VISUALISED: How Liminal Space Transforms Your Identity

Core idea: circles in midlife are often spirals

• When life repeats “the same problem,” it can feel like you’re going backward.
• The video reframes this as progress through deeper layers—a spiral, not endless repetition (a circle).
• This pattern shows up in midlife, identity crises, and other crossroads moments.

Murray Stein’s 3-phase midlife model (what to expect)

1) Separation stage

• An old identity (career, role, persona) “dies.”
• This raises the question: Who are you underneath?

2) Liminality stage

• You’re between identities—not in the old world, not yet in the new one.
• It can feel terrifying and confusing.

3) Reintegration stage

• The new identity consolidates.
• The outcome is wholeness.

Key wellness/inner-work strategy: don’t bypass liminality—go through it

• Liminality must be entered and endured, not escaped.
• The video warns against returning to the “comfortable but unfulfilling” regression driven by persona/ego.

“Hermes-like” guidance during transitions (self-care through support)

The video introduces Hermes as a symbolic guide for transition.

• Purpose of a Hermes-like figure:

  • Guide transitions and help navigate boundaries/thresholds
  • Support communication/messages, including synchronicities
  • Help transform circle → spiral by turning repetition into depth

• How to find Hermes-like support in real life:

  • Mentors, teachers, therapists, counselors, coaches
  • Someone who steers you without dictating your path

• The speaker also offers mentorship as a Hermes-like role:

  • Guiding clarity, not control

The practical method: regression in service of the self (not avoidance)

To move through liminality safely:

• Replace avoidance/regression-for-comfort with:
  • Regression in service of the self (a spiral descent)
• Return to forgotten parts to recover unconscious material
• Encounter the unconscious with the intention to integrate it

Anti-procrastination / self-regulation technique: create a safe container

When unconscious material feels confronting:

• Set up a safe place (physically and emotionally)
  • Example: home, a specific time (e.g., evening), simple setting (couch, music)
• Resist busyness and procrastination
• Practice experiencing the threshold “through, not around” it

Reflective prompts (message-receiving questions to deepen the descent)

While in liminal space, use honest, targeted questions such as:

• What parts of old identities have you outgrown but haven’t “put to rest”?
• What old dreams/ambitions still cling, even though they’re no longer relevant?
• Who in your life is holding you back—and from what?
• What from childhood felt most fulfilling, and how might you reconnect?
• What limits have you been secretly hoping don’t apply to you?
• Where are you self-deceiving—preferring the fantasy of who you could be over who you are?

The “two-part equation” for meaningful midlife liminality

To keep the process productive (not stuck), hold both together:

1. Knowledge of precise limits

   • Clearly recognize what you must relinquish from your old persona-based identity.

2. Conviction of a future life task

   • Commit to what wants to emerge now, trusting it can lead toward wholeness.

Both parts must function as a dialogue: conscious clarity + a deeper calling that can’t be fully reduced to rationalization.

Integration aim (end goal)

• Midlife work = separate from the old identity, deepen liminality, then reintegrate.
• Practical takeaway for the week:
  • Notice where you’re moving “backwards/in circles”
  • Redirect toward going deeper instead

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Presenters / Sources

• Presenter (implied by transcript): Mr. Clark
• Primary book source: In Midlife by Murray Stein
• Referenced figure/source: Carl Jung (persona; persona-oriented identity)
• Referenced archetypal figure: Hermes (mythic-symbolic guide)
• Other named references:
  • Virgil (as “Virgil to your Dante”)
  • Dante / Divine Comedy (Divine Comedy reference)
  • Mercury (planetary/astrological parallel to Hermes)