About 6 years ago, I moved to the town where my father grew up. In his day, it was known for its racial intolerance. As polarization has intensified - that veil has grown thinner.
Some days it’s unmistakable.
Fear. Mistrust. Hostility.
It sits in the air.
The women I work with every day feel it too.
There’s a heaviness running in the background of our world right now.
But that’s not the whole truth.
It’s just the loudest part.
There is also kindness, compassion, and love.
Today as my husband and I walked the trolley line near our home, we were stopped by a group of men, up to their ankles in mud, replacing the railroad ties on the old trolley tracks. The guy who stopped us was probably in his late 60s or early 70s, but he looked like he could have been around since the days when the trolley was a mode of transportation rather than a glimpse into the past.
He asked if we would stop and take their picture and handed Paul a beaten up old iphone. I wish I had my own phone with me because I would have loved to have had a copy of this picture for myself.
There were about a dozen of them, all volunteers, representing every race and generation old enough (but not too old - even if just barely) to hold a shovel. They were laughing, kidding each other, and clearly proud to be photographed preserving this historic piece of the past.
Paul, who had been grumpy when we set out, looked like he did in his twenties. He stepped fully into the muck to get a good angle, rearranging them so each was somehow showcased - 12 beaming men, unified in spirit and purpose.
A crisp breeze kissed my cheeks.
I felt heady and oddly awed.
I stood there for a moment longer than I needed to.
You’ve probably heard the old story Mr. Rogers told about his mother.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words… and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.”
I’ve been thinking about why that quote has endured the way it has. I think it’s because it works (at least in the moment).
You look for the helpers.
You find them.
Something shifts.
And then life rushes back in.
Mr. Rogers gave us a lifeline. What most of us haven’t figured out yet is how to weave it into a rope.
Because most of us only reach for it when things feel overwhelming.
We look for the good.
We feel the shift.
And then we go back to scanning for what’s wrong.
Back to the noise.
Back to the tension.
Back to trying to manage everything we’re feeling.
That’s the pattern. It’s not that we don’t know where to look. It’s that we don’t stay there long enough for it to change us.
A moment of relief isn’t the same as a shift in how we see the world. And without that shift, nothing really changes.
This is the work I find myself doing with women over and over again right now.
Not helping them “stay positive.”
Not asking them to ignore what’s hard or real.
But helping them learn how to hold both.
To see clearly what’s heavy and what’s still good - what’s not working and what is quietly, steadily supporting them. Because when you can do that, everything shifts.
You stop reacting to whatever is loudest.
And you start choosing where your attention goes.
That’s where steadiness comes from.
Not from pretending things are okay.
From no longer being pulled around by every signal of what isn’t.
And from there, the way you move through your life changes.
You stop getting pulled all the way under.
The moment still hits.
The reaction still starts.
But you know how to bring yourself back. More quickly. More reliably.
Until calm isn’t something you wait for.
It’s something you can create.
You make decisions from a different place.
You stop over-functioning in response to everything around you.
You trust yourself more.
That’s what turns a moment into something you can stand on.
That’s the rope.
If this feels familiar - if you can feel both the heaviness and the part of you that knows there’s more than that - you’re not alone in it.
This is the kind of thing we slow down and look at inside Liminal.
Not to escape what’s happening.
But to see it clearly enough that you can move differently inside it.
If you’re in that space, you can explore Liminal here.
And if you want to share, what part of this felt most familiar?