water. Exercise. Meditate.

These are all good things - that I highly recommend, if you don’t already do them already.

But when you’re in this weird place, those feel like tasks on a list for someone else's life. You don’t need a better routine. You need a reason to care again and a spark to get you there.

Here’s the harder, quieter truth: sometimes flatness comes not from failure, but from a kind of internal misalignment. A gap between the life you’re living and the person you’re becoming. Not a wrong life, just a no-longer-right one. One that isn’t quite the right fit for you. Like a cocoon that has become too constricting, but that you’re not quite ready to burst free from into a new version of yourself. But that’s where you are. You’re at a pivotal moment.

Start by Listening to What’s Not There

The temptation is to fill the void—distract, scroll, binge, fix. But flatness is an invitation, not a flaw. It says: something’s missing. Or maybe: you’re missing from your own life. You’re watching it from the outside in, not the other way around. You’re not really inhabiting, embodying your life – or your self.

So start by asking yourself this question: what’s not happening that used to happen? Get curious about the why. The what that has changed to bring on this ennui.

When did you last feel moved by something? Not just entertained, but stirred—undone, awake, alive? What were you doing? Who were you with?

Sometimes the flatness is just grief in disguise: grief for a version of you that doesn’t fit anymore. Or for dreams you quietly let go of, that you no longer chase. And if you’re honest, maybe you’ve outgrown some parts of your life without knowing what to grow into next. Maybe that’s why you’re in this weird limbo state of meh-ness.

That’s the liminal space. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s fertile. It’s like the fallow field before the re-growth.

We need these periods of stepping off the gas pedal as a time to reassess. To take a look at the map and figure out where we want to go next.

Forget the Big Meaning. Find the Tiny Truths

If you can’t summon meaning, try noticing truth. Not the capital-T kind. The small, cellular kind. Like: I’m tired of pretending this job excites me. Or: I feel most real when I’m helping someone else feel seen. Or even just: I don’t want to be alone today.

Truth is what makes flatness shift. Not always immediately. But like warm water slowly heating up cold hands. It reminds you: something still lives here. It helps you find the why of this down-time. And I don’t mean down time as in sad, I mean, this pause-button moment in your life. This resetting.

Make a Tiny Move Toward Yourself

And as with everything (or most things) - take baby steps. Don’t try to fix the whole thing at once. Just make one small, honest move. Not toward productivity, but toward connection. Connect with others. And back to yourself.

It might be sending a message to someone who’s seen the raw, real, authentic versions of you. Or making something with your hands (this is one of my go-to things. It really helps reconnect myself to…myself). Or simply naming out loud: I’m in it right now, and I don’t know what I need. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article at some point, American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön says to remind ourselves ‘right now, it’s like this’. And that’s okay.

This isn’t about snapping out of it. It’s about returning—gently—to the parts of you that are still alive under the heaviness.

Let the Flatness Teach You Something

There’s wisdom in the stillness, if you take a moment to listen to it. Like I said: flatness isn’t failure. It isn’t a flaw. It isn’t something inherently bad. It’s just a different state. It’s the pause before the pivot. It’s your inner compass recalibrating. And maybe the reason nothing feels right is because you’re being invited to find something truer. You’re being led to step off the path you’re currently on and onto a brand new fresh one – one that appeared on the map that you hadn’t ever considered.

So don’t rush to be okay. Just stay curious. Stay close to what’s real. Even if all that means today is letting yourself feel the weight of that in-between space you might find yourself in.

Because that too is a kind of presence. And presence is the beginning of meaning.

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