I heard this term in the past year from Glennon Doyle’s podcast (We Can Do Hard Things) and fell in love with the essence of it. When we hear about others’ experiences and perspectives, we often get their jubilant beginnings, as well as their shares and deep reflections from the end, but it’s usually dead silent in the Messy Middle.
Because no one wants to talk about how it is, how it feels, and the struggle that is happening when we’re living through the messy middle.
I love motivational keynote speeches. They often have those wise, Zen-like perspectives from someone who’s “been through it”. The things that helped them move through the challenge, the lessons they learned that are now changing their lives, their gratitude for the obstacle because it ended up being “the best thing that could have happened”. They feel hopeful, inspiring, and motivating…but sometimes they can also feel totally out of tune with what it’s like when you’re right in the middle of the muck.
What if we got to hear from those in the messy middle WHILE they were in the messy middle? To get to hear, as ones who might be in the middle ourselves, from someone else who is managing their middle. What if we could hear or see, real-time, how our fellow messy middle traversers were coping day-to-day, what they were trying, how they were managing the inevitable bumps and scrapes?
Learning from one another’s experiences through reflections are important…but I wonder if even more so it’s crucial for us to hear and experience each other from within the same stage, to know we’re not climbing those mountains alone?
