What if you stopped performing for ONE day? No judgement.

Imagine waking up tomorrow with a full permission slip to be fully yourself.

No consequences. No judgment. No explanations.

You could wear whatever you want.

Say whatever you want, at the volume you actually feel.

Move the way your body naturally wants to move.

How would you act?

So… why don’t you let yourself act that way every day?

Here’s my theory:

We’re raised in a world obsessed with binaries — and honestly, it’s all BS.

Good or bad.

Right or wrong.

Beautiful or ugly.

Gay or straight.

Woman or man.

No space n’between.

Booooooooring.

Binaries shrink us. They tame us.

And when we try to step outside of them, we risk something we dread more than anything: Rejection.

We don’t want to be seen as “unkind” for speaking our truth.

We don’t want to feel “messy” or “unpretty” when our hair isn’t done, makeup isn’t perfect, or earrings aren’t on.

We don’t want to be the odd one out — so we bend.

As women, we participate in patriarchy.

As immigrants, we code-switch.

As people of color, we soften and whitewash ourselves.

We trade pieces of who we are for belonging.

Because sometimes… the need to belong feels stronger than the need to be ourselves.

But what about the space n’between?

What about the quirky, brilliant, contradictory parts of you that don’t fit neatly anywhere?

Are we really meant to abandon those — just to make other people comfortable?

HELL. NO.

The space n’between is where freedom lives.

It’s where richness, creativity, and authenticity gather.

It’s where you stop performing and start being.

And yesterday reminded me of that.

I attended Cynthia Erivo’s book launch — an obvious n’betweener — and she said something that struck me deeply:

She wrote her entire book on airplanes.

I felt that in my bones.

Planes have always been sacred to me, too.

They’re where I wrote my TEDx talk. Where I’ve drafted entire programs. And where I began writing my own book.

Up there, suspended between worlds, where nothing is expected of you, and you belong everywhere and nowhere at once.

Something about the altitude.

Something about not having to decide which language to speak.

 Something about the clouds holding you the whole way.

Somewhere between takeoff and landing, I always exhale.

My shoulders drop. The noise quiets.

And in that n’between space, I feel most like myself.

So let me ask you:

When do you get to rest in the n’between?

When do you feel held, free, spacious, or unperformed?

Hug hug,

Nora.