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What If You’re Not Stuck - But in Transition?
There are periods in life where the old version of your life no longer fully fits but the new one has not yet fully arrived.
You may already know that change is coming - perhaps you have left a relationship or a job, maybe your children are preparing to leave home, perhaps your health, identity, finances, or priorities are shifting.
Or maybe life has changed without your consent through loss, illness, redundancy, divorce, menopause, or a sudden change in circumstances.
Either way, there is often a strange in-between phase where we can feel emotionally untethered, uncertain, impatient, and deeply uncomfortable.
William Bridges, one of the pioneers in transition work, called this phase The Neutral Zone and he described transition as a three-part process:
Endings, Loss, and Letting Go
The Neutral Zone
New beginnings
And whilst endings can be painful and new beginnings exciting, it is often the Neutral Zone that people find most challenging.
This is the bridge between the old life and the new one - the space where we no longer feel fully connected to who we were but are not yet clear about who we are becoming.
As a Transition Coach, I know that even though it can feel like life is stalled, this is often where the deepest work happens.
This is where people begin asking:
Who am I now?
What actually matters to me?
What do I want if I stop performing my old identity?
What wants to emerge through this transition?
The Neutral Zone can feel like limbo. It is a place where you know something is changing, but you cannot yet fully move forward.
And in my experience, one of the reasons this phase feels so difficult is because it challenges our illusion of control.
We like to believe we are directing our lives but as many of us were reminded during the pandemic, life can change in an instant. This can come through a diagnosis, an accident, a loss, a conversation, or a sudden shift in perception.
Everything can suddenly look different.
And often, when we find ourselves in the Neutral Zone, we have little control over the timing of what comes next.
I know this intimately because my partner and I have been in a Neutral Zone for over a year now.
Reluctantly, we accepted that it was time for us to closer to more human life after eight years living in our sweet little forest nest here in the Dordogne.
Taking the obvious action step of putting our house on the market felt good and relatively easy. We even started decluttering and got all the packing boxes ready. In our minds, we were all set to move.
But houses do not sell quickly here.
So we have found ourselves in this strange in-between space for many months now - waiting patiently… or sometimes impatiently… for the next chapter of our lives to begin.
Perhaps you recognise this feeling from some area of your own life right now?
Maybe you are waiting for the right relationship to appear.
Maybe you know you need a career change but are unsure what comes next.
Maybe you are recovering from illness or burnout and can sense that your old way of living no longer works.
Welcome to the Neutral Zone!
Having worked with thousands of coaching clients over the last 20 years - and finding myself in another Neutral Zone of my own right now - there are a few things that consistently support me through these in-between phases of life.
🌙1. Returning to the present moment
Much of the suffering of the Neutral Zone comes from our desperate desire to feel that we are moving forward. But constantly future-tripping only dysregulates the nervous system further.
Again and again, the invitation is to come back here - to this breath, this moment, this body.
Any mindfulness practice can become an ally here - meditation, yoga, chanting, breathwork, prayer, time in nature.
As Eckhart Tolle so beautifully reminds us, there is profound power in the Now.
🌙2. Gratitude
Once we return to the present moment, gratitude becomes much more available.
In my own Neutral Zone, it is easy for my mind to drift towards what feels missing in my life. And of course, there are genuine reasons why we want to move. But when I obsess about what is lacking, my energy contracts immediately.
The moment I consciously shift my attention back towards what I love about this home, this land, this garden, and the privilege of living in such beauty, something softens.
Gratitude grounds us back into relationship with what is already here and a simple gratitude practice can be profoundly regulating during times of uncertainty.
Why not start a gratitude journal and get into the habit of spending a few minutes at the end of each day writing down what you are grateful for about your life right now?
Over the coming weeks inside Circle of Change, I’ll be sharing a deeper and more powerful practice for working consciously with gratitude - not just as a way to feel better in the present moment, but as a way of gently aligning ourselves with the future we long to grow into.
🌙 3. Reclaiming agency
As I mentioned earlier, part of what challenges us so deeply in the Neutral Zone is the feeling of having no control. But there are always things we do have influence over.
Even in the most difficult circumstances, we still have choices around how we meet our lives. Nelson Mandela, Viktor Frankl, Pema Chodron, Kris Karr and many others have written about how shift our experience of even the most dire situations by shifting how we think about them.
In my own situation, I cannot control when the right buyer will appear. But I can control how well we care for the house, how actively we market it, how we prepare for the move, and how much time we spend building connections in the area we hope to move to.
Looking honestly at what is still within your influence can be deeply empowering.
🌙 4. Patience
The Neutral Zone is an invitation into patience. And patience is a deeply humbling spiritual practice.
As a younger woman, I was often impulsive and desperate to make things happen quickly.
But as I have grown older and perhaps a little wiser, I see very clearly that nature does not rush.
The peonies bloom when they are ready.
The fruit ripens in its own time.
The leaves fall precisely when the season changes.
So much suffering comes from trying to force life to unfold faster than it naturally wants to.
The Neutral Zone asks us to trust timing a little more deeply than our fearful minds want to.
🌙 5. Trust
Whether you trust in a god/goddess, life, nature, the universe, or simply the intelligence of existence itself, the Neutral Zone asks us to strengthen our capacity to trust.
Not blind positivity or bypassing, butut remembering that support has always existed alongside challenge.
Your heart is beating right now without your conscious effort.
The earth continues to provide food, water, air, and shelter.
Something has carried you this far.
And whilst life may not unfold exactly as we would choose, perhaps there is wisdom in remembering that we are not navigating it alone.
🌙 6. Breathing space
Recently, I keep hearing a quiet inner whisper saying:
Focus on the space.
Focus on the peace.
Because perhaps this in-between time is not empty after all. Perhaps it is restorative.
Our culture is so obsessed with productivity, achievement, and constant movement that we often forget the importance of stillness, rest, and integration.
Winter can look barren on the surface whilst enormous transformation is happening underground. And perhaps the same is true for us. Sometimes the periods where nothing appears to be happening are actually the most fertile phases of our lives.
Inside my paid Circle of Change space this month, we have been exploring the theme of intention and alignment, and I am becoming increasingly aware that the Neutral Zone often strips away what is no longer truly aligned with who we are becoming.
That process can feel uncomfortable but it is usually deeply clarifying.
🌙Final Thoughts
Whilst the Neutral Zone can feel deeply uncomfortable, I have come to believe that it also offers profound gifts.
It slows us down.
It asks us deeper questions.
It dismantles identities that no longer fit.
And it creates the conditions for something new to emerge.
🌙Support for you
if this resonates with you and you’re finding yourself in a season of transition - questioning, shedding, or sensing that something new is trying to emerge - you don’t have to navigate it alone.
I offer a free exploratory chat for women who would value calm, clarity and thoughtful space to explore what comes next.
No pressure. Just a supportive and friendly conversation.
You can also...
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