If like me, you’ve done some serious shadow work and shedding in the last year (or decade), I’ve got some field notes to share with you, in case the title of this article spoke directly into your gut. You know, the same gut you felt like you’ve been punched in over and over?
Sometime in 2025, an old version of me gradually died. I have spent the past 8 months holed up with my journal, podcasts, books, herbal tea, and my art supplies trudging through the rubble and figuring out who I am. They didn’t call it “the year of shedding” for nothing.
After so much transformation, I was left in the void: the old had fallen away but the new hadn’t solidified yet. This is not the void where you feel hopeless or alone – you just feel… stripped naked.
What do we do here? Is this void perception even real, or a convenient story, told in a new way by the ego? Or is this some “pain point” they can sell you something for? (You know they are at least going to try. Our culture rushes to sell you something for every discomfort, why not this?)
When you have been doing deep, intense shadow work and inner healing, when you’ve been unearthing and releasing beliefs about yourself, the world, money, relationships or any other areas, when profound realizations and deep reflections have become the norm instead of the exception… eventually there comes a point of the “in-between”.
It’s the place where you no longer feel like the old version of yourself, but you don’t know what your new version is yet. It’s a tender, vulnerable place. You’re waiting for those mind-blowing synchronicities and those soul-aligned opportunities, but your outer life still looks like it always has. It may have even gotten worse. So, what gives?
Think of it like this: have you ever tried to quit sugar, coffee, or nicotine? In those first few days – sometimes even weeks – you intensely crave the thing you’re quitting. It’s all you can think about, and you may backslide, sometimes more than once. That’s because the new body state without that substance hasn’t stabilized yet. And beyond that, your identity as a person who no longer relies on it hasn’t fully solidified either.
The same is true when you’re doing inner work. That craving state, the backslides, and — most of all — the not-yet-settled identity are all part of the inner experience while your system reorganizes. They’re just more nuanced and less visible.
I call this the Wobble, and honestly, it’s really never pretty.
The old is still loud. Your inner child still gets activated and you feel thrust into past behaviors. Your emotions might be intense and noisy, maybe even unpredictable. At other times, you feel a sense of profound peace and inspiration, maybe even excited anticipation of what comes next. And the next moment, the alarming sense of not knowing who you are anymore becomes all-consuming.
That back-and-forth is like being on that giant swinging Pirate Ship ride at an amusement park – it looks like fun from the outside, but once you’re on it, you realize it was built by a sadist. Except… you’re on this one voluntarily. Well, damn.
The wobble is real. It happens naturally, as your system hasn’t yet stabilized into a new quantum state of things – kind of like a pendulum (or that awful ship-ride) that hasn’t quite come to center.
What makes it particularly challenging is that when a snapback does happen – and it will – you can’t always see the big picture clearly. This is because you’re not yet in a settled inner state (also, does that even exist?) That kind of clarity comes at a premium.
In those moments, it’s ridiculously easy to tell yourself a story that isn’t really true. You may fear this is a full backslide into the old. Or you may even decide that none of the work you did was real. Let’s just go get some chocolate.
Here’s my heartfelt recommendation for when you wobble: first, notice it and acknowledge that it’s temporary. That’s already a new story, and that makes it much easier to reach for your self-loving tools instead of the crap that used to help you cope. That’s how you reinforce your devotion to forward motion rather than the old. (Hey — there’s a song in there!)
And – most importantly – remind yourself that the old story is just on its way to burning itself out. Say it out loud. Write it down. Make it real.
(By the way, this is when I personally reach for some herbal tea – the herbal allies are exquisite at permeating into your cells and reorganizing things with a wisdom we can only begin to fathom. If there is ever a time to send some reinforcements into your body, it’s when you wobble.)
We tell ourselves stories about our experience all day long. And the truth is, your body and your entire field listen deeply and constantly to what you tell yourself about who you are and where you’re at, and adjust accordingly. In this raw and tender place, kindness toward yourself makes more difference than you might realize.
All this might feel like you are being “tested” (been there, bemoaned that!) It is very human to interpret difficult moments as punishments and tests because it’s what got ingrained in us since we were children. But what’s really happening is something else.
The reason the old version of you doesn’t leave easily is because it’s been your field for decades. Maybe even lifetimes. And no matter how clunky or even maladaptive, it did work for you for a long time. As you’re making the shift into the new, it feels disorienting to your system. It’s not punishing you, it’s just confused and doing its best to get you back to baseline for stability.
For the old to fully transition out of your system, it takes many acts of consciously choosing to tell yourself a different story about what you are going through – and about who you are. Eventually, that’s what becomes the new you. This is why we call it “rewiring”.
It sounds so simple – tell yourself a different story about who you are. But this can feel like trying to cross that rickety bridge before it’s done being built.
Before those amazing opportunities show up – before the right people enter your life, before your aligned clients find you – before anything changes, you feel like things grind to a horrible halt. Before the world mirrors back to you the new version of yourself, you feel like you are staring into a void. (And, let’s face it, maybe even screaming into it, might as well use the void according to specs).
This is where the old starts to chatter: “You’re not really different. You’re not doing as well as you think. Nothing is ever going to change. You need to fix more things about yourself before anything will happen for you.”
This is the Gap. Not the store, but the rickety bridge you’re already crossing, one that’s still mid-construction. Here’s what you really need in order to get through this part:
A birth needs witnessing. You need at least one soul who sees you, who sees what you’re releasing, what you are building, and the enormity of the courage it takes. You need to be seen in the depths you go to, the energy it takes, and the profound challenge it all really is –without pitying you and without rushing you to “get there”.
I’ll spare you the full tirade about how Western culture over-glorifies individualism – how we’re conditioned to believe that if we can’t do it alone, we’re somehow failing. But don’t lose sight of this: we are social beings. The need for community is a human need, not a luxury. In fact, it is actually a spiritual need. We need people to mirror to us our own becoming.
This isn’t talked about nearly enough: Going through rebirths and initiations – shedding old masks and identities, sitting with the unknown – requires unbelievable courage. Returning, again and again, to your practices – meditation, journaling, therapy, retreats, courses, books, podcasts – takes almost superhuman perseverance. Feeling the screaming of your inner child and choosing a different way to respond from how you used to, can feel like climbing Everest in your pajamas.
Sometimes this trek feels truly unbearable – and yet you move forward because now the “old you” doesn’t feel like a viable choice anymore. You don’t even know what’s on the other side of it, only that you must proceed.
And, much of this happens in solitude. It must. The inner work is yours alone so that what emerges is grounded in your own truth, not someone else’s. It takes real audacity to turn away from the prescriptions of culture, community, and the ingrained familial stories, in order to discover your own North Star.
But here’s the paradox: even though this transformation must be guided from within, it also needs to be witnessed in order to truly anchor.
You don’t need a crowd. You don’t need applause – in fact, that can feel patronizing. What you do need is at least one person – someone who sees the magnitude of what you’re holding, even if they can’t hold it with you. Someone who reflects back not just your effort, but your becoming.
Their presence doesn’t make the work easier, but it does make it real. Witnessing affirms that the transformation is not just happening in the void – that it is seen, felt, and mirrored in the relational field. And while AI can mirror some of this for you, you really do need someone with an actual heart, with life experience, and with the ability to hold space.
Because without witnessing, even the most profound inner shifts can begin to feel like fog – intangible, muddy, and very easy to doubt. Just one person who sees the new field you are building can make absolutely all the difference.
And the second thing you need to bridge the gap is…
Simply put, this in-between state must be… survived. When you have nothing to go on, when there is no mirror from the world to confirm that anything is different, your inner work becomes one of perseverance. Spiritually speaking, you are learning how to trust the process without proof that something is indeed waiting for you on the other side.
Think of it like the time lag between eating protein and your body converting it into muscle. You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. But you know it takes time. Or the classic metaphor: the caterpillar dissolving into goo before becoming a butterfly. When you’re in the in-between, you are the goo — and yes, it often feels exactly like that.
This is the most delicate, potent moment – one that feels anything but beautiful (and can sometimes feel endless). It feels raw, vulnerable, and terrifying. The levels of uncertainty are several notches above anything you’ve ever felt before. The old self still chatters, and it is not nice.
While this isn’t actually a test or any kind of punishment, it does require devotion – the kind of outrageous, unreasonable commitment that only makes sense in hindsight. It’s a sacred form of madness that, you will later celebrate as courage and power. For now, though, it mostly just feels like goo. And sometimes it feels like actual madness.
If I’ve done nothing else here, it’s to have shown you that there is nothing wrong. Your task here is to tend to this state with the most care you can. You wouldn’t rush a cocoon or demand muscle to grow faster than biology allows. This, too, unfolds in its own, divinely guided, time.
In Part II, we’ll turn to the next question that often arises here: how to tell the difference between true emergence and subtle resistance – and what each one is asking of you.
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