Guest article by Amanda Oliver

Consistent effort, collaboration, and delivering results are the true currency of leadership. I believed that with all my heart and poured myself into my work, constantly striving to produce strong outcomes and foster deep employee engagement. Whenever someone needed me, “yes” was my answer, and I was the “go-to” person for my boss for years.

“Can you step in to cover this department while we recruit to replace the former leader?”

“I’m assigning this new team to you because you’re our most experienced operational leader.”

“We need you on this national task force to represent our organization.”

Each request felt like a vote of confidence. Delivering success at the end of the assignment built my skills and showed my senior executive I was a capable leader. I expressed my desire for the next level and even discussed it in my 1:1. I worked through any constructive feedback and turned it into positive comments about my growth, to the point where I assumed the path ahead was as obvious to the decision-makers as it was to me.

I was proud to be the reliable go-to leader. So when someone else received the long-awaited promotion, the news hit like a physical blow. It completely shattered my sense of purpose and self-worth. I felt invisible. I had no direct feedback from someone I thought was mentoring me to the next level. Where had I gone so wrong, and how could I possibly pick up the pieces to move forward?

Gathering my courage, I sought raw, uncensored feedback from my HR partner. That conversation was constructive and gave me action steps my immediate supervisor didn’t. I connected with other leaders to broaden my strategic network. I actively sought out diverse projects within the organization to connect me with a broader audience. I took a leadership course, inspiring me to reset and focus on what mattered to me at this stage of my career. None of these steps was dramatic on its own. Together, they shifted my energy from waiting to be chosen toward choosing where to invest myself.

After some reflection, I also realized my idea of the next level may not be the best fit right now. I found gratitude where I was, the stability of my team, and the mastery to support those newer in their role. I could stand confident while I watched the uncertainty around me. My courage grew as I brought my voice to the table to promote value, clarity, and harmony for front-line middle management.

If you’ve been the one everyone counts on and still been overlooked, I know how disorienting that can feel. Reliability earns trust, yet it doesn’t always earn visibility. Sometimes the real work is asking directly for feedback, widening the circle of people who know what you bring, and being honest with yourself about whether the next rung is the one you truly want.

It’s interesting to notice how differently I operate today — with a deep sense of peace, gratitude, and purpose. What felt like a devastating rejection became a profound gift. It pushed me out of my shell and empowered me to lead with genuine heart and influence, no matter what shifts around me. That promotion wasn’t meant for me, but I carry something far more valuable: an abiding peace with where I am and the steady wisdom to recognize and take the right step whenever it arises.

Amanda Oliver, transformational and leadership coach, has spent more than 25 years leading healthcare teams toward operational excellence in quality, patient safety, and employee engagement. She gives people the tools to succeed in a positive environment while holding them to high performance standards. She also has a sharp eye for patterns that streamline work and improve results. Years of leading from the middle taught her to do it with confidence and ease. She sees the balance between family and organizational excellence as the key to longevity in healthcare. Amanda mentors individuals and groups, both in and outside healthcare, as they find their next steps, peace, and personal growth.

Guest article by Tony Washington

Physicist Richard Feynman once described a stretch in his career when physics had stopped being fun for him. So he gave himself permission to stop worrying about whether the problems he worked on were important and just mess around with whatever caught his attention.

One day in the university cafeteria, somebody tossed a plate into the air. Feynman noticed the way it wobbled and started working out the physics behind the motion. He had no grand research question in mind or some larger purpose he was trying to serve. He was just curious about a wobbling plate, and so he followed that curiosity.

His little detour eventually connected back to work that helped earn him a Nobel Prize. But that’s not my point in telling his story. Long before that detour amounted to anything, Feynman had given himself time with no particular destination in mind.

I’m no physicist, and I see no Nobel Prize in my immediate future. But this summer, I unexpectedly found myself with a stretch of time that looked just as destination-less and as primed for curiosity.

In April, I resigned from a company where I had worked for 15 years to focus on a graduate program I had started in January. By May, the consequences of those life-changing decisions caught up with me, physically. I developed a persistent cough that progressed to a bad case of bronchitis, as if there’s ever a good case.

I finished my first semester in the program emotionally and physically drained, not how I wanted to start my graduate career. On the advice of a trusted friend, I opted out of summer courses to recuperate, even though doing so risked keeping me from my goal of finishing the program in under two years.

So, there I was at the start of June, destination-free. I had no priorities to fixate on except taking care of myself. No work and no school meant no predictable schedule to follow or demands to meet for the next three months.

Everyone’s dream scenario, right? How easily we tie productivity to our sense of worth can leave a mark you don’t notice until later.

I initially felt scattered, unmoored by the freedom I stumbled upon. You know that disorienting sensation you get when you wake up in a new place for the first time? That was my mornings the first few weeks.

I tried focusing on taking meaningful actions to provide some semblance of structure. I finished planning an ambitious fiction project I intended to start in the fall. I participated in a four-week seminar on “reimagining work,” a timely topic. I brainstormed on what I might do with the degree after I finished.

But those old high-achieving tools of the trade no longer worked. They were designed for tasks that didn’t fit where I was. And I was definitely somewhere else. Collecting my thoughts, as I normally would, felt like grasping at wet marbles on an already slippery floor.

Exasperated, I decided to do something I hadn’t had the chance to do in a very long time. I sat still and just let my mind wander, something scholars describe as spontaneous thought that moves with relatively few constraints.

I stopped chasing after the marbles and just let them roll, leaning into my curiosity to see where they might go. That included not judging their direction or distance, or even the velocity at which they traveled.

Sitting still knotted my stomach, of course. I had spent years developing a professional ethos of defining a clear purpose, choosing priorities that align with that purpose, and measuring outcomes against a clear idea of what progress looks like.

Underlying that ethos was a sense of movement toward some end. So, sitting still felt like I was forsaking the very core of who I was. Someone ever marching toward growth.

But an important question emerged in my discomfort: What happens when someone like me, accustomed to giving purpose and direction to just about every activity, suddenly has the freedom to let things just unfold?

I knew I was in a fortunate position to be able to take a detour off my path and explore. Opportunities like that don’t come along very often. So I decided to seize my moment.

In my limited reading on what I was about to embark on, I came across the recurring idea that wandering needs room to happen. That usually means unstructured time and fewer constraints on where your attention goes. I had both in abundance, though reveling in them took some practice.

Sometimes I set my alarm later than normal or not at all. Sometimes I woke up unprompted to go for a walk in the first morning light. I spent more time with my parrot Jewel, teaching her how to play with her toys and sitting with her on the front steps to watch the squirrels scurry about.

I met friends for coffee or lunch, and in the process met new people doing interesting things. I created new song lists to listen to while I write. I read without purpose, sometimes stopping midway through to look up references that piqued my curiosity.

Accepting that unstructured pace took some time. I didn’t realize how out of practice I was. Modern life tends to focus our attention on one muscle group (achieving life goals) while letting others atrophy (experiencing life itself).

But the more flexible rhythm of living helped me to flex my old muscles of noticing. Many of those marbles kept rolling about, and that was okay. A few landed at points of greater (though not full) clarity. Not a “wobbly plate” kind of epiphany, but enough insights to help me name what I was seeking, where I felt lacking, where I might grow, and how I might live more closely to my values.

One marble landed on work. The seminar on reimagining work helped me see how we narrow that concept to one arrangement (a job) and then cram it with so many functions (income, identity, community, status). Stepping outside that arrangement opened opportunities to imagine different ones.

Another landed on pace. I’ve never had a problem accepting the need for “good enough” when the moment calls for it. But other moments deserve the time it takes to get to a “damn, that’s good.” We could use a few more of those.

For me, creating space for those moments might mean choosing which of my two big passions gets most of my attention first. Trying to push both forward at the same time risks doing neither one well. I don’t have that sorted out yet, but at least I can name the decision more clearly now.

Life is filling back up again. I have classes, projects, and decisions to make. As I get back into the groove, my old professional ethos still makes sense. I see no reason to throw out purpose, priority, and progress.

But I might just have to leave a little more room before I start assigning purpose and measuring progress. Give some things enough time to unfold before I decide what they are or where they should go.

Looking back, maybe I shouldn't say I lost my marbles over the summer. It felt like that at the time, understandably. Maybe I just stopped insisting that they all stay where I put them.

Subscribe now

Tony Washington is a writer and systems thinker interested in how people make sense of complex situations. His work explores the interplay of cognition, technology, culture, and the environments that affect what people are able to see.

On a trail where the way isn’t obvious, hikers stack stones to mark it. A cairn [we pronounce it kehrn] doesn’t tell you where to go. It tells you someone stood here before you, found their footing, and thought the next person might want to know.

Cairns from the Community is where Betweenward publishes those markers, written by readers or writers. Each one is an account of a stretch of the in-between: a career that ended before you were done, a diagnosis, a season of caring for someone, a marriage that changed shape, a house gone quiet, or a room we haven’t named yet.

Why your story matters

The in-between is hardest when it feels like nobody else has ever stood in it. Research can map the terrain, and a framework can name the stages. Neither can do what one honest account does: show a reader that someone came through this and tell them what it was like along the way.

Your story doesn’t need a tidy ending. Some of the most useful cairns are left partway through, by someone still finding their footing.

What we’re looking for

• Your own experience, in your own words. Or you telling someone else’s story with their permission.

• What the in-between was like from the inside: what you expected, what surprised you, what helped, what didn’t

• Roughly 600–1,200 words

• Pieces already published on your own Substack or site are welcome [with a link back to the original]

How to share

Email your piece or a link to info@betweenward.com, comment here, or on one of our Notes with a link.

What happens next

We read every submission. If yours is a fit, we’ll reach out to talk it through, and nothing is published until you’ve approved the final version. You keep the rights to your work. Betweenward publishes it under your name, with a link to your own Substack or site, or under your first name and last initial if you’d rather keep it more private.

Someone is standing where you once stood. Leave them a marker.

I don’t know if you’ve been here, but if you have, I want you to know I see you.

One morning, I stood in my kitchen and saw the green tubing running from our bedroom into the living room. My husband was still sleeping, and the house was still. The tubing was there so he could move from oxygen in bed to oxygen in his chair when he was ready.

That was the moment it all landed differently.

We’ve been living with health challenges for a long time, so this caregiving journey didn’t begin yesterday. We’ve had diagnoses, adjustments, and new routines before this one. But this was different. This diagnosis, layered on top of several others, brought his mortality into plain view in a way I couldn’t ignore or soften in my mind. I couldn’t make it simply another appointment, medication, or small shift in the day.

Something about that green tubing made the change obvious.

I heard myself say to a friend, “This feels like the beginning of the end.”

Even writing those words now, I feel the weight of them. And maybe that’s part of what makes caregiving so hard to talk about. We don’t always have the right words for what’s happening while we’re in the middle of it. We’re managing equipment, appointments, medications, instructions, phone calls, and decisions. We’re adapting the house, the calendar, and the day’s rhythm. Underneath it all, we’re also carrying the emotional truth of what has changed.

When Love Asks for Something Different

I’ve been my husband’s wife for more than 30 years. I’ve been his partner, his companion, his person. We’ve built a life with all the ordinary and extraordinary things that make a marriage what it is. And laughter has always been part of us. So has honesty, and getting through things we didn’t expect.

Over the years, my role has changed many times. Lover, wife, partner, advocate, caregiver. Some days, those roles blend so completely that I don’t know where one ends and the other begins.

That’s the part many people don’t see. Caregiving doesn’t only change what you do. It changes how you listen, how you watch, how you sleep, and how you move through the house. It also changes how quickly your mind goes to the next practical question.

Is he breathing comfortably? Did the new medication help? What does that symptom mean? Will this treatment make things better, harder, or both? How is he really doing with all of this?

And then, somewhere underneath those questions, another one starts to surface: How am I doing with all of this?

That first week after the new diagnosis, I was on high alert — watching for signs that he was struggling with the new routine, and for changes in his breathing. I watched how he moved, how he rested, and how he responded. The future felt uncertain in a way I couldn’t easily name, and the questions kept circling. How would he adapt to this new reality? How would I?

The Conversations That Steadied Us

As the days passed, we began having the conversations that needed to happen. They weren’t grand, but they were real. The ones that come when you’re standing in the middle of something you can’t change and trying to decide how you’ll live with it.

We talked about acceptance and about how we couldn’t change this new situation, only how we would respond to it and build our days around it. We talked about gratitude, too, because even though his body is breaking down in ways we wish it weren’t, his mind is still sharp. That matters. Every. Single. Day.

And we talked about wanting to make the best of our time together, whatever that time turns out to be.

Those conversations didn’t make everything easier, but they did make things more honest. Something about telling the truth together feels very grounding. It doesn’t remove the grief or the fear, or answer every question. But it keeps you from standing alone in the middle of what has changed.

Then, sometime during that first week, his humor came back.

He looked at me with that familiar smirk and said, “At least now I can breathe easy, and I won’t take it for granted.”

There he was. That was my thought. There he is.

I can’t tell you how grateful I was for that moment. He could have chosen anger and turned it toward the situation, the equipment, life, even me. And I would have understood. Instead, my hubby chose to ride this rollercoaster with me the way we’ve ridden so many others, laughing with our hands in the air, sliding into home base with a smile.

That doesn’t mean we’re pretending this isn’t hard. It means we’re still us inside it.

The Ripple Starts Again

I often talk about the Ripple Journey because transitions rarely move in a straight line. Something happens; I call it The Drop, disrupting what had become familiar. Then the waves begin again.

This new diagnosis was another Drop in a long caregiving journey. It changed the room, the routine, and the way the future felt when I looked toward it. The Inner Wave was the pause we both had to take, the honest conversations, the acceptance that life had shifted again, and the tenderness of admitting what we could and couldn’t control.

The Middle Wave came through the people who knew what to do next. Medical experts helped us understand the equipment, explained how it worked, how to navigate with it, and how to integrate it into daily life without letting it take over every corner of our home.

The Outer Wave came through my dearest friends. They listened and acknowledged how hard this was. They gave me room to feel it without rushing me toward a brighter interpretation. They prayed with me and let me cry. And they helped me return to the practical steps I could take, one day at a time.

Sometimes support looks like advice. This time, it looked more like presence.

Slowly, Still Water began to return. It wasn’t that everything was fine, or that the fear disappeared. It returned because we began to settle into the new normal and make the best of it. We learned where the tubing needed to go and how to move around it. We adjusted to what the day required now. And we began to breathe again inside what had changed.

For the Ones Carrying This Quietly

I’m sharing this because I know there are so many of us moving through seasons like this in silence. We bear it, adjust to it, and love through it. We watch as we keep living inside what has changed, even when we don’t always have words for how much it has changed us.

Some are caring for spouses, aging parents, adult children, siblings, friends, or neighbors. Some are sandwiched between generations, tending to growing children on one side and aging loved ones on the other. Many of us do it while still working, leading, showing up, answering emails, keeping commitments, making dinner, paying attention to everyone else’s needs, and wondering when we’re allowed to admit we’re tired.

Caregiving can be full of love, and it can also be lonely. Both can be true at the same time.

And when your role changes, it can shake something deep inside you. You may still be a wife, husband, daughter, son, parent, friend, or partner, but the way you inhabit that role may feel different now. More watchful. More responsible. More tender. More aware of time.

That kind of change deserves a name.

We don’t always know how we’ll respond when The Drop hits. I didn’t. I don’t think most of us do. We find out in real time, often while we’re trying to understand instructions, make decisions, and keep our hearts from running too far ahead.

For me, leaning into my faith is the best thing I can do. I lean in big, deep, and hard because that’s where I find enough steadiness for the next step. For you, it may be faith, too. Or friendship. Or therapy. Or prayer. It might be a walk outside, writing in a notebook, or reaching out to the community that lets you tell the truth — or it could be one trusted person who can hear you say the thing you’ve been holding back.

Whatever steadies you, lean in. You don’t have to carry this season without support or make your courage look polished. And you definitely don’t have to rush yourself past the ache just because other people don’t know what to say.

Still Water isn’t a place where nothing changes. It’s where we learn to breathe again inside what has changed.

That’s where we are right now, my husband and I, living inside a reality we didn’t choose. We laugh when we can, tell the truth when we need to, and make the best of the time we have.

And adapt again, one day at a time.

María Tomás-Keegan is a career and leadership coach, award-winning author, and trusted guide for women moving through meaningful change in work and life. Through her coaching, writing, and speaking, she helps women reconnect with who they are now, trust the wisdom they’ve earned, and lead forward with clarity, courage, and alignment. She created The Ripple Journey™, a framework for transforming your work and life. She is a co-founder of Betweenward™.