The Power of Living In-Between

I’ve always felt a quiet envy toward people who could introduce themselves with just one word."I'm a doctor.""I'm a photographer.""I'm a dancer."

There’s a kind of comfort in that, isn’t there? A clarity. A clean box you can tuck yourself into and present to the world like a polished LinkedIn headline.

That was never my story.

For years, I thought there was something wrong with me. My inability to generate myself a single label felt like failure, like I hadn’t landed anywhere, hadn’t become anything definite.

I saw others standing firmly in their professions and passions while I was still shifting, still wondering.

Now, in my fifties, I’ve come to see it differently. I no longer crave the box.

I’m grateful I never quite fit into one.

Living In-Between

Some of us live in between. Between countries and languages. Between careers. Between identities.

We live in questions, in curiosity, in what-ifs, why-nots and where-should-we-go-nexts.

When Brené Brown began publishing her research on vulnerability and courage, I remember thinking, Why is this groundbreaking? 

Why is this even interesting to people?

For me, vulnerability wasn’t a discovery, it was the raw material of my life. Courage wasn’t a choice, it was what survival quietly demanded.

I’ve started degrees and courses, some left unfinished, others completed with pride. I learned more than I ever expected, both inside and far beyond the classroom. I created homes and sold them across continents. I fell in love with people and cities I had to leave.

I built dreams in one language, only to wake up speaking another.

Somewhere between Warsaw, Chicago, India and Vancouver Island, between airports and heartbreaks, visa applications and poetry journals, I stopped asking, When will I figure it all out?

I started asking, What if this is it?

Reframing “In-Betweenness” as a Strength

Those of us who live in-between, between places, roles, languages, or cultural codes, often feel the pressure to explain ourselves. Sometimes it comes from others, sometimes from within. A quiet demand to choose. To simplify. To define.

But what if this in-betweenness isn’t something to fix or overcome, but a profound strength to reclaim?

"The ease of having an ambition is that is can be explained to others; the very disease of ambition is that it can be so easily explained to others." - David Whyte

Living in the space between things teaches us a kind of intelligence that no textbook can offer. It’s the intelligence of adaptability, the kind that lets you enter a room and quickly sense what’s not being said.

It’s the intelligence of perspective, of knowing that there’s always another way to see a situation, another side of the story.

And it’s the intelligence of creative reinvention, of knowing that even when everything falls apart, you can begin again.

We become natural bridge-builders. System-shifters. Translators of experience across boundaries.

But here's the paradox: that same strength can be isolating.

Because on the outside, we may look like we have it all together, versatile, composed, globally fluent.

While on the inside, we may still be stitching together a sense of home, of identity, of what it means to belong.

People may see our flexibility, but not the cost of continual adaptation. They may admire our independence, but miss the tenderness that comes from constant reinvention.

We carry contradiction in our bones. But instead of hiding it, maybe it's time we claim it as our edge.

The Leadership Hidden in a Nonlinear Path

What if your winding path wasn’t a detour from leadership, but the very making of it?

Every career shift, every relocation, every heartbreak and reimagining has trained you in the art of uncertainty.

Every time you started over, you were learning resilience. Every time you didn’t fit in, you were learning empathy. Every rupture that cracked you open also deepened your capacity to lead with humility and truth.

Linear paths can make strong managers. But nonlinear paths make wise leaders and change makers.

Because the world we’re navigating today, full of polarity, ambiguity, and urgent complexity, doesn’t need more (false) certainty.

It needs people who are willing to say, “I’ve been there. I’ve rebuilt. I’ve questioned everything. And I’m still here.”

This is the new kind of leadership, human, courageous, and expansive enough to hold the mess and the magic.

And perhaps, it’s time we recognize that being undefined is not just a personal journey.

It’s a public offering.

Trusting the Process (Even When It Makes No Sense)

On a good day, when I’m centred, rested, and not drowning in deadlines, I can hear a quiet voice within me. Not the anxious one that says, do more, fix this, rush faster, but another one.

Wiser. Calmer. Almost like a slightly smug old friend of my intuition.

She doesn’t yell. She simply raises an eyebrow and says:“Slow down. You don’t need to fix this right now. Just trust the process.”

Now, I’ll admit: Saying “trust the process” in a boardroom, or even a coffee chat, can sound borderline unprofessional. Like I’m avoiding responsibility or indulging in magical thinking.

But I’ve learned to recognize that voice.

It’s not passivity. It’s presence. It’s not about giving up control, it’s about the truth: giving up the illusion that control is the only path forward.

For those of us who’ve lived in-between identities, countries, and careers, trusting the process isn’t a bumper sticker. It’s survival wisdom.

It’s the art of letting life speak before we impose a plan.

It’s the moment we stop performing certainty and start listening to complexity.

Some people are comforted by strategy decks and roadmaps.

You? Perhaps you are comforted by knowing you’ve been through enough storms to sense when to act, and when to wait.

A Friendly Warning About Linear Folks (Half-Kidding, Mostly Not)

Look, I love a good spreadsheet as much as anyone. But I’ve learned to be a little suspicious of people who demand or offer tidy answers to messy questions.

If someone has a five-year plan and it actually works out, I get nervous. (That’s wizardry, or denial.)

I say this with love: Beware of the deeply linear. 

They’ll have you believing that uncertainty is a flaw, that grief is a distraction, and that if you just hustle hard enough, everything will align.

But those of us who’ve danced with change know otherwise. We know that some truths arrive late. That some answers only reveal themselves once you’ve stopped looking. And that sometimes the most professional thing you can do…is pause.

Trust the process. (Just maybe don’t open your next team meeting with it.)

The Power of Not Fitting In

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t fit, you’re not failing. You’re forging. If you’ve ever felt lost between countries, careers, or selves, maybe you’re simply living the questions that others haven’t dared to ask yet.

You are not too much. You are not too scattered. You are not broken.

You are not one word, and that is your power.

A Reflection

So, I’ll ask you, fellow traveler:

• Where in your life have you felt undefined?

• What wisdom lives in the in-between spaces you’ve walked?

• And what would it feel like to stop chasing clarity, and start trusting complexity?

  
  

Because maybe you, too, were never meant to arrive.

Maybe you were meant to expand.

Maybe the work is not to define yourself once and for all, but to become friends with the process of unfolding.

To fall in love with not being finished, not being polished, not being wrapped up neatly. There is space to reclaim, within us and around us, and that is a good thing. That is how we thrive.

If this resonated with you and you're navigating your own in-between space, I invite you to explore what’s possible through coaching. I'd be honored to walk alongside you as you embrace the power of not fitting in.

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Hi, I’m Monika, Strengths Coach and facilitator. I help individuals and groups cultivate resilience, emotional intelligence, and well-being through strengths-based coaching. Passionate about transformative and creative leadership, I empower leaders to drive meaningful change within themselves, their organizations, and beyond.

I hope you’ll visit often, and I look forward to connecting and working together!