The Quiet Space Between: Learning to Sit With Lack, Loneliness, and Becoming

This isn’t a teaching post — it’s a piece of my lived experience. A reflection on lack, loneliness, and the quiet, often unseen learning that happens in the spaces between what is and what we long for.

Sometimes we forget that those who walk beside others are also navigating their own thresholds. This part of my journey, I share with love — for anyone learning to sit with the in-between without rushing themselves out of it.

This feels like the part of the story that comes after the breakthroughs — when the awareness is there, the tools are there, but life still asks you to sit with uncertainty.

There’s a kind of season that doesn’t come with drama or collapse.

No crisis. No rock bottom.

Just… quiet.

I’m in one of those seasons now.

Not depression like I’ve known before. Not sadness that aches sharply. More a void — a deep, neutral space where motivation is thin, desire is muted, and everything feels paused. I still show up for the basics. I care for my dog. I cook. I exist. But beyond that, I often only have the minimum to give.

And I’m learning that this, too, is a place of growth.

At the same time as this internal quiet, the external pressures still exist. Finances don’t pause just because your soul is tired. I know there are things I should be doing for my business, steps I could take, energy I could push — but right now, pushing isn’t available. There’s an awareness of responsibility sitting alongside an honest acceptance of limited capacity.

That tension alone is a teacher.

What’s been most present lately is the theme of lack.

Lack of connection.

Lack of financial ease.

Lack of feeling held, chosen, witnessed.

And the question that keeps surfacing is uncomfortable but necessary:

Is lack something happening to me — or something I’m still learning to give myself?

I see glimpses of the answer when I take care of myself. When I get dressed up, go out, spend time with people, laugh, feel alive and connected. In those moments, the lack loosens its grip. And then I come home — alone — and the quiet rushes back in.

That contrast has been one of the clearest mirrors.

There’s also something about this time of year that intensifies everything. Christmas has a way of amplifying contrast. Everywhere you look, there are images of togetherness, celebration, full tables and full hearts. Even when we know those images are curated, they still seep in. It’s easy to assume that everyone else is experiencing connection, ease, and joy — while we’re the ones standing on the outside looking in.

I’ve been learning how much of that is perception rather than truth. How many people are quietly carrying grief, financial strain, fractured families, or a deep sense of dislocation — all while smiling for photos and getting through the season. Comparison thrives in moments like this, feeding the narrative of lack, even when it isn’t the whole story.

This season has also aligned with a deeper sense of shedding. In many traditions, the Year of the Snake symbolises transformation, release, and renewal — the slow, necessary process of shedding old skin to make space for what’s next. That shedding isn’t dramatic. It’s subtle. It can feel empty, awkward, and ungrounded. There’s often a stretch of vulnerability between who we were and who we’re becoming, where nothing quite fits anymore.

I can feel that shedding happening — not just of old stories, but of old ways of measuring myself. Old beliefs about productivity, belonging, and worth. Old expectations of how life should look by now. Letting those go has created space, but it’s also created discomfort. When the old skins fall away, there’s a natural longing for what isn’t here yet — for connection, stability, love — and it’s easy to overlook what is present because it feels quieter, less shiny, less complete.

This has been one of the clearest learnings: longing has a way of narrowing our vision. It pulls our attention toward absence, toward what’s missing, while whispering that what is doesn’t count yet. And yet, when I slow down enough to look, there is still care here. Still laughter in moments. Still a body that keeps going. Still the capacity to choose softness, honesty, and self-respect — even in the in-between.

I’ve also noticed how easy it is, in this space, to feel abandoned. To interpret people’s distance as a reflection of my worth. Intellectually, I understand that everyone is walking their own terrain right now. I know it’s not personal.

And yet… sometimes I do take it personally.

Not in a blaming way. More as information.

Because when something lands painfully, it shows me where old wounds still live — places that haven’t quite been soothed yet. Places that still equate absence with rejection. Seeing that doesn’t feel like failure. It feels like honesty. Like uncovering another layer of what still wants gentleness and care.

What I’m learning is that this space — this nothing, this pause, this “deep something” — isn’t wrong.

It’s incubation.

It’s a shedding of old narratives around productivity, worth, and external validation. It’s a recalibration of how I meet myself when no one else is around. It’s learning to sit with myself without needing to fill the silence immediately.

There’s no clear conclusion yet. No neat takeaway. Just a growing trust that this season is doing something important beneath the surface — even if I can’t name it yet.

As the year turns, I’m noticing how much pressure there is to arrive at clarity, intention, momentum. New Year energy often asks for declarations, goals, resolutions — a sense of forward motion. But this year, I’m not stepping into January with answers. I’m stepping in with presence.

If this is a threshold, then I don’t need to rush across it. If this is a shedding, then it doesn’t need to be forced. Perhaps the most honest way to meet the New Year is not by demanding more of myself, but by listening more closely to what’s already unfolding.

Maybe learning doesn’t always feel expansive or inspired.

Maybe sometimes it feels like stillness.

Like waiting.

Like learning how to stay.

And for now, that’s enough.

If you’re in a season like this too, maybe this is your reminder that nothing is wrong — something is simply rearranging.