It's all in the pause....
Resources and tips for the turning of the year
Every day is “a hinge in time,” to borrow Edwin Friedman’s phrase naming our daily tipping point between past and future — and the liminal power always at the core of the present moment. But some days, some seasons, some years bring a confluence of transitions, making them a bigger threshold of many-layered change.
As we approach the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, we are all living in a time like that — of multiple thresholds and great unsteadiness, as well as significant possibilities for imagining our world anew.
This Substack newsletter, Threshold Times, and my book, Trusting Change, that preceded it, both offer encouragement, support and practices for making change more trustworthy by engaging it instead of attempting to control or resist it. Now, at the close of 2024, I am putting this newsletter on pause to make time for a novel I am writing. If you missed the post announcing that, you can find it here: “A Winter’s Pause to Write.” During this hiatus, because the changes we are all living through will not be paused, I hope you’ll find support for living on the threshold from your own resources and relationships. You can also access support and practices in my book, Trusting Change; in the archives of this site (links provided below); and in other resources also listed below.
From my book, Trusting Change
A few basics from Trusting Change: Taking time to pause is key to making change more trustworthy, allowing you to hear your heart’s truth and to notice the realities of your context. Pausing to consider what you’re leaving behind, where you are now, and where you might be headed allows for greater choice in how you will respond.
Also significant in threshold living, are the three characteristics of change named in my book that that can help us make good use of it:
Change is embodied. — Our bodies have evolved to give us a wealth of guidance for dealing with change. Listening to our bodies — and their messages of pain and warning as well as joy and healing — offers helpful wisdom.
Change echoes. — Change experienced on a personal level will become amplified by change occurring in our communities and shared world. And vice versa. We do well to regard this as an invitation; participating in one level of change can help us to navigate and engage changes happening on other levels.
Change goes better when we do it together. — Even when the particulars of our personal change are unique and not shared, we benefit from sharing our journey with others. Their perspectives will widen our own understanding and their assistance can provide encouragement and fortitude.
You’ll find a wealth of practices and prompts in Trusting Change to increase your capacity in these three areas and to develop the ten thresholding skills named in the book and further explored in this Substack community.
Links to reflections in the Threshold Times archives
The ten thresholding skills listed below provide links to reflections in the Threshold Times archives, supplementing the reflections and practices in the book.
Additional resources
Other resources that I particularly appreciate, some on Substack and some not, for writers and nonwriters cultivating curiosity and equanimity in the face of change are listed below.
James Crews, a poet who offers a free weekly poem and prompt, called “The Weekly Pause,” as well as monthly online programming for paid subscribers.
Poetry Unbound, a Substack newsletter by poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama, an extension of his podcast of the same name.
The Marginalian, curated by Maria Popova as an online resource of extraordinary breadth and depth, for curious seekers asking what Popova calls “the ultimate question that binds us all: What is all this?
The Embodiment Institute, embodied practices and resources to support our work for change in the world and in our lives. Co-founded by Prentis Hemphill, somatic teacher, podcaster and author of What It Takes to Heal.
Meditation teaching and support from Sharon Salzberg, author, retreat leader, podcaster and more. See especially her book, Real Change.
Daily meditations and more from Franciscan teacher and wisdom leader Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation.
And there are so many other resources!!!
With that, it’s now time for me to sign off. I wish you well in this pause and in the changes you are living through. And I look forward to connecting again in the future. Take good care, of yourself and of others. We are truly in this together.
Karen
Thank you for your helpful, hopeful, supporting words.
During this spiritual world, I offer you Joy - of words; Hope for responding and discovering the words as you move forward; Love of the magic from words and language and Peace in your soul, your work and your practice.
Thank you! We will miss your missives (😊) but celebrate that you are living into the essence of all you have shared with us as we, too, turn toward our unknown and uncertain futures. Thank you for helping us keep our hearts open and curious through it all.