The Loneliness Between Who You Were and Who You’re Becoming
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
DK Hillard/Artist - Author - Sacred Guide
There’s a quiet space that opens when life as you knew it begins to dissolve. It’s not quite grief, not quite freedom — something in between. You’ve let go of who you were, but you haven’t yet arrived at who you’re becoming.
That space can feel unbearably lonely.
Friends may drift away. The things that used to bring joy no longer reach you. You watch the world continue to spin — people laughing, working, striving — and you feel as if you’re standing on the edge, watching life move on without you.
What makes it harder is that no one seems to understand. You try to explain what you’re going through, but the words don’t come easily. The truth feels too deep, too strange, too tender to translate. And even if you could explain, you’re not sure anyone could meet you there.
The people who’ve known you the longest still see the old version of you — the capable one, the strong one, the one who always had it together. They keep talking to that woman, not realizing she’s gone. You love them, but being around them makes the ache sharper. You can’t relate to the life you had before, or the people in it.
You’ve outgrown the story, but the new one hasn’t yet arrived.
No one really talks about this part of transformation. We speak of awakening as light and clarity, but before the light comes, there is the void — the sacred pause between identities. And for many women in the second half of life, this space can stretch wide. Children leave home, bodies change, careers shift, relationships evolve or end. The scaffolding that once held our sense of self begins to crumble, and what’s left is an echo: Who am I now?
When I was there, the silence was deafening. My body ached with emptiness. My mind searched for answers that didn’t exist yet. I felt invisible — as though I’d stepped out of the frame of my own life.
At first, I tried to fill the space: to stay busy, to seek connection, to fix the loneliness. But the more I reached outward, the further away I felt from myself. It wasn’t until I stopped resisting the solitude that something began to shift.
Loneliness, I discovered, is not a punishment. It’s a portal.
It invites us to meet ourselves again — not as we were, but as we are now. It strips away the noise, the roles, the constant proving, and brings us face to face with the truth of our being.
In that quiet, I began to hear the faintest whispers of my soul. They didn’t come as answers, but as sensations — a longing to create, a pull toward color, sound, movement. I started painting again, not to produce something beautiful, but to let what was unspoken move through me. Slowly, I began to recognize myself in those gestures — the woman beneath the expectations, the one who simply was.
That’s the paradox of loneliness: when we finally stop fighting it, it begins to transform.The emptiness becomes fertile ground. The silence becomes sacred space.
So if you find yourself standing in this threshold — not who you were, not yet who you’re becoming — please know this: you’re not alone. Every woman who has ever transformed has stood in this same tender space.
It’s okay to rest here. To breathe. To listen. To let the loneliness teach you what belonging really means.
Because this is where your new life begins — not in the certainty of who you’ll be, but in the courage to stand in the mystery of who you already are.
If these words find you in that in-between, know that this space is not empty — it’s sacred. I’ll be sharing more about how loneliness became my teacher, and how creativity helped me find home inside myself again. This is a path where loneliness can be the bridge between who you were and who you are becoming.
I would be honored to walk along side you on your path to who you are becoming. My work is Soul Woven©, The Living Art of Remembering Who You Are.
Contact me at any of the links below.
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