When Your Internal GPS Goes Offline
How Transition Impacts You
The Struggle with In-Between Times
There is a strange in-between time in life that can feel haunting.
You aren’t sure what’s around the corner. You hear strange voices in your head you can’t identify. The road divides and you have no idea where either path leads. You feel suspended between what was and what might be.
It’s an unsettling place to live.
This is the chrysalis stage.
The period after the caterpillar—but before the butterfly.
From the outside, the chrysalis looks inactive. Still. Quiet. Nothing much happening.
But inside?
Everything is reorganizing.
The caterpillar is literally dissolving before it becomes something new.
Transformation is exhausting because something old is ending before something new has fully formed.
And that phase is rarely acknowledged for what it is.
We tend to think something is wrong with us when we feel uncertain, indecisive, emotional, disconnected from ourselves. We tell ourselves we should have clarity already. We should know what we’re doing. We should “snap out of it.”
But maybe this phase isn’t dysfunction.
Maybe it’s development.
What if You Force It?
Here’s the thing about the butterfly: if you see it struggling to emerge from the chrysalis, your instinct might be to help. You want to relieve the struggle. Ease the transition. Pull away pieces of the shell so the butterfly can get free faster.
But interfering with the process destroys the butterfly.
It needs the struggle to be strong enough to survive on the outside.
The pressure of pushing its way out strengthens the wings enough for flight.
You cannot rush transformation. Rushing destroys the outcome. Human transitions work the same way.
Divorce. Empty nest. Retirement. Reinvention. Grief. Career change. Illness. Loss.
There are seasons where your old identity no longer fits, but your new identity hasn’t fully formed yet.
And those in-between spaces can feel terrifying because you no longer recognize yourself.
You aren’t who you were.
But you aren’t yet who you’re becoming either.
That doesn’t mean you are lost.
It means you are in transition.
Power In Naming It
There’s power in naming it.
When we say:
“I’m in transition.”
we give the experience validity.
It shifts the internal dialogue from:
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
to: “I am becoming someone new, and that takes time.”
That shift matters.
Because when we don’t understand what’s happening to us, we often panic. We mistake transition for failure. We think our uncertainty means we are weak, broken, lazy, or wasting time.
But the chrysalis is not wasted time.
It is necessary time.
And perhaps the reason this stage feels so disorienting is because identity change is profound work. It takes time to change how you see yourself. It takes time to loosen old patterns, old roles, old ways of moving through the world.
Especially for women.
So many women spend years being needed by everyone else that when life changes—when the children leave, the marriage shifts, the career ends—they suddenly feel untethered.
Not because they have failed.
But because the structure that defined them is gone.
And now comes the deeper question:
Who Am I Now?
That question cannot always be answered immediately.
Sometimes it has to be lived.
Slowly.
Patiently.
One decision, one realization, one boundary, one new choice at a time.
Giving yourself grace during this process changes the experience entirely.
Because maybe this strange, uncomfortable, uncertain phase isn’t proof that you are falling apart.
Maybe it’s proof that you are changing.
And maybe the reason you don’t fully recognize yourself right now… is because the old version of you no longer fits and the new one hasn’t fully arrived.
Today’s Tarot Nook
Knight of Wands Reversed
I pulled the Knight of Wands Reversed. The Wands are about passion, movement, creative drive. I think about will power and direction when I’m looking at wands. Reversed turns this inside.
One of the hardest parts of transition is the urge to force movement before clarity arrives. We become restless. We want answers. Direction. Momentum. We want to feel like ourselves again.
But sometimes the reason forward motion feels difficult is because something deeper is still reorganizing beneath the surface.
Don’t confuse MOTION with alignment. Lack of clarity isn’t failure, you just aren’t fully formed yet. Your GPS is disconnected and needs time.
Give yourself the grace you need and time. Whatever you are going through now, allow yourself to be at this stage. Don’t rush it. Take the time you need.
Have a great weekend!
If you want a private tarot reading, let me know! I am available for private consultations.
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