Lost

Notes from the wild for the wandering...

Have you ever been in a liminal space? A space betwixt and between. Where you’re not sure where you are and also not sure where you will end up?

Welcome home wanderer. I’m so glad you’re here.

Everything feels a little too unknown here too.

More unknown than I would wish for.

The things I was once passionate about seem to be fading. There’s a restlessness in my soul that feels mostly unpleasant if I’m honest. It’s like I’m waiting for a shift and I can sense it but I can’t see it yet.

Everything feels uncertain and quite frankly it is hard.

It’s hard to feel lost.

But it’s less hard alone, so welcome in.

‘Lost’ image by Scott Erickson

One of the reasons I started the Wild Times was to write about my experience in real time in the hope that the practice and art of writing not only clarifies and names where I am but hopefully it will also help you in your wild spaces and times in life when things haven’t panned out how you might have hoped.

The image above by Scott Erickson speaks of what it means to feel lost. He writes,

“God...⁣

I feel so lost.⁣
⁣
And it is the most devastating feeling ⁣

To be lost.⁣
⁣
From You.⁣
⁣
From me.⁣
⁣
From everybody and everything.⁣
⁣
⁣Thankfully You knew we would all come to this moment...⁣

So you gave us the gift of Lost Stories....⁣
⁣
The shepherd leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep.⁣

The woman cleans her entire house looking for the lost coin.⁣

The father throws a party when the lost son is finally returned to his seat at the family table.⁣

I am lost⁣

But not to You.⁣

I’m lost to me,⁣

Lost to the self that doesn’t work anymore.⁣
⁣
May I see my lost-ness ⁣

not as sign of being forgotten, ⁣

But a necessary preamble ⁣

to the celebration ⁣

of my belonging.⁣”

The part where it says “I am lost, but not to You. I’m lost to me, lost to the self that doesn’t work anymore,” really got me.

I have more questions than answers right now so if you’re here looking for answers you might want to save yourself from the next few paragraphs.

I wish I had answers.

What I do have is my experience of this season which I would love to share with you in the hope that it might be helpful or that you might feel a little less alone.

I haven’t found answers, no matter how hard I’ve tried to pluck them from the ether, and believe me I’ve been grappling on Google, Instagram and anywhere really that might give me some sort of clarity in this place.

While I was grappling, I realised that this may be part of the problem.

When I feel lost I have a tendency to look to sources externally to answer what is actually an internal process.

The answers are probably within me rather than in some Instagram guru. I’m not saying that there aren’t helpful things out there that we can identify with and that meet us at times and places that are hard to navigate.

What I’m saying is why do I always outsource my own deepest knowing?

For one, I think it’s an avoidance of the discomfort of the sense of feeling lost.

It’s hard to sit with and not try to fix it immediately.

I’m learning that it’s ok to let it linger and to see what it might be trying to tell me.

Allow yourself to feel a little lost.

It’s ok.

It’s part of a bigger homecoming.

I’m allowing myself to feel all the feels around the discomfort of my lostness. It’s not pleasant and much easier to avoid.

I heard someone say recently that when we can stay, even through the desolation we are currently experiencing, when we don’t try the usual knee jerk reactions that move us beyond it, then our attachment to a particular outcome lessens.

I thought that was both wise & hard advice.

I would recommend finding someone to walk alongside you through it. I’ve started meeting regularly with a Spiritual Director - for you, it might be a counsellor. Either way I t’s important to have spaces where professionally trained witnesses can hold space for us while we find our way through.

Friendship has it’s own value but this type of space is different.

Whether you’re also in a liminal space or not, it’s hard to hold onto hope these days.

The world feels fragile and shaky.

But I want you to know that if you do find yourself in this space.

Where you feel betwixt and between.

Unsure of where you are or where you’re going.

You’re not alone.

Welcome this invitation.

Of your own becoming.

You can have a seat at our table here.

Liminal, literally means threshold and a threshold is a crossing over point.

A watershed marking what was and what will be and this gives me hope.

It’s like renewal.

What if, even here, we are being renewed?

I drove past a construction site the other day and saw a shell of a building - nothing inside but space waiting to be filled.

It spoke me about my experience in this season.

Like there’s been so much stripping away which has been hard and painful.

But…

It has left a space now to be filled, most probably in different ways than before.

And this part excites me.

Like a blank canvas.

It gives me hope to believe that despite my shakiness and doubt and disillusionment and confusion there is something forming beneath.

Something not yet seen.

It gives me hope that all of this discomfort is doing something within me & through me.

It helps me to surrender and lay down what isn’t mine to try to control but at the same time to know deep in my gut that I am also being formed by the experience.

Somedays it may feel like you have to cling on to this hope by your fingertips to save yourself from going under altogether.

The voices are loud and strong telling you that you’re stuck, that there’s no way through, that nothing is ever going to change.

You, I, we need to hold onto the truth that this is not true.

That there are still a million little miracles happening everyday.

For those of you walking this liminal path too, here are some of things that are helping me through, they might be helpful for you too.

Eat croissants.

Every morning if you want to.

Dip them in your coffee like French people do.

Toast them in the oven and then slather lots of butter on them until it runs off onto the plate and then go ahead and lick the butter off the plate.

Take long walks (with a dog if you have one).

Walk slowly.

Notice every little thing in front of you.

Be here now, as best you can.

Use all of your senses.

George Orwell once wrote, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

Allow yourself to feel lost right now.

Find a professional guide or mentor to walk with you. (I recommend Spiritual Direction or Counselling.)

Read books by authors you love.

Sleep.

Clear out your wardrobe & give what you don’t wear to charity.

Buy yourself something new.

Buy a few new things.

Consider what the latest life giving thing was for you.

Consider what was draining for you.

This is not rocket science. This is just some of the simple pleasures that have helped me through.

Keep it simple.

Rest.

In 1 Kings 19 Elijah is found running for his life, worn out, weary from trying and we find him laying his head on a stone to sleep. He’s utterly fed up and actually asks God to take his life.

He’s discouraged.

The journey has been too long and too hard.

When he is sleeping an angel comes & touches him and tells him to get up and eat. There at his head is a baked cake and something to drink. This happens a second time. There is so much more to the story, but for me, right now, I’m staying with the theme of the angel coming to witness his exhaustion and providing nourishment & rest for Elijah.

Maybe it’s what you might be in need of too?

Rest is a radical act in a world that glorifies exhaustion.

Give yourself permission to rest. Even at the start of this new season. Especially at the start of this new season.

I hope this speaks gently to you on your way.

Until the next time…