Lori Williams | A Liminal Space

Tag: belonging

  • Come As You Are

    “The ancient practice of visio divina, or sacred seeing, invites us to look deeply at a word, a symbol, or a scene, allowing it to penetrate our senses and spirit, then listening for what it might reveal to us.” This is a quote from a book I started reading recently by Chad Jarnagin, The Congruent…

  • On Belonging Without a Baseline

    Some people don’t lose belonging — they never had a baseline for it to begin with. This is a reflection on what that absence feels like, why it isn’t a flaw, and what it takes to start recognizing belonging without a reference point to measure it against.

  • Toxic Systems and Why You Were Never the Problem

    You were taught your needs were too much — that staying small was safety, and asking for anything meant risking not being wanted. This is about the toxic systems that teach us that, and what real belonging actually feels like instead.

  • Relief Isn’t Always Healing

    Sometimes the way we think about healing is the very thing keeping us from it. A reflection on spiritual bypassing, the difference between relief and real healing, and what it looks like to finally witness our own pain.

  • The Pirate in the Mirror: What Backrooms Knows About the Rooms We’re Afraid to Enter

    I watched Backrooms on vacation and couldn’t stop thinking about one image — a giant in a pirate costume, his face twisted in absolute misery. I recognized that look. I’d seen it in my own mirror. What this film knows about the rooms we’re afraid to enter might surprise you.

  • The Lure and the Magnet: Why You Keep Getting Pulled Toward the Wrong Rooms

    Sometimes we get lost trying to find our way home. If you’ve ever walked away from a community wondering what was wrong with you — this is for you. There is nothing wrong with you. You’re just someone who was paying close attention.

  • Overcoming Religious Trauma: The Theology of Self-Trust

    Self-distrust doesn’t arrive all at once. It gets installed — quietly, systematically, by systems that need you not to trust yourself in order to keep you close.

  • Are We Human or Are We Dancer?

    Are we living from something true and rooted in us, or are we moving to someone else’s rhythm without even knowing it? I spent years dancing to a beat that wasn’t mine — convinced it was leading me home. This is what I learned about systems that use our deepest needs to keep us in…

  • The People Who Stay: Why Friendship Is the Love Story We Keep Missing

    **Slug:** the-people-who-stay-friendship-love-story — **Excerpt:** We were taught that romantic love is the answer — the thing that will complete us, save us, prove our worth. But what if the most nourishing love story of your life has been unfolding quietly beside you all along, in the people who simply stayed? This is a post about…

  • What If I’d Driven Away? Learning Self-Compassion When You Can’t Forgive Your Own Choices

    What if one different choice could have changed everything? Through the lens of a moment sitting outside a church in a minivan, this post explores what it really means to stop punishing yourself, listen to the parts of you that are exhausted, and discover that self-compassion — not self-criticism — is the only way forward.…