“…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.”
― Mark Nepo
Playing in the Tensions of the Mushy Middle
Playing in the Tensions of the Mushy Middle
How to Expand Your Capacity in the "Cocoon" to Move with Life for More Impact, Freedom and Meaning.
How to Expand Your Capacity in the "Cocoon" to Move
with Life for More Impact, Freedom and Meaning.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
Hey, fellow pupa!
Have you realised that you can no longer think your way out of the cocoon?
Whether you’re navigating:
- A change in life stage like parenthood, empty nest, menopause or retirement.
- Identity transitions or spiritual awakening.
- Living with an illness, loss or grief.
- A job or career change…
Transitions can be quite frustrating and confusing.
Especially the messy or mushy middle, where, like the caterpillar, you might experience that the old you is ending, but you don’t yet know who you are becoming.
In this place, you might feel stuck, lost, confused, and excited.
It is tempting to think we can think or read our way out of this place. While it can be helpful to learn from others’ cocoon experiences, the reality is that each transition is unique and you need to find your own way through the messy unknown.
Given that life plays out as a tangle (or is that tango?) of transitions, much of our time is spent in these mushy middle parts.
So, learning to find your way through is a critical life skill.
Finding your way: Expand your repertoire by going beyond your mind into the wisdom of your body.
The good news is that humans have been navigating the unknown for centuries, and there are wisdom traditions we can tap into. They teach us that the cocoon is a place of endings AND beginnings.
The unknown might seem scary, but it is the birthplace of possibility.
Finding your way involves accepting the discomfort and confusion of being in a difficult place and reconnecting with other, lesser-used sources of wisdom, particularly the wisdom of the body.
By tapping into different forms of intelligence, such as intuition, and paying attention to the signs around us, we can shift from feeling stuck and restricted to a state of expansion and possibility.
This is what we will be exploring together.
While this journey will undoubtedly challenge and enrich your mind, our focus will be on reorienting by tapping into more spheres of intelligence—specifically our bodies and our intuition, and then creating movement and momentum.
The “cocoon” experience becomes rich and generative, filled with possibility. A place from which we co-create the future and impact we desire.
In this 75-minute Somatic Waysfinding taster experience*, Sonja Blignaut & Mirjam van Vliet will guide you to:
- Tap into the wisdom of your body to orient yourself & lean into what’s available now.
- Safely discover and explore the direction you feel drawn towards.
- Feel the potentiality of the present.
- Explore potential first steps.
The Somatic Waysfinding taster experience took place on 23 July at 3 pm CEST.
You can purchase the audio replay for €19.
The WaysFinder Framework
The WaysFinder framework is a practical compass that helps you befriend the unknown and navigate the mushy middle part of life’s transitions.
It’s deeply rooted in various theories and practices, including complexity theory, anthropology, and mindfulness.
At first glance, it is a deceptively simple framework, but this simplicity is what makes it impactful.
Just like the famed butterfly effect requires movement (the flapping of the butterfly’s wings), impact requires us to move – even if we take small steps. The framework enables continuous movement through small experimental actions, helping us create momentum and expansion: taking flight.
Since life is made up of transitions, and every transition opens up new, unexplored horizons and edges, you will use these Wayfinding skills drawn from the wisdom of wayfinding traditions like the Polynesians, Khoi San and Inuit over and over again.
Your WaysFinding guides
Sonja Blignaut
Sonja Blignaut helps individuals and organizations thrive in uncertainty, making complexity thinking accessible. Her WaysFinder framework is designed to help individuals and teams navigate life’s transitions and uncertainties.
Sonja is the founder of More Beyond, co-founder of ComplexityFit and a globally sought-after teacher and speaker who has worked with many well-known brands around the world.
For a deeper understanding of Sonja’s work and its impact, we invite you to explore more about her here.
Mirjam van Vliet
Mirjam van Vliet is an experienced marketer & entrepreneur who helps positive impact organisations, coaches and facilitators create meaningful impact to thrive in uncertainty. She started her career at Microsoft as an external consultant and moved to South Africa in 2008.
With 15+ years of experience she combines traditional marketing methods with improv, embodiment & mindfulness practices. She has the ability to flow ideas into execution almost seamlessly.
Mirjam combines her extensive marketing knowledge with a real passion for all things human. You can read more about her work here
Deepen your WaysFinding practice and join us for a 6-week embodied journey.
Deepen your WaysFinding practice and join us for a 6-week embodied journey.
Learn the skills & scaffolding to become the HERO in your own story.
Our “pitch” is not a pre-determined path. Every path is unique, so we can’t encourage you to follow our journey or path. But we’ve navigated enough transitions to discover the skills and scaffolding that will enable you to do this for yourself.
Think of it this way. In all the stories we love, the iconic hero’s journeys like The Lord of the Rings or The Matrix, there is no pre-determined path to follow; the mentor offers the call: Morpheus offers the choice to take the red pill; Gandalf tells Frodo that the One Ring must be destroyed. But the choice to go on the journey and find their way to answer the call is entirely up to Frodo and Neo. They are the ones in control of their destiny. But they didn’t do it alone; they had fellowships or groups of friends.
What we offer is a scaffold to clarify the call and guide you to find your way, the skills you need to navigate the journey, and a supportive community of fellow WaysFinders to share the journey. You are not alone in this.
The skills we will cover are:
- How to get unstuck.
- Reorienting whenever you are feeling lost.
- Having a better sense of where you are.
- Setting a direction that feels alive.
- Determining where you don’t want to go.
- Feeling safe and empowered to find and explore adjacent possibilities.
- Flowing more naturally with change and harness the potential in the unknown.
- Maintaining momentum without knowing the outcome.
- Moving from making sense to making an impact.
- Experiencing joy, awe and wonder in the process.
In short, navigate any situation with “alertness of mind; wakefulness of the heart; attuned in the spirit, grounded in the belly” like the Wayfinders of old*.
Our somatic approach will ensure you can use these skills to anchor into your body anytime and regulate your nervous system responses to the messy unknown.
We will guide you to:
- Scaffold your journey with the Waysfinder framework.
- Cultivate presence. Learn to see the future in the present moment and move from a place of stillness, not reactivity.
- Reframe your relationship with the unknown and transition. Shift from resistance into flow.
- Tap into Sphere Intelligence – expand your repertoire beyond the mind into the wisdom of your body.
- Reconnect with desire and possibility.
- Rediscover your agency and options.
- Play at the edges and expand your horizon.
- Maintain momentum: explore, experiment, impact.
- Navigate Cycles of Expansion and celebrate who you are becoming (not only arrival).
Early bird offer expires 30 July 11:59 pm CEST
This is for you if you
- Want to dive into the emergent flow of an unfolding world fully embodied, with all your senses open and alive.
- Want to expand beyond feeling lost & uncomfortable in the mushy middle of transition.
- Want to reconnect with your heart, desire, and purpose.
- Want to learn how to tap into intuition and other sources of wisdom.
- Want to keep stretching into the unknown and expand your edges.
- Want to rekindle the joy of learning new things.
- Want to explore your deeper calling and have a greater impact but have yet to learn how to move towards it.
- No longer derive much meaning from linear, sequential and abstract thinking & worldview.
- Know that we are in a “time between worlds” i.e. you sense deeply that old ways are no longer working but have no idea how to bring the new “ways” forward.
The Experience
This journey is best described as an individual journey within a collective context.
While rooted in various theories and practices, including complexity theory, anthropology, and mindfulness, the focus is on feeling our way in and through stuckness through somatic & embodiment practices. Therefore, we encourage you to attend as many sessions as possible.
Each week, Sonja & Mirjam will host a live session on Tuesdays at 3pm CEST (2pm UK and 9am New York) for 90 minutes. All sessions will be recorded and shared within 48 hours in case you have to miss a session.
You’ll also connect with a small ‘pod’ on a weekly basis to explore additional somatic practices & practical exercises.
Throughout the six weeks, you’ll get to experience:
- How to reconnect to other sources of wisdom, particularly the somatic wisdom of the body.
- The unknown mushy mess as a place of creativity – you won’t die if you get a bit lost.
- A sense of movement and how to – safely – make small steps to maintain momentum.
- The joy of experimenting, curiosity, learning new things, stretching into our edges.
- Impermanence and flow. Every time you take a small step, everything changes.
- Reconnecting to your heart, desire & purpose to “find” direction.
- Allowing surrendering & letting go as a way through discomfort.
- How we are connected to everything … not isolated and alone.
- Being present “in the cocoon” and how to expand from there.
- That resistance only prolongs the stuckness.
Early bird offer expires 30 July 11:59 pm CEST
Course Themes
Creating your Waysfinder.
Mapping your bounded option field that you can safely explore.
Cultivating presence.
Learn to see the future in the present moment. Move from a place of stillness, even amid the messy mush.
Reframing resistance to shift into flow.
Resisting what is and what wants to happen keeps us stuck. When we soften and let go, we can become part of the flow towards the future.
Tapping into Sphere Intelligence.
Access more ways of knowing beyond the rational and cognitive. Cultivate ‘beginners’ eyes, imagination, intuition and bodily awareness.
Playing at the edges.
Learn how to work your edges and stretch into the unknown.
Experimenting & pivoting.
Move towards adjacent possibilities through multiple safe-to-fail experiments. Keep learning as you go.
Navigating Cycles of Expansion.
How to stop “reaching for the end” and celebrate small steps.
Pay only €599/R7,997 until 30 July
Nuts & Bolts of What You'll Get:
- Exclusive written, audio & video learning content shared weekly (6 total)
- Weekly live 90-min sessions on Zoom with Sonja & Mirjam (all calls recorded + replays available)
- Kickoff & Live Call 1: Tuesday 13 August 3pm CEST
- Live Call 2: Tuesday 20 August 3pm CEST
- Live Call 3: Tuesday 27 August 3pm CEST
- Live Call 4: Tuesday 3 September 3pm CEST
- Live Call 5: Tuesday 10 September 3pm CEST
- Live Call 6: Tuesday 17 September 3pm CEST
- Access to a private group for the length of the live program (6 Aug – 10 Sept)
- Access to an exclusive membership-based alumni community.
Frequently Asked Questions
I’m very busy right now. How will I make time to benefit from the 6-week course?
Life is busy. We’ve designed the course in a way that you can simply plug in & plug out. Our training content will come in bit-size and various formats (e.g. video, audio, reading material) to allow for an easy and flexible learning experience.
You’ll gain access to each week’s training content 5-7 days in advance, to allow you enough time to go through it.
Going through the training content is not mandatory, but is recommended to enrich your experience.
What is the focus of the live calls?
The focus of the live calls is on the practice of “waysfinding”.
Each call will start off with a frame that links the weekly training material to the topic we’re discussing. Each call will include a somatic & embodiment practice to get out of our “heads” and into our bodies. There will be lots of space for questions, reflections & mutual learnings.
How much time should I put aside for the course?
To get the most out of the course, you will need to allocate around 3-4 hours each week for the 6 weeks.
This includes the weekly live session (90 min) and POD call (60 min).
How will I access the course?
Once you’ve enrolled, you will be emailed access to our Waysfinder space hosted in a private online hub. From there, you will be able to access all course material and calls.
What is a POD?
Apart from a weekly live session with Sonja & Mirjam, you’ll work in small groups (=POD) with participants from around the world to give and receive support. They’re self-organising and a great addition to your learning experience.
How interactive is it?
As much as you want it to be! Apart from the weekly live sessions, you’ll take part in a self-organising POD that meets weekly. You’ll also gain access to a private space where you can ask, share questions and pick our brain.