In my transcendental practice, I have spent thousands of hours with individuals standing at a threshold in their lives. A large percentage of them initiate the coaching container through the desire to leave the corporate world, leave behind a title, a role, a space that no longer allows them to feel alive. But beneath this desire lies a deeper truth, one so deep and so shadowed that its contents are obscured, even from them, so they present it nicely packaged with a bow as though it is a quick weekend fix.
They are not merely seeking new resumes or updated LinkedIn bios. What they’re truly seeking is permission. Permission to experience themselves differently, to let go of an identity that no longer fits, to step off the treadmill of performative productivity, and into the unknown. They yearn to transcend what I call the Material Prison, a state of existence bound by external metrics of success, deeply embedded in systems designed to not only domesticate the human spirit but to minimize it into something controllable, submissive and performative. Reminiscent of the domestication of the American Indigenous peoples, stripped of their rights to hunt the reservations they were restricted to and given limited food rations to erode their independent and thriving spirit, their spiritual sovereignty in exchange for government dependency, handouts, jobs and permission to exist.
This Material Prison is the architecture of the material human, rooted in the third density of consciousness. It is a vibrational realm sustained by transactional paradigms, corrupted hierarchies of control, and both overt and covert forms of slavery, whether enforced externally or self-imposed through internalized conditioning. It thrives on the denial of natural abundance and the illusion of separateness. The material prison maintains its grip through fear mongering, scare tactics, shame, scarcity, lack, the disproved Descartes “Natural Order” and the Newtonian fallacy of reductionist science that primitive academics cling to for tenure. Within this paradoxical density, communion with soul and nature is often pathologized, dismissed as “woo woo” or vilified as “witchcraft,” strategies meant to provoke fear and dissuade awakening. This distortion of truth serves to reinforce the prison of thought, keeping individuals confined to roles that suppress their essence, while meeting performance goals, and contributing to the national GDP.
This energy of minimizing, conditioning, grooming and commoditizing sentience is not new. It has manifested numerous times throughout history shifting with the demands of human evolution but never truly dismantling. This energy shape shifts so that it may adorn itself in the illusions of prosperity, certainty, growth, humanitarianism, and potential. This energy has moved the spectrum from the dehumanization of slavery and human oppression of “the other” to invisible caste systems that exist in the hierarchy of corporate structures, where a new form of dehumanization exists. The essence of this merely expresses itself within the boundaries of slowly progressing legal codes that attempt to constrain it yet, like water, this energy seeps outside of its boundaries through intentional loopholes, creating a shadowed cesspool of mold and decay, parasitically devouring its energy source, the human soul.
We see this same form of extraction and cruelty forced upon the sentience within the agricultural communities. How we treat these conscious beings is grossly telling of the consciousness that we participate in. As a society participating in this energy, we see these same forms of extraction and cruelty applied to those we perceive are not equal to us in the hierarchy of sentience or value. This is a catastrophic fallacy!
If these assertions feel bold and aggressive, then I invite you to explore the corners of your psyche. Ask yourself, “What part of my life feels non-negotiable, and who decided that?”, “Am I exchanging my energy for survival, or for soul expression?” and “Who benefits from my exhaustion, self-doubt, or silence?”
What these individuals long for is not a transition, a new title or corporate company to segway to. What they long for is freedom from the shackles of this energy and a homecoming to the creative sentient boundless being that they innately are. They are seeking permission to stop. To rest. To seed. To birth. To participate in the natural rhythms that have been denied to us when we participate as a cog in the material wheel.
Between the life we’ve constructed and the one that calls from beyond the veil of certainty, there exists a space. It’s a space feared and misunderstood. It is a space that as a society we are taught that if we find ourselves there then we planned our lives poorly, that we are lost or unfortunate. This space is taught to be skipped by educational institutions because if we were to take a gap year or two, how we would invest our money into our future may look very different. This is the liminal, the in-between, the quiet place of undoing and becoming. This space is not a pause. It is a portal. For those of us courageous enough to sit inside it, it becomes the birthplace of the most honest versions of ourselves.
I.
Illusion of Stability
The corporate job often wears the costume of security. It whispers promises of health insurance, promotions, 401k, paid family leave, paid vacations and annual raises. It offers a scaffold that makes sense in a world addicted to productivity. But underneath this facade is a silent erosion. The erosion of the creative sentient being. The quiet dissolving of our creative essence.
A recent Gallup survey revealed that over 60 percent of workers are emotionally detached at work, and nearly a quarter feel completely miserable. These aren’t just numbers. These are human experiences. These are souls dying behind spreadsheets and buried beneath metrics. And still, we stay. We stay because certainty or predictability has been sold to us as safety or salvation to the human suffering. Because we’ve internalized the belief that our value lives in what we do, what we produce, and what we own. But this belief is part of the illusion. What the Vedantic traditions call Maya. The dream that convinces us the material world is the only reality. Maya seduces us with structure and reward, then locks us inside identities that calcify. We forget that the Self is not a résumé. It is not a schedule. It is not the routine that numbs us. The Self is formless. Infinite, expansive, raw, energetic and creative.
To walk away from the corporate paradigm is not merely a professional pivot. It is a radical reclamation of the true Self. It is a choice to no longer barter our soul for the illusion of safety.
II.
The Egoic Death
To step into a new life, one shaped by authenticity, aligned purpose, and inner truth, we must first be willing to die. Not physically, but symbolically. Spiritually. Egoically. This is not a metaphor donned in mysticism, it is a necessary rite of passage for every one of us. It is one of the few initiations that allow us to the next phase of our human experience. A psychospiritual initiation that includes ego disintegration, symbolic death, and reconstitution in service of the Self, as Carl Jung would describe it. These initiations have been robbed of us through the colonialization culture that has destroyed the living experience of the soul in return for the homogeny of existence.
Transformation does not always arrive gently. For many, it comes like thunder. As a lifetime of missed little deaths, reminding us that this human experience is meant to be as transient and fluid as the very nature of who and what we truly are, energy. And still, most of us resist this shedding. We grip tightly to names, roles, titles, relationships, beliefs, stories, and constructs that once made us feel visible through validation and acceptance. But in truth, the things we cling to often serve as anchors that prevent our self-actualization and ultimately our self-realization.
We are not nouns. We are verbs. We are not labels. We are movement. Every reinvention is a rebirth, and every rebirth requires loss. Yes, it can be agonizing if we are affixed to a materialistic belief system of matter, as this perspective of reality is built on suffering. But it is in this dissolution that we find freedom.
As we begin to unravel from the old, water becomes our teacher. Water knows how to remember without clinging. It adapts, flows, reshapes, and remains unchanged in essence. Water is the keeper of all knowledge, codes and histories. Water serves as a portal of reformation and has been an ancient archetypal rite that predates Christianity by centuries and appears across multiple cultures and spiritual systems. When we stop clinging to the riverbank of certainty and become fluid, we stop resisting our very nature. We stop measuring our worth by what can be seen through the limited and archaic senses. And we begin to feel, truly feel, ourselves as becoming.
III.
Becoming Liminal
The liminal space is not a void. It is a chrysalis. It is the place where no answers arrive quickly, and nothing is fixed. Where time slows down just enough for the Self to emerge raw and unadorned. Here, we meet the frequency of potential. We feel possibility vibrating at the edge of our perception. Quantum physics confirms what mystics have long known: nothing is real until it is witnessed and even then, it changes based on the witness. In this sacred space of waiting and witnessing, we are given the rarest gift, an opportunity to meet the soul. But this space is uncomfortable. Most of us are not taught to linger here. We are taught to leap. To fix. To move on. So, we bypass the moment of becoming, jumping into the next variation of what others or society expects us to be and so, we miss the message.
In my work, I do not offer mindset hacks or tricks to survive the liminal. I do not offer you crafty methods of avoidance. Instead, I offer a lantern, a mirror and a hand to hold while you navigate this beautiful underworld of you. This space of commencement is not a detour or a setback. It is not indicative of failure but quite the opposite. It is The Work.
This space, this blessed in-between, is where the soul catches up to the body. Where we remember we are not machines. Where we begin to feel all that which we have been told to numb. To listen to that which we have been shamed into silence. To grieve that which we have not been allowed to become. To imagine who it is that we want to experience of ourselves in this incarnation.
From the third density, this space is shunned and rejected but from the fifth density, this space is a rite of passage, it is the cocoon of becoming and it is a divine right that is meant to strengthen, empower and help you remember the powerful creator you truly are. If we reframe from resistance and allow ourselves to surrender to the liminal then we allow ourselves to be held, be guided and to experience a version of ourselves that allows us to feel whole. From this space, we never walk alone, we never feel lonely, we stop doubting ourselves, we stop hating ourselves, we allow the shame and guilt from past decisions to move through us so that we can honor the versions of ourselves that we outgrew who were doing the best they could at the time. In the liminal, we rest in an embryonic fluid of forgiveness and acceptance and from this fluid we are birthed as a “whole being.”
IV.
True Abundance is Fluid
Many of us hesitate to leave the corporate path because of financial fears. We worry we won’t be able to sustain the lifestyle that we have become accustomed to. Personally, I never got the chance to rest on the precipice of making the shift or flirting with the idea of change. I was violently pushed of the edge of the cliff, forced to make the shift in not only one area of my life, but in three different areas of Self oppression where I was not living in alignment with my soul’s purpose. Like a mantra, for years leading up to my shift I found myself whispering under my breath,“I did not incarnate for THIS shit.”“This material state IS suffering.” And so, one year, my higher-Self said if you won’t do it, then I’ll do it. So, she did.
True abundance is not accumulation. It is alignment. It is synchronicity. It is the effortless unfolding of reality when you are living in your purpose. And yet, true abundance is more than simply having needs met or desires fulfilled, it is the energetic signature of Source itself. Abundance is not something we earn; it is something we remember. It is not outside of us; it is expressed through us, and its flow is shaped by the quality of our expressed consciousness, our lens of perception and our ability to experience gratitude for the simple or mundane.
In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra describes how abundance arises first through the Law of Pure Potentiality, the sacred knowing that we are one with the field of all possibilities. This field is the fertile void from which all things manifest. And through the Law of Dharma, we increase our abundance by sharing our unique gifts in service to humanity. This is not metaphysics as fantasy; this is metaphysics as function. As we oFer our soul’s signature frequency to the world, the universe responds in kind, not by transaction but by energetic reciprocity. We attract where we are at. Vibrationally, we attract what we are.
True abundance, then, is the lived experience in which all our needs are met with grace, and our desires emerge as spontaneous manifestations of our alignment with divine will. We know we are touching abundance when we feel joy, vitality, creativity, health, peace, and purpose in each breath, in each moment, in each intentional yes. We never need to chase abundance. We only need to remember it, to open ourselves to it, and to allow the gift of the universe to pour through us.
Abundance is all around us and when we remove the filters of the third density and the values associated with this way of being then we find abundance all around us in the simplest of places. It is in the sunlit room that cascades rays of light across the blank canvas of wall. It is in the wind moving through treetops, allowing them an audible voice to share with us their presence, and in the hysteric giggles of a child filled with elation of the absurdity of their new world. It is in the hum of honeybees weaving through gardens, in the sacred stillness of snow-capped mountains, in the damp perfume of wet moss-laden forests, the electric glow of spring green leaves, in the sacred rhythm of ocean tides and in the excitement of catching a glimpse of an elusive forest being who graces you with its presence. Abundance speaks through nature constantly and consistently, it does not need to prove itself, it is we who must learn to lean in and allow the nature of synchronicities to alter our lens so that we can see more clearly.
We do not have to count the stars to know they are infinite. We do not have to understand every cell in our body to feel that we, too, are a miracle of creation. In nature, in the cosmos, and within us, there is no scarcity. There is no lack. Scarcity is not a cosmic truth; it is a human invention rooted in fear and maintained through systems of domination. When we begin to see through this illusion, we remember that abundance is not fixed to a salary or a possession. It is a frequency. It is fluid. It is always moving. And it moves with us when we are in alignment.
If we have built lives where our abundance is chained to material accumulation, fast food & clothing, plastic junk, compressed templates void of human craftsmanship, then we must ask: has our abundance become our prison? Have we mistaken effort for value? Have we confused acquisition with aliveness?
Because where we are going, the truer, freer, more aligned versions of ourselves may no longer value the same symbols of success we once did. The lifestyle, the title, the things we cling to like relics of an old self, may be the very things weighing us down like an anvil chained to the ankle.
True abundance is not heavy. It is spacious. It expands us. It lives in the liminal. And it meets us there, again and again, if we are willing to become fluid.
V.
The Real Work
The real work of liberation is not tactical. It is existential. It asks us not just to quit our jobs but to change our lens. To soften our grip and attachment on identity. To tell the truth about who we really are. To understand the values, standards and integrity we innately operate by when no one is watching us. For many of us, we have no idea of these things, which I refer to as “Internal Operating Systems.” Without knowledge of “our” individual Values then we are merely parroting, copy & pasting our avatar over others and then triggering our self- worth when we don’t get the validation, we feel we deserve in all of our fakeness. We are not only being called to change our careers but the way in which our individual avatar expresses itself in the third, fourth or fifth density through these Internal Operating Systems. We are all being called to level up and Wake Up and for some of us we ignite that process when we hear that gentle call to escape the corporate material prison and shed the old.
We fear judgment. We fear being misunderstood. We fear being alone in our becoming. But we must remember not everyone is meant to walk with us where we are going. We are not here to be understood. We are here to experience the growth and expansion of the soul through its chosen avatar. We owe our little self and our big Self curiosity, compassion, our attention, our validation, our appreciation and our honoring.
So, I ask: What are you still gripping to that no longer serves? What fear is still masquerading as practicality? What truth have we buried beneath convenience? Where do you gaslight yourself or deny your urges by leaning into the fallacy of “practicality” or “logic?” Because real freedom does not live in certainty. It thrives on the edge where comfort meets fear, where every decision you make to push on those edges of stagnant comfort is what expands you until your personal bubble or tiny world becomes so capacious that you begin to operate as a completely different version of you. One who cannot be bound by the fear of scarcity or lack because the opposite has become so true to you that it literally alters the fabric of your DNA.
In the becoming you’ll learn that you were never meant to play is small or stagnant. You were never meant to be imprisoned by the illusion of material safety. That land, nature and sentient beings don’t belong to you, but rather you belong to them. You become reacquainted with the ancient wisdom of the indigenous peoples who belonged to our lands before the sickness of colonialization molested the spirit. You will yearn for sacred rituals, ancient walk-abouts, village, communities, initiations, chosen family and the soft touch of wise elders to replace the superficial comforts of paid vacations, corner offices, the large cubicle, an expense account, the holiday bonus, or a 401k. This is what awaits you when you wake up and choose the excitement of co-creating with the universe.
Beautifully put and a complete description of moving from the outer to the inner – living in authentic sovereignty and freedom. Brava LeLanea. Though a challenging journey your piece is a bright light in what is often a shadowed path here on Earth.
This is kindly received. My gratitude to and for you and your comfort with words.
This captures my journey succinctly but I could never capture the words as beautifully . Your weaving of words is like the creation of a painter in flow and the final product so authentic, it can’t but touch the soul. Bravo!
Beautifully articulated and humbly received.