Thriving in Uncertainty: The Sacred Pause

On day 43 of what I started calling my “wilderness time,” I quit fighting how uncomfortable I felt. My morning routine stayed the same—tea, cushion for meditating, journal—but something inside me had changed. Instead of pleading with the universe to show me what to do next, I just sat there without any answers. The silence that used to scare me now wrapped around me like a cozy blanket.

“Maybe,” I wrote that morning, “I won’t get the answers I’m looking for until the questions themselves have changed me.”

In our culture that’s fixated on getting things done, we tend to see life as a bunch of destinations. We treat the times between as uncomfortable bridges we need to cross. We cheer for achievements and arrivals but fail to value how much the in-between—those spaces where we’ve left one stage but haven’t stepped into another yet—can change us. When we embrace these in-between periods instead of rushing through them, we discover they have a lot they can teach us.

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Transitions

Throughout time, wise traditions have seen the spiritual meaning in these in-between spaces. Indigenous cultures around the world use coming-of-age rituals to create these threshold experiences with intention. Vision quests take people away from their community and daily life, putting them in literal wilderness to find deeper truths before they come back changed.

“Using my knowledge of thoughtful psychology and mindfulness teaching, I came up with ways to help me live in this space of change with more awareness and openness.”

In Celtic lore, “thin places” describe spots where the line between everyday and spiritual worlds blurs. Observing the Jewish Sabbath creates a time-based thin place—a holy break in weekly patterns. Eastern ways of thinking embrace ideas like wu-wei (not doing) and śūnyatā (nothingness), teaching that our deepest insights come not from trying hard but from being still.

These traditions share a common idea: Change happens in the spaces between what’s past and what’s to come. As Thomas Merton wrote, “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence ... activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.”

My wilderness journey started with an unexpected change—a career shift caused by the pandemic—but turned into a path I chose to walk. At first, it threw me off balance, but over time I saw it was exactly what my soul needed.

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Finding Sacred Ground in Uncertainty

When Covid wiped out my comfortable work identity as a spiritual retreat facilitator and workshop leader—canceling a year’s worth of in-person gatherings and speaking engagements—I stepped into what psychologists call “liminal space,” a threshold where old structures crumble before new ones take shape. At the start, I saw this change as a problem I had to fix fast. I drew up action plans. I reached out to everyone I knew. I tried to force things to make sense.

Nothing worked. The more I pushed to find answers, the more they slipped away. At last, worn out from all my efforts, I gave in to the quiet. That’s when my view of uncertainty changed.

Rather than seeing this in-between time as just something to get through, I started to see it as special ground to explore. Using my knowledge of thoughtful psychology and mindfulness teaching, I came up with ways to help me live in this space of change with more awareness and openness.

Three Practices for Embracing Transition

Three practices in particular came to me during my time alone. Each one helped turn what seemed like being stuck into a rich time of inner growth:

Threshold Journaling: Every morning, I wrote without a plan, starting with the prompt: “In this space between what was and what will be, I notice ...” This easy habit helped me record small inner changes that I might have missed otherwise. Over weeks, I watched my language shift from desperate questions about when things would resolve to curious observations about what I was learning right now. The practice also highlighted patterns that turned into important signs on my journey. For example, I noticed recurring themes of control and surrender appearing in my entries, or how my anxiety peaked on Mondays when I felt I “should” be productive.

Intentional Incompletion: I started a daily routine of leaving something unfinished on purpose—a puzzle with one piece missing, a paragraph not written, or a drawing half-done. This practice helped me get better at dealing with the unsolved parts of my life. It reminded me that finishing isn’t always the main goal and that beauty exists in things that aren’t complete.

Wisdom Walks: Three times a week, I took walks without a set place to go or a specific reason beyond just to think. These weren’t like walks for exercise with a goal. Instead, these strolls let me pay attention to whatever popped up—be it thoughts inside or things I saw outside. Often, I’d spot things in nature that matched how I felt inside: seed pods waiting for the right time to open or trees standing bare between seasons.

These habits didn’t speed up my change or give me quick answers. Rather, they helped me build a new bond with not knowing—one full of wonder instead of worry, openness instead of pushback.

Unexpected Gifts of the In-Between

As weeks turned into months, my time in the unknown brought surprising spiritual rewards that I couldn’t have gotten if I’d hurried through this transition:

Increased Presence: Without a clear job title or structured role, I found myself more present in relationships. Talks became more meaningful when I wasn’t listening for how the other person might help my career or solve my job switch.

Renewed Wonder: Free from focusing on results, I rediscovered a childlike curiosity. Simple experiences—watching frost patterns form on windows or seeing birds build nests—became sources of wonder that I had previously hurried past.

Spiritual Strength: Each day in uncertainty strengthened my spiritual muscle. I grew more able to sit with discomfort without trying to fix it right away. This benefit has helped me well beyond my transition period.

Identity Clarity: Without outside signs of success, I was able to separate who I am from what I do. This split showed key values that now play a greater role in shaping my decisions.

The bottom line is that I learned how not knowing can teach us spiritual lessons instead of being a problem to fix. The questions I couldn’t answer made room for me to ask deeper ones. When I couldn’t control what happened, I surrendered to something bigger than myself.

From Surviving to Thriving in Transition

After six months of my time alone, I still didn’t have clear answers about my work future. But I felt more stable and energetic than before. The period of change wasn’t over, but how I dealt with it had shifted.

I started to see that our deepest spiritual traditions came from wilderness times—when people were exiled, wandering, or uncertain. Moses got his revelation after 40 days alone in the desert. Jesus came back changed after 40 days of testing in the wilderness. Buddha found enlightenment after he gave up both his wealth and his strict lifestyle.

These tales hint that tough times aren’t just something to get through but might in fact be when we grow the most. When our normal life falls apart, we can hear what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “the ineffable”—those quiet bits of wisdom that speak when everything else is silent.

One evening, as I took a walk during a beautiful sunset, I stopped in front of an old oak tree where the path split. I realized that my focus on finding “the right path” had prevented me from seeing that many good paths lay ahead. The question wasn’t about which one was right, but which one spoke to my heart at this point in my life. This understanding—that discernment is different from decision-making—could have come to me only while spending time in nature.

Eventually, I gained clarity about my career—not as a sudden flash of insight but as a gradual unveiling. The way forward grew from my time in nature, based on what I learned during the break rather than despite it.

Now I see that my time in the wilderness wasn’t a detour from my spiritual path but maybe its most crucial part. By accepting the sacred break between what had been and what was to come, I didn’t just get through a change—it changed me.

This article appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Spirituality & Health: A Unity Publication^®. Subscribe now.