January as a Threshold Month: Living Between What Was and What’s Becoming

The calendar says “go,” but your body whispers “wait.” Join Lizzy as we open the new year by reframing January as a threshold, a tender doorway between what ended in 2025 and what hasn’t fully revealed itself in 2026. Instead of forcing instant clarity, we explore how rest, curiosity, and shorter planning cycles create steadier momentum and more aligned choices.

You’ll hear how a season of endings can linger into the new year and why that’s not a problem to fix. She talks honestly about the emotional residue of the holidays, the relief and grief that travel together, and the nervous system’s need to integrate before new goals make sense. Lizzy also digs into a practical strategy: swapping rigid year-long goals for six-month horizons that match the pace of real life. When time feels faster and change stacks quickly, that shift can turn pressure into progress. She shares a personal story of rapid change, a cross-state move that happened so fast there was no goodbye party, and how unceremonious endings still deserve ceremony. 

Lizzy then offers gentle ways to live inside the in-between: track what pulls your energy without committing yet, name what’s complete even if it isn’t resolved, and let clarity arrive in quiet moments. We close out with reflection prompts to carry into your week and an invitation to go deeper.

If you’re craving a slower, saner start to the year, this conversation is your cue to pause at the doorway and listen for what’s true. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs permission to rest, and leave a review with the one decision you’re choosing not to rush.

Episode Links

• Align with Jenna Zoe: Ep. 169: Becoming > Manifesting

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And January Reframe
• 1:52 Honoring The In-Between
• 4:29 Letting Go Of 2025’s Endings
• 6:25 Cultural Pressure Versus Real Energy
• 10:38 Time Feels Faster: Six-Month Goals
• 14:05 Personal Story Of Big Change
• 17:25 How To Live In A Threshold
• 19:25 Reflection Prompts And Resources
• 21:19 Closing And Community Invitations

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:09

Hi, I'm Lizzie.

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And I'm Nikki. Together we welcome you to the Modern Sun Collective Podcast. A space where we explore holistic living, spiritual alignment, and personal growth.

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Each week, we'll share conversations, practices, and wisdom to help you live with more joy, effort, and connection.

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

Let's elevate mind, body, and spirit together. And now on to the day.

SPEAKER_02: 0:53

January is often treated like a starting line, a moment to rush forward, reinvent ourselves, and have everything all figured out. But energetically, January is something else entirely. It's a threshold, a space between what was and what's still becoming. This month on the Modern Sun Collective Podcast, we're honoring that in-between space. Through conversation, grounding, and deep rest, we're inviting you to slow down, soften the pressure, and listen more closely to what's unfolding beneath the surface. You don't need to clarify yet. You don't need a plan. You're not behind. You're right on time. So join us this January as we explore the threshold and begin the year with presence, not pressure. Hello everyone, and welcome to our very first episode of 2026. I'm so happy to be here with you. Lizzie here today. Nikki is supposed to be here with me, but she is feeling under the weather. She is not doing very good right now, and we need her to sleep. We are walking the talk, everything that we share with you guys and practices we offer for you and ask you to slow down when your body tells you to slow down. We practice what we preach. So Nikki is resting right now. She is drinking her ginger tea, and she is going to get herself better. So you just have me here today. But I am very excited to talk to you today and share with you a different kind of idea about January, a little bit of a reframe here. And thinking about January not so much as the fresh start or the beginning of something new, but more as a liminal space, uh a sacred in-between, a threshold, if you may, where clarity is still forming, where our identity, our current identities are loosening, who we were last year, who we were in this past nine years. And our next chapter hasn't fully revealed itself yet. We've got some ideas, but we're not quite in it. And I'm not sure if this is a feeling that you've had, but it's a feeling that I've had, and something that I know Nikki has felt as well. But, you know, in January, we start this new year, this Gregorian calendar new year. It's not based on anything other than what these old white men decided it should be way back in the day in ancient Greece, ancient Rome. And so realistically, this is just a construct that we have created of society. So it makes sense that we would feel maybe differently than what society is getting us to feel. But sometimes I don't feel quite ready yet. And maybe that's exactly where I'm meant to be. And so what what is a threshold? What am I talking about when we talk about January as a threshold? It's a doorway, it's not a destination, it's this space in between where the old no longer fits and the new hasn't been fully shaped yet. And so it's why in this in-between space these thresholds can often feel foggy. We can feel emotional, like more emotional maybe than we typically do. It can feel quiet, uncomfortable. All these feelings that we typically don't want to have or don't want to sit in, that's what these in-between spaces are. And so it can be something that we we really don't want, but it's something often that we we need to take this time. Our nervous system is still integrating last year. Last year was crazy for a lot of us. It was 2025, it was a universal year nine. You've heard me talk about it a lot of times. It was a lot of endings, it was a lot of closings, a lot of things that no longer serve or fit who you are now and who you are becoming. And so they have gone away, or they are going away right now. Or there are things that are really pulling on you that you haven't decided to let go of yet. So our nervous system is still working with all this energy of 2025. Doesn't just turn January 1st and that energy shifts. It's not that's not how it works, unfortunately. The other thing that we have to think about is the holidays can be a very difficult time for a lot of us. January can feel very heavy. It can feel directionless for so many of us. And a lot of that is residue, grief, relief, even hope. All of these different feelings that we've had coexisting with us in the new year after the holidays. You know, if if we have loved ones that are no longer with us, like is the case for Nikki. If we aren't able to have the holidays that we want to have, if we're not able to give everything that we want to give, if we don't have the time, the energy, the resources, there can be a lot of feelings left over. There can be a lot of hope, a lot of gratitude, a lot of love. I hope that's what your feelings are. But that's not always the case. And then we have society, we have this cultural pressure to start January 1st and know right on that day, what is our word for the year? What are our goals for the year? What do we want this year to look like? And have this decision, these decisions immediately made on the first. And it's not really what the energy around us is asking us to do. And so we're fighting with the flow. We're not going with it, we're not using the momentum to our benefit, we're fighting against it. January is our space to be held. Our space to rest, our space to be quiet, our space to take stock of. Time, time is speeding up exponentially. We saw it last year, and this year it's going to be even crazier. And she suggested, I know exactly who I was listening to. I was listening to Jenna Zoe on the Align app, on the not in the Align app, but on her align podcast. So I'll link, I'll actually link that episode in the show notes because I'm telling you it was a really big uh reframe for me about looking at six months, looking in six month spurts instead of in year spurts, how we've kind of been trained to look at it in a whole year like we're talking about right now, have your goals for the year. Jenna Zoe wants you to reframe and think about it as having these goals for six months because things are shifting so quickly. And honestly, I really feel that. I'm I'm really getting on board with that because I'm looking at this past year. If you take a moment to look back on 2025, just for a moment while we're talking here, think about where you were in January. Where were you in June, July, and where are you right now? And how big was the shift from January to June, and then July to now? Because for me, that's two totally different things. We decided to go all in, sell our house, go on the road full-time, live in a camper, two babies, three dogs, my husband, his business partner, and sometimes his homie in April, got it on the market in June, sold, you know, started looking at it, sold it, moved out in August, got the camper in September, hit the road. I mean, my life is totally different in these last six months versus the first six months of 2025. Is that what it looks like for you? Because if it does, maybe you should think about having six months worth of goals instead of a whole year. Maybe we don't even think about July to December at this point. Maybe we just think about up to June. I'm not saying you have to do that. I'm just saying that I'm going to do that. And it sounds like a really great idea for the way that the energy and the cosmos and the way that time is shifting in this moment in our time. So I will link that below in the show notes. If you're interested in listening a little bit more to that and have her expand on that idea and why you might want to try that, um, I'll link that for you so you can go ahead and listen to it. But really, what I'm getting at is, can you allow yourself to live inside of a threshold without rushing it? Can you allow yourself to be with, to listen to, to allow things to shift instead of rushing it, instead of hustling, instead of having everything figured out right in this moment, because the calendar says, because society says that you have to. Honestly, I'm still playing around. It's the beginning of the year. I'm not recording this ahead of time. I'm in 2026 with you. I don't have my word for the year figured out quite yet. I don't have ideas of what I want to happen this year, but I don't have anything nailed down quite yet. I'm still, I'm actually going through major emotional waves right now. So this is this fits. There's a lot of endings. I was crying yesterday because I realized that we left Fort Worth. We moved. I didn't think we were moving. I thought we were going back and forth. I'm in Alabama now. I mean, I'm in Alabama now. I moved. And I didn't say goodbye to anybody. We didn't have a goodbye party. I love throwing parties. We didn't, it was so unceremonious the way that we left. And I'm having to deal with that now. I'm having to try to say goodbye to all of these friends and these relationships and these organizations that I've cultivated over the past 13 plus years of my life from my new life. And I'm having to deal with that and understand that and feel that in this moment.

SPEAKER_00: 15:38

Are you allowing yourself to do the same?

SPEAKER_02: 15:45

Some ways that you can live in this threshold in January without rushing into the new year, into these new goals. I'm gonna offer you some ways to do that. And this is not what to do, these are ways to be. So they're just invitations.

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

Can you stay curious instead of being decisive? Can you take some time to notice what no longer fits? Can you start to track what your energy starts to lean towards without committing to it yet? Can you allow the clarity to come through in the silence and emerge naturally?

SPEAKER_02: 17:05

I know that this idea of January as a threshold is not what we hear.

SPEAKER_00: 17:13

Typically. And so this might not resonate with you yet. But this might resonate with you next year.

SPEAKER_02: 17:32

This might take until 2027 for you to feel. Or allow yourself to feel. This might take till 2028. I hope it doesn't. I hope you try some of this this year. But if you don't, that's okay. I'm just planting seeds, and you can grab onto whatever you choose to. And in the spirit of that, I have a few reflection prompts for you. For those of you that like to journal, that like to reflect, that like to do a little bit more instead of just listening to the podcast, but you like to take this with you. I have a few reflection prompts for you. And I actually, if you didn't know this, every single month, I create a reflection guide for the month's worth of podcast episodes that we have releasing. So there is a January 2026 reflection guide that is linked in our show notes in our free library. All you have to do is go to our website and log in in all of the reflection guides for every single month that I've created. I started them the latter half of 2025. So there's just a few, maybe four in there at this point. But I have reflection guides for you with prompts that go along with each podcast episode and what we're talking about, including interviews. So if that's something that you're interested in, go ahead and download that. But I do have some for you right now that I just want to say out loud. And if any of these resonate with you, if any of these spark anything, I encourage you to go a little bit deeper with them, whether that's some quiet time, whether that's some journaling, whether that's some meditation, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00: 19:19

So the first one, what feels complete even if it doesn't feel resolved? What feels complete even if it doesn't feel resolved? What am I not meant to rush naming or deciding yet? What am I not meant to rush naming or deciding yet? How can I honor being in between instead of trying to escape it? How can I honor being in between instead of trying to escape it? Thank you so much for being with me today. For taking this time. For reflecting. For honoring. I hope you have a great January. I'll see y'all in the next episode.

SPEAKER_02: 21:19

Thank you so much for spending time with us on the Modern Zen Collective Podcast. This podcast is at the heart of everything that we do, created to guide, inspire, and walk alongside you on your journey. If you're ready for more, explore our Practitioner Collective, a trusted resource of experts in healing and wellness to help you deepen your practice for fast-track transformation. And be sure to join our Independence to get first access to new offerings, challenges, and exclusive without. You'll find all the links in the show notes. And until next time, keep trusting your past and honoring your unfolding.