When life is a lot: notes from the messy middle
- Liz Barry
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
The past couple of weeks have stretched me in ways I didn’t quite expect.
If you’ve been in my world for a while, you’ll know I’m generally someone who can hold a lot — family, work, clients, commitments — and keep moving forward with a fairly steady rhythm. But recently, life handed me a cluster of big, beautiful, meaningful things all at once… and the emotional hangover caught up with me.
A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my eldest daughter’s 21st.
It was a huge out-of-town event: 80 people, guests flying in from around the country, and what felt like a small wedding’s worth of logistics. I organised accommodation for 30 people, buses, decorations, food and beverages, costumes for seven people, a cake decorator, gifts, speeches, pre-drinks, after-party, dinner the night before, and the full clean-up afterwards.
It was joyful.
It was beautiful.
It was one of those moments you know you’ll remember forever.
And it was also… a lot.
Layered on top of that were the family dynamics that inevitably rise to the surface around milestone events. The part no one sees on Instagram. The part that requires emotional bandwidth you didn’t budget for.
Then in the last 10 days, I ran two workshops back-to-back — each completely different, and one of them built entirely from scratch. Meanwhile my Y8 daughter was off on school camp (requiring all the gear, packing, reminders and prep) before being whisked straight to the 21st celebration. My Y11 son was in the middle of exams, tutoring sessions and driving lessons.
By the time I finished the second workshop on Thursday, I could feel something in me slip into the red zone.
From the outside, it probably looked like frantically racing from one task to the next, issuing instructions just to keep everything flowing.
On the inside, my mind was spinning. Waking me several times a night to check whether I had forgotten something critical. Trying to hold emotional space for everyone while my own nerves were fraying.
And the thought that kept looping — quietly, honestly — was:
“I just need one moment where no one needs anything from me.”
Not dramatic. Not unfair.
Simply the truth of a woman holding more than one human should reasonably hold.
And now that I’ve had a little distance and a steadier nervous system, I can see what was really happening underneath it all.
I was in the messy middle.
The messy middle is the part of life we speak about the least.
The space between the before and after.
The place where you’re stretched, reshaped, and quietly transformed.
Just because something is meaningful doesn’t mean it won’t be hard.
And just because something is hard doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing.
Career change has a messy middle.
Soul Search has a messy middle.
Every significant transition — inner or outer — includes one.
We often hear about people once they’ve reached the “after”: the clarity, the new job, the success, the resolution, the calm. Those are beautiful stories, and they matter. But they’re not the whole story.
The middle is where the real work happens.
The releasing.
The reshaping.
The recalibrating.
The wobbling.
The becoming.
So here I am, from my own messy middle of the past couple of weeks, offering you this:
If you’re in yours, you’re not failing.
You’re not behind.
You’re not off track.
You are transforming — even if it feels chaotic, inconvenient, or uncomfortable.
Sometimes the moment that feels overwhelming is the one that grows us the most.
Sending love from my own messy middle.
xo Liz
P.S. If you're feeling lost in your career, wondering what’s next, or questioning what truly lights you up, you’re not alone. I’ve been there, and I know how overwhelming it can feel.
That’s why I created Make Your Next Career Move Count—a free ebook to guide you through the exact process I used to find clarity and build a fulfilling career using the most effective path to career change:
✅ Soul Search – Uncover what truly matters to you
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