The Space Between Selves

There is a moment in every transition that doesn’t get talked about enough. It comes after the unraveling but before the reassembly. After the loss, but before the clarity. It is after you’ve begun the work, the process, but before you’ve reached your goal. It’s the in-between—the space where your old identity no longer fits, and your new one hasn’t fully arrived.

This space can feel disorienting. You might not know what to call yourself, what to move toward, or how to make decisions without the story you once used to anchor your life. The roles, titles, relationships,  and even your values feel fragile. Or worse, everything you were seems irrelevant, lost. And yet, you’re still here—not gone, just changing… becoming. Jospeh Campbell’s Hero’s Journey calls this The Abyss; his Cosmogenic Cycle refers to this as Dissolution. This space, this time, is where the hero, the world, loses everything, but there is a rebirth.

Carl Jung wrote that the “privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are,” but he never said it would be clear, clean, or linear. Novelists write a clear linear story (most of them time) with pacing, sequence, and themes planned out. Rarely do our lives follow such a clean, well-shaped progression, and most of the time we don’t recognize lessons as we grow through them. It’s through reflection that we experience deep learning about ourselves and our transformations.

In my own experience, identity doesn’t shift through insight alone. It shifts through lived tension—through being in that uncomfortable space between who we were and who we’re becoming. And that space is rarely silent. It’s full of questions:

• Am I allowed to change this much?

• What happens if people don’t recognize me?

• What happens if I don’t recognize myself?

These are not problems to fix. They are the invitations. This is the threshold Joseph Campbell wrote about: the point where the old world fades and the new one hasn’t taken form. Not everyone crosses it; some turn back and some freeze. But for those who stay, something subtle happens: you begin to listen in new ways, you begin to make new space, and over time, you start to hear a quieter voice. It may not be the voice of certainty or conviction, but the voice of something more honest—something true to you.

You realize you’re not rebuilding the old self—you’re building something truer, something that fits your new “you.” You can’t be certain of who that will be, or what identities you will relate to, but, if you lean into it, you’ll feel that it fits.

Jessica Dore writes about transformation as a process of loosening our grip on who we think we’re supposed to be, in order to make room for who we really are. That process often looks like breakdown before it looks like clarity. Gabor Maté reminds us that identity shaped around survival and attachment often has to collapse before authenticity can emerge. Identity shaped around purpose, meaning, and listening brings a sense of authenticity.

If you’re in that space now—if you feel stretched between two selves, uncertain of where you stand—know that nothing is wrong with you. This is the work. This is the crossing. Listen to yourself and you’ll become the part of you that is ready to emerge from the abyss. You’ll become a truer you.

Reflection:

What parts of your identity feel like they’re falling away?

What might emerge if you stopped rushing to define yourself—and started listening to what’s already shifting inside you?