Embracing the Spaces in Between
Imagine standing on the precipice of two worlds, gazing across the expansive chasm that separates them. It is in this space, suspended between endings and new beginnings, where uncertainty and possibility dance in harmony. This space is bursting with potential for profound growth and transformation. It might also be filled with the unsettling fear of the unknown.
Continue to picture yourself walking on a tightrope across these two worlds. You are teetering between the familiar and the unknown, balancing your dreams and fears, hopes and doubts, stability and change as you find the courage to relinquish attachments and embrace change. High above the ground, your feet are shaking and your outstretched arms are attempting to maintain equilibrium.
How are YOU feeling? Exhilarated? Scared? Inspired? Hopeless? Optimistic? How do you deal with transitions and change? Unclear boundaries? Over time, I’ve grown to love the unique opportunities found within this liminal space.
From a professional standpoint, my fascination with ambiguity and its related challenges stems from guiding students through a Learning Experience Design (LXD) course. Throughout the six-month certificate program, learners engage in real-world projects, collaborating with clients who are seeking solutions to complex workplace performance issues — — often with ambiguous expectations. They navigate this journey through the lens of a design thinking framework, which places a strong emphasis on discovery, re-framing challenges, context-specific & human-centred designs and creativity. LXD also demands a significant degree of adaptability, which presents a particular challenge for those more accustomed to traditional instructional design & project management approaches. For some, this process is stressful.
As a result, I’ve been contemplating various strategies to further assist learners in navigating anxiety over the “unknowns” and ever-evolving designs. Drawing from my own experiences with transitions, I’ve thought about using storytelling as a means to address their concerns. Here is where I share my transformative tale of a two-year family sabbatical. It involves selling our home, putting careers on hold, taking kids out of school, buying a camper van and making no alternative plans for the future. Are you intrigued?
It’s important to note that my approach and choices aren’t universally applicable, but my hope is that through sharing stories about the beauty and potential they hold, I can inspire and embolden others to ease into the ‘in-between’ spaces. I also hope that readers like you will contribute to the conversation and offer up some helpful advice!
Re-imagining our lives (while living ‘in-between’)
Several years ago, driven by a mix of motivations, my family made the bold choice to bid farewell to our hometown of Montreal, Canada. The daily grind had taken its toll on us — juggling demanding full-time jobs, the responsibility of raising two young children, navigating a landscape of mounting commitments and big city expenses. Our story is a familiar one until you get to the part where we took a decisive step to hit the pause button on our lives. We sold our house, bought a used camper van, organized our work and finances, and said goodbye to our community and everything familiar.
We hit the road for nearly a year, with the intention of slowing things down, spending more time together as a family, sharing incredible experiences and reflecting upon the how (and where) we wanted to live after the big adventure. We were not going back to our old life. This was the ultimate state of transition. It beckoned us to step beyond the confines of our comfort zones, and wrap our heads around the uncertainty that accompanies change. We had no idea how things would unfold.
Spoiler alert: We road-tripped across North America with our hearts and minds wide open. We experienced many new things, contemplated, discussed, questioned, challenged our assumptions, discussed some more, and started to visualize our new future. Traveling helped us to step out of our day-to-day routine and gain new perspective on what inspired us, what made us happy, and what was most important to us. Several years later, our post-trip musings remain relevant, sparking ongoing family discussions and inspiring us to continuously re-imagine our lives.
Reflecting on Endings and New Beginnings
1. Craving a simpler life
Every location on our camper van journey served a unique purpose that helped us find a new home: soul-nourishing beaches for me, mountain and desert retreats for my husband, fun-filled places for the kids, and meaningful visits with friends and extended family. We checked off places on our bucket list, re-visited some old favourites and had the chance to explore many new ones as well. We rolled with the unexpected, held on to the familiar and covered 35 000 kilometers.
Surprisingly, we discovered that we connected with the simplicity of the smaller, more rustic towns than with bigger cities. This was a huge revelation for two adults who spent most of their lives in a city of 4 million people. More on that later…
2. The World is Our Classroom
We exposed our children to hiking & nature, art, history, geography, science, culture, and good food. Math and reading were incorporated into real-life experiences, rather than through workbooks and other less authentic activities. More importantly, they learned to adapt well to change and new environments (not their strength before sabbatical).
We used the familiar term of “bullying” to frame historical parts of the trip like a visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota, the outdoor Holocaust memorial in Portland, Oregon and former slave quarters on a sugar cane plantation outside of New Orleans, Louisiana.
We talked a lot about the differences between animals in the wild and those in captivity at zoos and aquariums. We incorporated gratitude and meditation into our regular routine. The kids loved to look at maps, became well versed in desert flora and learned to play with rocks and sticks — now considered “old school” activities. Long car rides with no screens are perfect for fostering imaginations and learning patience.
As parents, we discovered that routines and schedules for young children are overrated and simply don’t live up to the hype of conventional wisdom. We realized that we can pack up everything our family needs into a camper van and live a very simple and rewarding life, full of learning opportunities. We all expanded our horizons in ways that could never be achieved through textbooks alone.
Now that we’re back to living a more “conventional” life, we continuously do our best to be open to change and turn everyday moments into lessons worth learning — at home and through our travels. The main downside is that our children don’t love going to public school because it’s not nearly as fun as learning through real life experiences.
3. Embracing Mindful Living
In addition to all of our activities, we experienced a whole range of emotions like fear, exhilaration, frustration, sheer exhaustion, and absolute joy.
In the midst of it all, we discovered the true essence of mindfulness — being fully present in the moment. You need to slow things down to be tuned in to life’s experiences with all of your senses. I’m not claiming to have become all enlightened, but I do have a much stronger belief in the power of focusing one’s attention on the here and now. On the road, we witnessed countless sunrises and sunsets. I can recall the locations, colours of the dusky sky, the pleasure and appreciation that I felt in that moment, the smell and temperature in the air. I can also remember what I ate, what it tasted like, and where I ate it. I was present.
We created so many rich and heart-warming memories because we tuned in and engaged with everything we had. I’d often take a deep breath and consciously savour the moment. I then had to explain to my kids that the tears in my eyes were caused by joy. Our ongoing challenge is to create more space in our everyday lives for uncluttered hearts and minds.
4. There’s No Perfect Place
We set out on our North American tour to regain balance, reconnect as a family and to search for possibilities for a new home outside of Montreal. Sixty-four locations and hours of discussion later, we came to the realization that there is no perfect place.
Obviously!
We needed to live and breathe it before we could truly feel it. I love the ocean and heat; My husband prefers mountains and cooler temperatures. My children want to live in a place that has snow. We may never reach a consensus on ideal climate for all of us. And, I’ve given up on my dream of living on the beach all year round… for now.
Millions of other people have already discovered the beauty of sunny coastal living in seemingly ideal locations. When we dug deeper, we realized that the high cost of living, soul-numbing traffic, natural disasters, and head-first dive back into the rat race weren’t ideal after all. Year-round heat would also require a move away from Canada. So, as much as I thought good weather was my priority, it turns out that having my husband home for supper is way more important.
5. Exploring Identity: Who Are We?
At one point on the trip we were inspired to think about our identities. Were we East or West coast people? (Short answer: we’re both). We re-examined our identities again when we spent the summer working in a small town in Southwest Ontario after our road trip. Could we live HERE?
While I have always considered myself to be a “city person”, I was craving a slower-paced life, more family time (while our children still want to hang out with us), and more room to explore personal interests and possibly a new career. Our life in Montreal wasn’t set up for that and we weren’t convinced that we could create our ideal situation in an urban environment.
Long story short, after the summer we spent working in rural Ontario, we decided to relocate there. We took everything out of storage and moved into our new home, in a town with less than 35 000 people. A mere ten days later, we continued our sabbatical in Costa Rica. Enrolling our children in a bilingual school part-time allowed us to reclaim valuable adult time, a rare commodity during our continuous road travels. During this 6-month Costa Rican adventure, we adopted a more settled approach, primarily staying put in one location while sporadically exploring the country. In essence, we dreamed up a new plan and figured out what we needed to make it happen. This slower-paced experience proved distinct from our road trip, yet it solidified our prior lessons — equally enjoyable and enriching.
Fast forward to the present day: We continue to iterate our lives and question our identities. Are we still in transition? Is this charming, small town our forever place? How do we fit in here? Should I change careers? We don’t know and that’s OK because…
6. Our decisions don’t have to be permanent
Until we hit the road, all of our decisions were firmly rooted in the assumption that we were staying in Montreal. We rarely questioned it. Then three key things happened on our journey:
a. We re-defined what’s most important to us as a family;
b. We took action and made changes to help us get there; and
c. We shifted our perspective from making long-term decisions to a more light-hearted, “let’s see how things go” attitude.
FREEDOM.
We had the courage to release our grip on the past and explore alternatives for the future.
The space between endings and beginnings is a continuous journey, ripe with opportunities to reinvent ourselves and to redefine our purpose. It beckons us to embrace the discomfort of change, to let go of the past, to surrender to the unknown, and to trust in our own capacity to adapt and grow. Recognizing our mistakes as valuable opportunities for personal and intellectual development is essential. It’s a life-long practice but infinite possibilities are available when you cast aside the fear of uncertainty and bravely step forward into the boundless expanse of the unknown. When embraced wholeheartedly, it can lead us to a more fulfilling and purposeful life. This is how we are choosing to live.
What’s your story?
