Finding Clarity in the Void: My 5-Month Journey Through Liminal Space | Entrepreneur Chronicles #15

For weeks, I woke up in Thailand with no purpose, nothing to work on. For the first time in 13 years, I had no job, no business, no idea what came next. That empty morning feeling, it was disturbing in a way I'd never experienced.

📸 Black Lake, Montenegro 🇲🇪, July 2025

Let me take you back to how I got there. From roughly November 2024 to March 2025, I felt completely lost.

In November, I made the decision not to carry on with my previous business, our online yoga school.

Even though it felt like the right thing to do, it wasn't an easy decision. It had been brewing for nearly two months. This was my first time building something successful online. It represented three years of intense work.

It wasn't just me involved. We worked with other people. I knew this decision would impact others. I'd never had this kind of responsibility before, and I'd never been taught anything about handling it.

I felt disoriented, confused, lost, anxious, stressed, tense.

This isn't normal for me. I'm not like that at all. It takes a lot to stress me out.

Here, I couldn't help it. 😰

The Weight Lifts

After making the final decision in November, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders.

I called a good friend to talk about how I was feeling, and what came out of this conversation was a new opportunity.

To satisfy my need and desire to always be on the go, I jumped on the wagon. I invested my time in this new project, took online courses, learned, and dove in.

Soon after, I went home to France for my birthday and Christmas. I didn't have much time to linger over the situation and how I felt.

Between this new project and seeing family and friends, I was distracted from what just happened and left it behind.

Early 2025, reality caught up. This new opportunity didn't materialize as expected and ended abruptly. I found myself in Thailand with plenty of time on my plate, not knowing what to do with it all.

The sense of confusion and being lost came back.

That's when I started taking this newsletter more seriously, I didn't know what else to do.

Back to Square Zero

From January to March, I felt as lost as ever from a professional perspective.

No job.

No more business of my own.

No opportunity in sight.

Shit.

I felt in an even worse position than I was four years prior when I quit my full-time job in April 2021, at least then I had something going and was making some money.

I was back to square one, which felt like square zero to me.

It sucked. 😔

I felt pulled in two directions.

On one side, I felt the pressure to get something new going to make money. We have savings, we don't want to use them to sustain our travels.

On the other side, I felt it was the first time in my life and career that I was given a chance to rest, pause, slow down, and actually take time to think my next step through. When I graduated in September 2011, I got a job two weeks later, and since then I never stopped.

That was my first time being jobless and "businessless" ever.

I wanted to take advantage of that, just take a few weeks for myself, see what would come up.

It was hard. The other side, the "I need to make money" side, was winning.

I shared in a previous newsletter that I was questioning my path as an entrepreneur and considering taking a job.

While this was happening, I landed a freelance gig with my former employer, which gave us some breathing room financially for a few months.

With Rosie's support, I took some time.

Understanding Liminal Space

After going through this rollercoaster, I saw a video from Ali Abdaal talking about liminal space.

I understood that's exactly where I was for five months.

"Liminal space refers to a transitional or in-between state often characterized by feelings of uncertainty, ambiguity, and unease. It's a threshold between one state and another, neither here nor there. Liminal spaces can be literal locations like hallways, waiting rooms, or abandoned places, or they can be metaphorical periods in life like adolescence, grief, or career changes. While often unsettling, liminal spaces can also be periods of significant personal growth and transformation."

Bang on. I called it "the void," that's exactly where I was and how I felt.

Sitting With the Discomfort

Here's what made this period so challenging: we live in a culture that praises over-achievers and productivity gurus. We measure success by outcomes. Sitting there "doing nothing" feels completely unnatural, especially if you're ambitious. It goes against everything we're conditioned to do.

As humans, we tend to brush uncomfortable things under the carpet instead of facing them. No one likes to feel uncomfortable, why would we sit with it? We want to rush through this phase. I know it because I'm a problem-solver. I want to fix things. It was really hard to not rush to solve this equation and let it solve itself instead.

I accepted where I was and what was happening.

I did my best to sit with the discomfort.

In the void.

What did "surrender" look like day-to-day? I didn't force myself or put pressure on myself to do something for the sake of doing. I woke up for weeks without knowing what to do professionally. I decided to accept this state and let it be for now.

The only thing I did was write this newsletter, which probably helped me process things. I kept going with my daily meditation practice. I read fiction books. I consumed some business-related content that could spark creativity and ideas, but I wasn't forcing it. I also took time to accept what happened with the school. I mourned this wonderful chapter of my life and career.

I had an idea emerging during this period. Something I'd thought about in the past. Something related to helping others live their best life.

It remained blurry. It wasn't clear in my head.

Then suddenly, at some point in March, the fog started to lift and things started to make sense. I was starting to envision something.

It wasn't a grand epiphany moment. I didn't wake up one morning enlightened.

I think I had unconsciously planted many seeds in my head for a long time, and taking those few weeks to slow down without having my head buried in any projects gave a chance to one of them to finally germinate and grow. 🌱

Sometimes, the clarity comes from the slowing down. That let me develop something out of intention instead of necessity, scarcity, or desperation.

The Pieces Come Together

The first piece was the intentional living coaching.

Shortly after, my consulting offer came up (it evolved since the first iteration, the core idea remains the same).

And finally, the web design.

While I developed those offers, I took a lot of time to think deeply about why I want to do this, who I want to serve, how I will communicate about it, etc.

I got very clear in my head about what this new chapter would be.

I knew I was onto something when it felt right within me, deep in my core, and at the same time a friend told me, "This is exactly what I and so many others need. You'll be great at this!"

Suddenly, I wasn't scared or uncomfortable about marketing myself, having discovery/sales calls, etc. All those things that I always hated and thought I was bad at disappeared.

I believed in what I was creating, and I was able to create it with intention. That changed the game.

It's hard to describe what clarity felt like when it came, it just felt right in me. I didn't feel I was creating a business or an offer to get people's money, I felt I actually had something that could help people, and money would come as a result. It's a very inward feeling, hard to put into words.

I realized that everything I'd been doing for years was coming together. Courses or books I bought years ago about business, marketing, positioning, creating offers, coaching. All the work I'd done with the yoga school in the backend, helping others. All the relationships I'd built over the years.

It all clicked. ✨

Since April, I've never felt this good about anything I'd done professionally.

I'm working for myself and by myself, helping people I genuinely want to help on things I'm passionate about. It feels amazing!

If You Find Yourself Here

If you ever find yourself in such a strange space: surrender. Let yourself be there. It will be hard, uncomfortable, icky.

Because this experience is so hard, going against our cultural conditioning, few people allow themselves to go through this period and experience the growth and transformation that can come from it.

The thing is, I'm not sure you can recognize liminal space while you're in it. I think I'm pretty self-aware, I didn't realize it until I was out of it. If you're wondering whether you're in "healthy liminal space" or just stuck, that's a great question I honestly can't fully answer. I think it's more of a feeling than anything else. If you're wrestling with this, I'd love to chat with you, saying things out loud helps process them, and hearing another perspective can be valuable.

If you do take the time necessary, I believe something powerful will come out of it.

The void isn't empty, it's full of potential waiting to emerge. 🚀

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👉 This is part of my Entrepreneur Chronicles—real stories, real lessons. Dive into the full series here.