HOW TO NAVIGATE THE MESSY MIDDLE

… a business coach told me as she explained how to share your transformation to inspire your community.

Smart, I thought. Let everyone see how turbulent things were. Give them a path to witness your vulnerability and find inspiration to navigate their own rough spots. Don’t share the hard parts until you’ve come out on the other side, until you can reveal the epiphanies you had and provide your community with a guide on how to get from where they are now to where they want to be.

But today, I’m throwing that notion out the window. I’m going against the advice of a business expert and best-selling author. I don’t feel like I can show up in this newsletter and be my true self, as I have been and want to be, if I wait until my wounds are scars.

I’m in the messy middle.

I’m in that part of a sitcom where I’m walking the tightrope between the rising action (conflict), the climax (turning point), and the ultimate falling action and resolution, where all the drama, tears, and heartache are tied up in a neat little bow.

There’s no bow where I am now, and nothing is neat.

Where I am is the precious space where you relearn how to be present. When looking back is too painful, and looking forward is too uncertain.

The things that have remained undone for many months on my to-do list—things that help me care for myself and be present—are now “non-negotiables”. Morning walks, pouring my heart and mind out to my closest people, taking breaks to play with my son, regularly practicing the 4-7-8 and box breathing method, devouring business and self-growth books, journaling, and generally questioning everything have reemerged as essential parts of my day.

Don’t get me wrong, this hiatus from living whole-heartedly—where I read romance novels, drowned anxious emotions in TV, avoided important conversations, and kept telling myself ‘everything’s fine’—was what I needed to get to where I am now.

Damn, this messy middle. This is the part where the sitcom characters know what’s wrong. They’re actively trying to get things back to how they used to be. They desperately want things to be okay again.

Here’s what’s so hard to realize when you’re in that messy middle, wishing you could go back in time when everything was okay… there’s no going back. Isn’t that what Michael J. Fox taught us in Back to the Future? You can’t take everything you’ve learned and apply it to the past. The only thing you can (and must) do is apply it to the future.

It’s not easy to look at a conflict and ask yourself questions like: What can I learn about myself, the other people involved, and the situation? How did my actions or attitudes contribute to this? What fears or insecurities did this situation stir up?

It’s far more comfortable to place blame on the situation or the people involved. Looking at yourself with a magnifying glass is not fun. It sucks. I don’t recommend it. Unless, of course, you want to someday, hopefully, be able to look at yourself and not want to grab a bunch of snacks and pull the covers over your head until you feel okay to join society again.

Welcome to my messy middle.

In the span of a few weeks, I said goodbye to almost half of our team. I made a sudden but undeniably necessary decision to move my family out of the house I’ve lived in longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, relocating almost 500 miles away, in just a few weeks. I’ve questioned and am redefining everything about how I’ve been running my business and being a CEO. I’m saying goodbye to my last living grandparent, who is almost 100. My husband was injured and homebound in constant pain for the past month. And there’s more, but I think you’ve heard enough.

The point is, when it rains, it pours—and I’m talking about tears here. I’ve cried more in the past few weeks than I have in two years. I’ve gone from writing things in my journal like, “How can I love myself when everyone hates me?” and saying, “I hate myself, and I’m a failure,” to digging deep, exploring the source of those feelings, and feeling more confident in myself and my abilities than I have in years. I’m getting closer to other side of the messy middle.

I don’t know exactly how things are going to turn out. That’s what the messy middle is all about. You keep going even though you don’t know exactly where you’re going. It’s like Anne Lamott wrote, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way,” a quote attributed to E.L. Doctorow. Some say the quote is good advice for writing or life, meaning you don’t need to see your destination or everything you’ll pass along the way; you just need to see a few feet ahead of you.

So, here I am, in the thick of it all—navigating the chaos, the uncertainty, the heartache. I don’t have all the answers. I’m still walking through the fog, headlights on, taking one step at a time.

I promise I’ll show up here and tell you how I got from point A to point B as soon as I’m able. I’ll do my very best to give you a roadmap for your own rough times. Right now, though, all I can offer is a peek at my wound—a glimpse into the chaotic emotional part where you question everything and relearn how to be present and who you are.

The messy middle is where real transformation happens—where you confront fears, embrace vulnerability, and grow in unexpected ways.

If you’re in your own messy middle, remember you’re not alone. Keep moving forward, even when the path is unclear. Each step, no matter how small, is progress.

My advice? Be willing to be uncomfortable. Seek truth, not judgment. Have the hard conversations, with others and yourself. Focus on the next step in front of you, and keep stepping. Just as the sweet spots didn’t last, the messy middle won’t either.