Welcome to May We Gather - Week 3

Last week, we went into the ending. We named what's being lost — the roles, the identities, the versions of ourselves being left behind. We held our objects. We made our lists of what we’ve lost and what we’re taking with us. We honored what's over and claimed what remains.

This week, we're working with the second phase of the Bridges model: The Neutral Zone.

What Is the Neutral Zone?

The neutral zone is the in-between. It's the place after the ending but before the new beginning. The old has loosened its hold, but the new hasn't arrived yet. You're not who you were. You're not yet who you're becoming. You're somewhere in the middle — and that middle has its own particular kind of discomfort.

Bridges describes it as a wilderness. It’s a necessary terrain; it’s not a place you can pass through quickly. It asks something of you, and if you answer, it can give something back to you too.

We often treat the neutral zone like a problem to be solved. We treat it as though our goal is to get through it as fast as possible, to get legs under us quickly. We’re uncomfortable not knowing where and when we will get to where we’re going. We’re uncomfortable with being in process.

But Bridges is clear: the neutral zone is not to be feared! It's where the most important transformation happens. And not the outward kind — not the new job, the new relationship, the new chapter. The invisible kind. The slow, underground work of becoming someone new. The seed doesn't become a flower overnight. The caterpillar does not rush out of the cocoon. The neutral zone is where you are being remade and reshaped, even when it doesn't feel like anything is happening. Maybe especially then.

What It Feels Like to Be Here

The neutral zone can be uncomfortable, and sometimes we mistake discomfort as something being wrong. You might feel disoriented or unmoored., like you've lost your footing and can't quite find it again even though you’re really, really trying. You might feel flat — not sad exactly, but not quite alive either. You might feel simultaneously restless and exhausted. You might feel like you're waiting for something, but you don't know what that something is.

You might feel creative in ways that surprise you or drawn to things you haven't thought about in years. You might feel curious about directions you'd never considered before. The neutral zone, for all its discomfort, is also a place of unusual openness — because the old structures have loosened, there's room for things to emerge that couldn't be there before.

Underground, invisibly, something is taking shape. The roots are going deeper. The seeds are beginning to stir. You are not stuck here. You are composting the old to make fertile ground for the new.

You Have Been Here Before

One of the most heartening, grounding things about the neutral zone is that you’ve been here before. Every major transition you have ever moved through had a neutral zone — a time of not-knowing, becoming. Some of these transitions may have been bigger than others, hurt more, took more time. But they have one thing in common — you came through it.

Your own history is evidence. Whatever emerged on the other side of your past transitions — the clarity, the new direction, the unexpected opening — it came through the neutral zone. It always does!

This week, we're going to spend some time with that history. And we're going to begin, gently, to listen for what wants to emerge from this one.

What You Might Be Feeling Right Now

The neutral zone has its own emotional texture.

  • A sense of suspension — like you're waiting, but you don't know what for

  • Restlessness alongside exhaustion — wanting to move, but not knowing which direction

  • Moments of unexpected aliveness — a new interest, a sudden curiosity, something pulling at your attention

  • Anxiety about not having a plan, a timeline, a clear next step

  • A loosening of your old sense of self — the feeling that who you were no longer fits, but who you're becoming isn't clear yet

  • Surprising creativity — ideas, images, dreams that feel like they're coming from somewhere deeper than usual

  • Loneliness — the neutral zone can feel profoundly isolating, like no one around you understands why you haven't "moved on" yet

  • A tentative hopefulness — just a flicker — that something good is taking shape

All of this is normal and belongs here.

The Found Object Ritual

This week I want to invite you into a slightly different ritual before you fill in the form. Go for a short walk — even just around the block, even just into your backyard or garden. Go slowly. Without a destination or a podcast or music blaring in your ears or a plan.

As you walk, look for something on the ground that catches your eye. This might be a stone, a feather, a fallen branch, a leaf, a seed pod. Something that calls to you — you'll know it when you see it. Trust the first thing that pulls your attention.

Pick it up and hold it. This is your neutral zone object for this week. It represents where you are right now. In the wilderness, no destination, staying open to what is out there.

Bring it back inside with you. Place it in front of you. Think about what this object might represent for you. Then fill in the form from that place.

Here's an example from my own life:

I was at a coaching retreat in Millerton, NY — four straight days of rigorous somatic coursework with a cohort of people I didn't know that well. I had already decided, privately, that I wanted to leave The Spark. But I hadn't told anyone yet. So I was carrying that secret alongside everything else — the uncertainty, the discomfort, the not-knowing what would come next.

One afternoon I slipped away to take a walk on a nearby trail, just to clear my head. I wasn't looking for anything. But along the path I found a pussy willow — a tiny, soft bud, just beginning to open. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

I kept it there for the rest of the retreat. I'd reach for it during exercises that felt hard, or when the feelings got big. Something about its smallness — its quiet promise of something not yet arrived — felt exactly right for where I was in that moment.

I brought it home and put it on my altar. It stayed there for weeks — a reminder of that moment on the trail, of the feeling of standing at the edge of something unknown and choosing to stay with it rather than rush past it. That's the neutral zone. You don't have to know what you're becoming. You just have to stay in the process.