Finding Grace in the Space

It is still dark outside so this week’s coffee is strong, because I’ve been thinking about something I do all the time in my work but rarely pause to do in my own life.

When I’m brought into a change management situation—new systems, new technology, new ways of working—the very first thing I do is an assessment.

• Where are we now?
• What’s working?
• What’s not?
• What meaning are people attaching to what’s happening?

Future state in those business situations is usually already mapped: we know the new platform, the end goal, the timeline. The challenge isn’t about what’s coming. It’s about the people or process. About the stories they’re telling themselves about what it means.

“Will this make my role irrelevant?”

“Will I be left behind?”

“Will I be able to learn this fast enough?”

The stories matter, because the meaning we assign to change determines whether we resist, avoid, or lean in.

Finding Grace in the Space

This week, I was reminded of this in a different context—sitting with my therapist, Grace. (Yes, her actual name is Grace, which feels like a little wink from the universe every time we meet.) She’s been such an important guide for me, helping me notice what I can’t always see on my own.

At one point, she asked me a simple but powerful question:

“What gets in the way?”

As she explained how she uses that in moments of transition, I felt it land in my body. This is what I do at work. Assessing. Asking what’s in the way of where we are now and where we want to go. That resonance became the seed for this week’s post.

The First 48 Hours

What I noticed in the first 48 hours of being in a quiet house was that the things I thought were “getting in the way” — scrolling my phone, over-planning, even feeling restless — were actually the gold.

Each choice I made wasn’t proof of success or failure, but a signal.

• The phone meant I was avoiding something inside.
• The planning meant my mind was reaching for control.
• The restlessness wasn’t resistance at all—it was energy trying to move.

Even the heaviness in my chest was a story begging to be questioned.

What I realized is that the moment I wanted to numb was actually the threshold of presence—the exact spot where my Strategist and my Truth-Teller could meet. That space is the bridge, and if I can stay there a little longer, I start to see the possibility that lives on the other side of my stories.

The Assessment We Skip

Here’s where it gets interesting—on the personal side, we don’t always know the future state. We might only know we want to grow, or that something old isn’t working anymore.

And instead of pausing to really assess our current state, we leap one step ahead and try to force a new plan.

I did this myself recently. I had already written a story in my head about what being alone would mean and feel like. I hadn’t been on my own in years, and without realizing it, I had made “alone” synonymous with “lonely.”

I had assigned meaning to something I hadn’t even experienced yet.

That meaning wasn’t truth…it was a story. And stories are powerful. They can hold progress back just as much as any broken system at work.

What I’m Sitting With

• We are always making meaning, whether at work or in our own hearts.
• The ego loves to jump in, protecting us with worst-case interpretations.
• The human component—the part of us caught between doing and being—is often where the real transformation is waiting.

So What

Not knowing the future state is what kept me from using what I already know as a resource. And yet—not knowing is also part of the human experience. We aren’t supposed to know our ending. That’s the point of living each day and staying in awe of life.

But for a Type A planner like me, not knowing can feel deeply uncomfortable. My Strategist wants the clarity, the checklist, the certainty. My Truth-Teller reminds me that grace only arrives when I can sit in the space without a plan, long enough to let life show me what’s next.

That tension—the pull between order and surrender—is the very space I hold for others in my day job. For teams navigating politics, career aspirations, and big goals inside strategic projects, I’ve learned that grace in the space means creating enough room for people to be uncomfortable, while still believing in the possibility of what’s on the other side.

The irony is, I do this so naturally for others—helping teams and leaders pause, reflect, and see what’s really in the way. The harder part is remembering to guide myself with the same compassion.

And maybe that’s the “so what” for me too: finding grace in the space is less about solving for the future, and more about allowing myself to live into it.

I won’t pretend it’s easy. Some days I still reach for the checklist before I reach for grace. But maybe that’s the practice.

So maybe this week, we both practice it—notice where we rush to the ending, and choose instead to find grace in the space of not knowing.

Until next Sunday—

I’ll be practicing the assessment I so easily do at work, but this time, turning the lens inward.