Living In the In Between

It’s a quiet Sunday at the beach — a place where stillness and inner turbulence seem to coexist. Lately, I’ve felt myself teetering between two worlds.

One world is filled with beauty and promise — the tender unfolding of becoming. It’s the building of a new home. The creation of something meaningful in my work. The steady, rooted practice of embodiment, meditation, and presence. In this space, I notice the quiet breeze against my skin, the way the sunlight filters through the trees, the vastness of the open sky, and the subtle colors of the sun as it slips into the ocean. It’s a world where life feels alive with possibility.

But there is another world that pulls at my feet — ungrounding me, tugging me into the storm. In that world, I meet the heaviness of emotion: the ache of loss, the heat of shame, the tightness of fear, the slow burn of anger. My body fills with the weight of it all, yet at times, I feel completely disconnected — like I’m both submerged and untethered. I reach for something to hold onto, and in that grasping, old words, reactions, and hidden parts of myself surface — desperate to be seen, to be held.

It can feel like I’m anchored to the very thing pulling me under.
And I wonder:
Haven’t I learned how to stay balanced?
Why is this still such a tightrope?
How can I be so whole and light one moment, and then so heavy and unraveling the next?

As I sit here now, a soft breeze moves through the open window, stirring the curtain — its filtered light casting shadows across the room and across my heart. And I realize:
This is what it means to live.

It’s not one or the other. It’s the sacred in-between.
It’s the fresh air of hope and the shadow it passes through.
It’s the beauty and the ache, the presence and the pain.
It’s letting the light in without needing to push the shadows away.

I can witness both as part of me — without judgment.
They live alongside each other.
And perhaps… they always will.

So I remind myself:
Allow them both, Dyan.
They are here to teach you.
Love them both. Let them live together.

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
— Mary Oliver

Take a quiet moment and ask yourself:
What parts of me am I still trying to hide or silence?

Can I sit beside them with the same compassion I offer my light?

Let both your peace and your pain have a voice — they may be carrying the same longing to be seen.