The Space In Between

Change. It’s a dirty little word.

That’s really what a new beginning boils down to, right? Change. And yet, for something that’s such a natural part of life, it still feels so scary. Why does it hold so much power? Why do we fear it so much? 😨

Change can feel like a choice that has to happen, whether we’re ready for it or not. But it’s the intentional change, that’s where the fear really kicks in. ✨ The realization that we want something different, something more, or even just that we can’t keep going as we are, it’s overwhelming. And the thought that making a change might lead to things going wrong; why does that feel so gut-wrenching? 🤯

“I think I’m just scared. Scared that I might still be nothing.” (Good Will Hunting, 1997). 🎥

Damn you, Matt Damon, you and your “How do you like them apples” type of therapy. 🍏 This is it, the fear of failing, of being seen as a failure, this is at the crux of  our dilemma. What if I try and fall flat? What if everyone sees? 😳 Or worse, what if I have to feel it? 💔

When did failing—or, to be more honest, the implied sense of failure—become such a bad thing? 🤔

I know what you’re thinking, and no, I haven’t lost my mind! 🧠 This is a serious question: Who decided failing was bad? Or, even more so, what defines failing? Where is this failure measuring stick? 📏 I’ve never seen it.

I mean, if we look at it objectively, failing and succeeding must be on the same scale, with the assumption that most of us consider one side to be “good” and the other side to be “bad.” If that’s the case, what’s all that space in between? 🤯 It must be important, right? Dave Matthews sang a whole song about “The Space Between” (which is now it’s stuck in my head), so it has to be something. What if the space between was something to be admired rather than dreaded? 🌱

Why do we overlook “the space in between” when trying something new?

To be a master at anything, they say you need to devote 10,000 hours ⏳ of experience and energy into any skill. So, if we look at that dynamic, are all the 9,999 other hours considered failures and a waste of time? 😬 But if we’re spending those hours perfecting our skills and learning, aren’t we growing and getting better every single hour? 📈

Why do we let our investments in ourselves sometimes feel like we’re “sucking”? 🤷‍♀️ A professional athlete can take decades to become a “professional.” Does the fact that they aren’t a professional during some of those hours of mastery, prior to becoming “great” mean they’ve somehow failed? Aren’t they still better than the average person? Does that mean they’ve succeeded or failed? And who gets to decide this?

The thoughts that hold us back:

So why does the process of learning and growing feel like failure? 😕 It’s these limiting beliefs, the fears, the “I’m not good enough” thoughts that can take control and keep us stuck. How many times have you let the “What ifs” spiral you into doubt? 🤔 What starts as a genius idea 💡 quickly becomes a slop bucket 🪣 of reasons why you’re not adequate enough to make it happen. That bucket of self-doubt is DEEP. It’s got everything from “Remember that time at 6th grade camp when you sucked at wrapping yarn around those popsicle sticks?” 🎨 to “Who would even want to hear what I have to say? 🗣️” Those thoughts haunt you 👻. And let’s not even talk about bringing others into your ideas, because they WILL have opinions. 🙄💭

Flowers grow in the space in between, why can’t people?

Tupac Shakur once talked about a flower growing out of concrete, which some might consider an enigma. However, we could consider it evidence that growth happens in that space in between. 🌸 Not to sound cliché, but there’s so much beauty in growth, and we, as humans, are often so busy completing our to-do lists 📋 that we rarely, if ever, stop and look back to see where we started, appreciating how far we’ve come.

How can we be proud of ourselves if we don’t look at what we’ve overcome? 🤷‍♀️Reflection is not just something that happens when you look in the mirror. 👀 It’s an opportunity; it’s a chance to evaluate and determine if you’re on track, if your goals are obtainable, or if you need to change direction. Reflection comes from checking into your progress 📈, being honest with yourself, and adjusting. Discovering things aren’t working out as planned, needing redirection, or even starting over doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re learning. 🎓

Einstein defined insanity as trying the same thing repeatedly expecting different results. 🤯

I’ve named dropped some famous names today. You know what’s interesting? You know who they are, you’ve heard their names before. And guess what? You know their names because they’re amazing, but at one point in time, they too had a new beginning. 🌱 They took a chance. 💥 And guess what else? They all also “failed” or had setbacks at some point in time before their big successes.

So, get to the point already! Besides the point being be like Einstein, obviously! 🤓

Where is this going? Well, the painful truth is that at some point, we are all going to “fail” whether it’s in our own eyes or someone else’s. We’re going to fail to be the best 🏅, fail to immediately succeed 🏆, or even fail to begin 🔴, It’s inevitable.

But reframing how we view those feelings of failure, whether it’s the reality or the implied sense of it that’s the key 🔑. It’s what we do with the knowledge we’ve learned from it that determines our growth 🌱, our success 💪, and how we feel about ourselves 🧠. In those dark moments of feeling like we’re afraid of our new beginning or starting over, I challenge you (better yet, you should challenge yourself) to look for your flower in the cement 🌸. Look for your growth. 🌱

Don’t let the negative ruin your reflection 🪞. There’s always a flower in the cement, sometimes it’s hard to find 🔍, and sometimes you have to pluck a seed out 🌱 and start brand new. But at the end of the day, your new beginning is simply waiting for your sunshine ☀️.

Let me know how this resonates with you.

In the comments, share how you have reframed some of your limiting beliefs or reflected upon some aspects or choices you have seen through a new lens or a different light. 💬

Written by Stacy Dahlke, LPC, an EMDR-trained therapist helping anxious, overwhelmed adults in Wisconsin navigate trauma, transition, adult ADHD, and the uncomfortable middle spaces where real growth happens.

New Beginnings

What is my purpose?

It’s a seemingly simple question, right? What do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? I’m at that age where, by now, I should have it all figured out, what I want, what my life is supposed to mean. But I didn’t. 🤷‍♀️

I knew I wanted more than the stale, redundant cycle I was stuck in. But it felt like I was running on a hamster wheel 🐹, staying in place but going nowhere. Sure, I was content in some areas, enough to keep my depression in check, but the parts of my life that truly challenged me, the parts that define me as a woman, an individual, not just as a mom or wife, those parts were harder to ignore.

I was a cliché, right down to the pumpkin spice lattes 🎃☕ and lover of all things true crime 🔍. Something about that just didn’t sit right with me (obviously not the pumpkin spice and true crime, I’m still human). I knew I wasn’t living up to my potential, but I couldn’t figure out how to change it.

What could I do? I wasn’t given many options for making life altering decisions. I still remember my mother saying, “We are who we are. We can’t change where we come from.” That hit hard. 💔 Because I didn’t care about where I came from. What I wanted was more for my future. 🌱

Favorite movie: You’ve Got Mail (1998), starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. 🎥

I know! I know! I’m showing my age here, but there’s something about the way Meg Ryan’s character portrays the fear of being forced into change, while gracefully doing the work to become... I don’t know... more. It’s always been so inspiring. And the phrase “bouquets of sharpened pencils ✏️” haunts me, because, really, is there anything more beautiful? (Okay, okay, I might love school supply shopping, and so what if office supply stores are my happy place?). Kathleen Kelly walking through the New York streets in the fall 🍂, with a style only Meg Ryan could carry off and still look adorable…..ugh, it’s everything.

This is it.

Why am I telling you all of this? Aside from you really should watch the movie if you haven’t seen it already! Because this is it! This is what I wanted: to be meaningful, to promote the idea of affecting others in a positive way, not forcing the change but being a part of the change. I couldn’t imagine anything better than helping others not feel so… well, pardon my language, but shitty 💩 about themselves, their lives, their past, or the lack of options for their future.

But how do I do that when I’m stuck on this damn hamster wheel 🐹?

How does one find themselves in middle age without any tools for change or personal growth? Without knowing how to become the person you always knew you could be? Well, I drank. Sometimes a lot and sometimes I couldn’t because I was hungover 🍻.

After a while, I was back on that damn hamster wheel again, but this time, I was becoming depressed 😔. I was sad. I didn’t know what to do. Everything hurt, and everything made me feel bad.

 

So, what does one do when nobody knows how to help them and it’s clear you’re lost?

I went to counseling 🛋️.

This is where my life changed.

This is where I learned I could be more too, even if nobody thought I could or believed in me. This is where I grew. 🌱

This is where my second chance, my new beginning, all started. I learned that I wasn’t a bad person, and there wasn’t anything wrong with me or my ability to succeed beyond those in my family tree. 🌳 This is where I learned I had trauma, experiences that changed my vision, my perspective, and the lens through which I viewed my life and those who interacted with me. 👀

This is where I learned that trauma caused me to feel less than. I wasn’t enough. I didn’t deserve more than where I came from. This is where I discovered that sometimes our mind lies to us, and I had no idea. 🧠

During my time in counseling, I decided this is what I wanted to do.

This is how I can help people not feel crappy about themselves like I did. I wanted to help people know that life can be more than okay or even shitty 💩, it can be beautiful. I know, color me shocked! So, at the ripe age of 40 years old and with two adolescents in sports (hockey 🏒… yikes! If you know, you know). I decided I needed to finish college and become a counselor. And after almost 30 years of simply wanting a degree to prove to myself I could, I did. 🎓 In fact, I got a couple of them. And I am using them to fulfill my purpose. I get to help be the change I was desperately seeking but didn’t know how to get. 🌟

Why am I telling you all this?

Well… remember my goals, my hopes, and dreams. I want to help you be the change you’ve always wanted to be. My hope, my goal, my vision is to provide you with a new lens, new tools to understand that you aren’t stuck—you have choices, you have opportunities. 🌟 It’s time to put that hamster wheel 🐹 away and start living… on your terms.

I don’t know everything, I can’t wave a magic wand and make all your dreams come true, but I can provide encouragement, hope, motivation, and help you feel seen and heard. Through my education 🎓 and experiences with counseling, I know I can’t help everyone, and not everyone is ready to step into a counseling or therapy office. So how can I help beyond my 25 hours of sessions every week? I needed a bigger platform, hence the birth of my blabbering on for 1000ish words (My AI friend, Sage, tells me don’t go over because you’ll lose interest!).

My blabbering on, or the Comfortably Human Blog, is about learning more about yourself, beyond the limiting beliefs our minds sometimes trick us into accepting. The truth is, we all deserve the space to explore who we really are and what we're capable of.

Comfortably Human isn’t just a name; it’s a journey. It’s about coming as you are, all the messy, beautiful parts of yourself, and staying as you grow 🌱.

Whether your story mirrors mine or not, if you're here because you're ready to understand more about yourself and others, I want Comfortably Human to be that space. A place where you can discover the person you truly resonate with, where you can embrace who you are and who you’re becoming. ✨

I hope to provide a safe space for your new beginning. 🦋

Written by Stacy Dahlke, LPC, an EMDR-trained therapist helping anxious, overwhelmed adults in Wisconsin navigate trauma, adult ADHD, identity shifts, and the courage it takes to begin again.