A workshop series to help you live into the deep, shitty middle of transitions.
Because there's no manual
for how to be lost.
Negative Space is a series of live online workshops designed to help folks in a time of major life transition navigate the “messy middle” of the change process. (Also known as the liminal period, “betwixt and between”, or “who TF am I, and what fresh hell is this?”)
Why focus on this period?
Because it’s often the part of the change process that goes on the longest, is the most confusing, and for which there's the fewest amount of resources. It's also the one where true riches are buried – but only if we know how to find them.
Each of the workshops will be focused on a different aspect of the “messy middle” and the themes that come with it: loss of identity, self-worth and purpose; resistance and allowance; dormancy and the fear of not knowing. And more!
You'll be able to purchase each of the workshops separately as they're released.
Workshop 1, “The End," on Sunday, June 30, 2024*, is now open for registration
(*postponed from June 16 due to medical emergency)
Keep reading for all the details or register now – space is limited!
Middles are often seen as time-outs, or periods of our lives where nothing is happening, and are often treated as an aberration because we think they’re not supposed to happen.
We’re awash in a culture that divides time into “before” and “after,” and prizes the after: the phoenix rising from the ashes. We perpetually encouraged to turn our shit into fertilizer, what comes next has to be better, which means we're often racing through transitions toward the promised land of after.
But what if the promised land is actually the time out? The pause?
As friends and collaborators who’ve each spent the last few years in the long middle (long, we really mean long), we’ve come to learn that these transitional periods are often both more painful and, potentially, more rewarding than most of us expect them to be.
Finding fulfillment (and maybe even thriving?!) in this place requires fighting social programming, letting go of old definitions of success and satisfaction, and the willingness to stay open to new ways of being.
It also helps, a lot, to have guidance, support and community that meets you where you are and helps you live there, instead of trying to help you escape from it by forcing what comes next.
workshop 1:
the end
Our first workshop, “The End,” is focused on endings– identifying them, honoring them with ritual, understanding how to work with them in a way that is generative and expansive, and honoring of where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re headed.
This 2-hour live online workshop will combine teaching, ritual creation, and community building, as well as practical exercises. Space is limited.
SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2024 (postponed from 6/16 due to medical emergency)
at 5pm PST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST (2 hours)
A recording will be sent if you can't make it live.
What do I get?
2-hour live Zoom workshop with teaching, ritual creation, and Q&A with Emily and Holly
Companion materials and resource list
Evidence that there are MANY OTHER PEOPLE out there who feel as fucked up, lost and confused as you do!
The point of the workshop is to bring you some ease and hope and relief and direction and joy and connection and understanding.
The point of the workshop is not to fix you.
Is this for me?
If you relate to any of these, then yes.
You’re stuck and miserable and are on the precipice of making a change.
You’ve made a change (or a change has been made for you {you got fired, unexpected illness, etc.}), and you need support moving through the in-between.
You’ve made a change (or a change has been made for you), and you’ve done all the things to move through to the other side but nothing is happening, it’s been YEARS FFS, and you’re sure you’re doing something very wrong and will always be stuck like this/your life is over.
It feels like a cruel joke when someone says you’re supposed to find your PURPOSE or your MEANING because you can’t imagine having either of those things.
You’re struggling with your identity; you don’t know who you are anymore or feel like yourself, and you wish you could “get back” to some “better” version of you or some golden age of your existence.
You’re apathetic and can’t remember the point of anything at all anymore and you never want to work or do anything productive again, make something of yourself, or do anything that requires you to optimize, hustle, or even function.
Why do this with us?
Hi, we're Holly and Emily. Until 2020, the two of us had both been through enough disruptive life transitions to believe that we knew not only how to change, but that we were experts at it. Emily had Hodgkin’s lymphoma in her mid-20s, then spent a decade grinding away at ad agencies before walking away with no plan except “Not This,” then started a greeting card company and became a slightly famous influencer person of the notorious girlboss era. Holly basically has the same story, just switch out advertising for accounting and cancer for addiction.
The point is, we fancied ourselves risk-taking people, phoenixes that rise from the ash or whatever. We knew when to leave, how to let go, how to be lost, how to relaunch, and how to be better than before. We thought we were experts at transitions, and then we had our asses handed to us.
In 2021, we both found ourselves in the painful process of leaving our roles and the companies we’d founded– the identities that had defined us both for many years. We moved from being Instagram friends to actual friends by connecting over the shared experience of how totally fucked it actually is to “Do what you love!” We had done what we loved and been exceptionally successful, and instead of the happiness we’d believed would be waiting for us –the prize for trying so hard and following all the rules– we’d both ended up with serious physical and mental health issues, untenable lives, and totally burnt out.
We began supporting each other as both of our lives, identities, purpose, meaning, motivation, joy, and clarity dissolved into a soupy, existential fog where none of our old tricks worked, nothing made sense, and we didn’t recognize ourselves: our NEGATIVE SPACE. It was really dark in there, and it lasted years, not months.
The fact that we’d both navigated several major life transitions in the past that were objectively “harder,” yet had felt much easier, got us wondering about the larger picture. We started to study quitting culture, liminality, and life transitions in general (especially in the context of a world in multiple kinds of upheaval), started a podcast called Quitted (that we later quit), and spent a lot of time researching and unpacking how we have historically conceptualized and experienced change and liminality and the limitations of those models, and how we might do things differently, in this new and different world.
Also notable is what we did not do during these years of negative space: reinvent ourselves, jump at some kind of new identity to escape the discomfort of waiting, put pressure on ourselves to turn our struggles into a money-making venture, force ourselves to continue to build empires when we could barely get out of bed, try and maintain our relevance, keep playing the game we were taught we had to play in order to be successful, hold tight to shitty things that didn’t work for us anymore “just in case,” run back to previous versions of ourselves that felt familiar, or the hundreds of other things we are encouraged to do instead of directly facing and spending time in the open, groundless expanse that is the middle
We haven’t emerged triumphantly “out the other side” of anything. We’re not a before and after; we’re not going to show you how we figured out life and how you can too. We do feel that this period of history requires a very different approach to identity, career, work, productivity, time, rest, ritual, Self, and community, and we can be of service to you in your process.
We can’t get you out of Negative Space. But we can help you feel more okay with being there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will this make me a productive person again?
FUCK NO! This workshop will not make you a productive person, help you return to a former version of yourself or the life you once lived, bring back old lovers, restore collagen, tighten your vagina if you have one, or improve you in any potential way. NEGATIVE SPACE will not end your endless transition or infuse your life with meaning or make you want to live again or help you optimize ANYTHING. But.
It will potentially make you feel good and held, help you make sense of an extremely misunderstood experience, give you the tools and knowledge to make it suck that much less, and put you in touch with other people who are going through what you are, helping you feel less isolated. It will also potentially contribute to the kind of internal growth that does not translate into any kind of culturally endorsed metric of success, but is ultimately a lot more valuable.
Will replays be available?
Yes, all participants will receive a replay link.
Is it worth it if I can't make it live?
It’ll be a different experience if you can’t make it live, but it will absolutely be worth your time and money.
Is this appropriate for someone in deep grief over the loss of a loved one?
It’s not inappropriate at all, but this workshop wasn’t designed to specifically address and support the needs of folks navigating this kind of loss. We’re not therapists, and this material is not therapy or a substitute for therapy. But you may find it helpful!
I start things and don't finish them.
We do too! But sometimes we finish. Maybe you'll finish this one.
I'm too tired to take another course.
We know. So were we. This is a course for people who are tired of taking courses. This is also very passive and the main thing we want to give you is a sense of relief, and if you want it, access to people who are going through something similar.
What if I need this, but can't afford it?
We're not doing a discounted rate this time. Future courses will include scholarship options.
What's your refund policy?
You can get a refund up until midnight PST on June 29th. For a refund, email admin@quitted.me and include the email address you used to sign up.
Do I need a Zoom account?
Nope, you can join as a participant without creating an account.
I still have a question.
Email admin@quitted.me.