In liminal seasons, time feels like it collapses around us. We fall off an old timeline and reach for a new one, but that reaching often looks like falling and flailing. At best, we lose our sense of direction. At worst, we lose our sense of self. This soul-level disorientation mirrors a bodily sense called proprioception. Today’s post is Part I of a four-part series using the body’s proprioception as a model for navigating life’s transitions.

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100 Liminal Days is an experimental project of embracing my current transitional season after exiting my business by sharing an honest, real-time account of my self-initiation experience in daily posts. I’m using The Artist’s Way as a guiding tool, and sending shorter weekly recaps only via my newsletter. Visit Day 1/100 to learn more and sign up to get the weekly recaps delivered to your inbox.

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100 Liminal Days Becomes a Liminal Field Guide

This project began as a way to understand the in-between just enough to learn how I could move out of it as quickly as possible. But it’s become something much better than expected – a practicum. Somewhere in the repetition of Daily Pages, meditation, prayer, dreams, and parts work a new idea has emerged: the soul has its own version of proprioception. And if that’s true, then this experiment isn’t just about documentation. It’s training. It’s the slow making of a liminal field guide.

As I’ve personally experienced deeply, liminal seasons scramble the soul’s sense of position – our felt knowing of who we are, what we want, and where we’re headed. So far, I’ve learned that the way back isn’t about speed, numbing out, or formulating a new plan.

It’s about retraining the inner senses through two kinds of work borrowed from the body:

• balance work that restores orientation
• and heavy work that rebuilds strength and direction

Across this four-part series, I’ll map both, and then offer simple qigong flows and forms that integrate them. But first, let me explain a simple map of proprioception and why it belongs in the soul’s vocabulary.

What is Proprioception? (And How It Models Our Soul in Liminal Spaces)

Proprioception is a scientific term describing the body’s ability to sense its position, movement, and level of force within space. Properly functioning proprioception supports balance, coordination, and our fine motor skills critical to movement and posture.

To put it simply, it’s our ability to sense where in space our limbs are without seeing them.

This concept was first introduced to me in my qigong teacher training. When proprioception is healthy and nurtured, we reduce our risk of injury and increase our ability to equip our body with new physical skills.

There are two close sensory neighbors to proprioception: the vestibular system (the system in the inner ear that controls balance and spatial orientation) and interoception (your felt sense of internal states of the body such as hunger, thirst, heartbeat, or the need to use the restroom.) These all work together, but for the sake of this metaphor, proprioception mirrors our soul’s ability to sense our position within our internal world of thoughts, feelings, desires, and goals (direction).

Our position-sense and time perception are intertwined: when orientation is unstable, sequencing feels unstable, too. That’s why liminal seasons feel like time collapses, and our natural reaction when we first enter the liminal space is to attempt to regain a sense of time.

In this disorienting state, (and I’m speaking from personal experience in every way) we grasp for some semblance of stability in a few ways:

• Nostalgia loops: mentally reviewing the past, searching for that trailhead where we surely must have taken the wrong fork in the road. We think that if we can just get back to that spot, we can get things back on track.
• Performative alignment: for example, making grand gestures or public statements to create the appearance of embodying a new desired identity, but lacking the actual disciplines and trade-offs that identity requires.
• Externalized worth: looking for proof of our value in what we have produced, roles we have held, and others’ approval.
• Compulsive fixing: problem solving to relieve discomfort rather than serving a real need. This might show up as solving others’ problems unsolicited, or constant contingency planning instead of taking one small step forward.

But these methods only bring us superficial progress, further isolating us on our journey. On the outside, it may look like we are making big, amazing life changes. On the inside, we still feel alone and lost.

Crucial Practices for Navigating Liminal Spaces

If proprioception is the soul’s position-sense, the first step is to stop forcing motion and restore our orientation. To improve proprioception in the body we start with repeated balance exercises. Once balance stabilizes, we strengthen the body by adding in activities that provide intense input to muscles and joints.

In soul practice, we can incorporate the same two types of work.

Balance work is gentle and frequent, teaching the soul where ‘down’ and ‘home’ are again. This is why my daily keystone habits are critical in this liminal space.

• Journaling stream of consciousness style to tell myself the truth
• Qigong to regulate my nervous system and cultivate life energy
• Meditation to train my focus
• Prayer to collaborate with God
• Getting plenty of protein, water, and workouts to keep my physical body healthy under stress

Heavy work is intentional and time-bound (like this 100-day experiment). This part helps me rebuild strength and direction. Examples of heavy work I’m practicing include:

• Additional soul excavation through directed journal prompts
• Using Internal Family Systems self-therapy (IFS, or parts work) to understand and work through triggering moments or big decisions
• Capturing and interpreting my dreams to better understand my truest self
• Creating and sharing vulnerable art to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone

This could be viewed as a formulaic approach to healing the soul’s proprioception. It’s not initially about figuring out how to move out of the liminal space, it’s about learning what to do while you are there. The how appears only after our proprioception returns to its proper state.

So, if you are like me in a liminal season, remember that this transitional time is not a problem to solve. It’s a studio to work within. Start with balance work, then add in some time-bound heavy work to help you restore your soul’s proprioception.

Over the next few posts, I’ll map out more of what I’m learning about how we can take an active role in regaining soul proprioception. In Part II, I’ll dive deeper into balance work, Part III will cover practical ways to approach heavy work, and in Part IV, I’ll share some qigong flows you can try as a way to align your physical body with the soul work necessary for this liminal interlude.

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