Why the In-Between Feels Safer Than Change | Midlife Coaching

Last week, I shared a reflection on what happens when we stay in the in-between too long — when a pause becomes a hiding place.

I didn’t expect the response it received. So many of you replied. Some with tears. Some with deep recognition. Some with quiet questions you hadn’t said out loud yet.

One woman said, "I didn’t realise how much I needed this today.”  She told me she was wrestling with the idea of leaving a job that’s become too much. She thought she was someone who could handle it — but suddenly, she realised she didn’t want to keep handling it. She wanted to stop surviving and start choosing.

Another person wrote to say that change feels too risky. They feel lost. Unsure of what happiness even looks like anymore.

And I want to pause right there — because that is real - especially in midlife.

That fear. That frozen feeling. That “I want something else, but I don’t know what it is — and I don’t trust myself to find it.”

Here’s the thing no one talks about in midlife:

The in-between often feels safer than the change.

Yes, it’s confusing. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. But it’s known.

It asks nothing more than to stay still.

Change, on the other hand, requires movement.

Action. Letting go. Risking something.

If you’ve already been through burnout, illness, loss, or upheaval — of course you hesitate. Of course part of you wants to stay in the “not-quite” place where at least no one expects you to leap.

But hiding in the in-between doesn’t bring you back to yourself.

It just delays the return.

So what’s the next step?

Not a leap.

Not a reinvention.

Just a small, honest act of self-trust.

• Saying no to something that exhausts you

• Admitting out loud that you’ve outgrown something

• Making space for the version of you that wants more ease, more truth, more you.

  
  

You’re not behind.

You’re not broken.

You’re just standing at the edge of your next beginning.

If the in-between is starting to feel more like a hiding place than a healing one…

What’s one thing you’re willing to release this week — even if it’s just the belief that you’re stuck?

You’re not stuck.

You're just becoming.

This is the work.

This is Owning Being You™.