How I Find Safety In The Unknown: Navigating a Season of Shift

In this episode Martina opens up about a season where life doesn’t feel as clear as it used to — where certainty fades, old beliefs stop fitting, and the answers she once had no longer land.

She shares what it really looks like to sit in the in-between: questioning everything, thinking more deeply, and resisting the urge to rush into easy conclusions just to feel safe again.

From wrestling with her relationship to God and religion, to re-evaluating her worldview, to navigating the very real uncertainty around motherhood — this is an honest, unfiltered look at what it means to grow beyond surface-level clarity.

This isn’t an episode that gives you neat answers or a step-by-step path.

It’s a conversation about what happens when you stop pretending to know… and start allowing yourself to think for yourself.

If you’re in a season where things feel confusing, uncomfortable, or uncertain — this episode will remind you that you’re not lost.

You’re just going deeper.

Follow Martina on Instagram @femmagical for behind-the-scenes content, updates, and more!

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Also, share this episode with friends and family who need a reminder about the importance of health and boundaries.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

Transcript

Living In The In-Between

Martina 0:00

Before we dive in today, I want to ground a little bit in what this episode is really about. I usually keep my intros shorter, but I want to give you a full context to what I'm about to share with you. So this is an episode for those of you who feel like you're in a season where things don't feel as clear as they used to, where your beliefs maybe have shifted, your perspective is evolving, and you don't have those clean, confident answers anymore to questions that you pose. And maybe a part of you doesn't like that. Maybe a part of your wishes you could just go back to maybe to younger years where you felt more certain, where you felt more grounded, or where it felt that you just know. But another part of you knows that something deeper is happening. So in today's episode, I'm not going to give you a step-by-step or clean conclusion or tie this up in a pretty bow and sell you as this is the solution, this is how I'm doing it. This is a more of an honest conversation about what it looks like to be in that in-between space, in that void between the old and the new. The space where you are questioning more, you're questioning more deeply. You are not scratching the surface, you're just going underneath, where you are thinking differently, where you might even feel a little untettered at times. And for me personally, this has felt like wrestling. Also wrestling with God. Wrestling with my beliefs are held for healthier for many years, with my worldview, and yeah, with my relationship to God and also religion. So if you are in a season where things feel a little bit more confusing, a little more uncertain, maybe even uncomfortable, I want you to stay with me through this episode because this isn't about fixing that feeling, it's about understanding it and maybe even seeing it in a different light. So without further ado, let's dig into today's episode. Hey my loves! Oh my god, it is Friday and it's my favorite day of the week. I love the Friday energy. It has, you know, kind of wrapping up the work week. I still have a day full of work because it's early in my morning. I have also a client called today, so it's not that I'm going to just be lazy or I'm done working and stretching my feet across my couch. But this the Friday energy is just special because it's also going into the weekend, and I just love the whole vibe of it. So not sure which weekday of yours is your favorite one, but for me it's definitely the Friday. And today I'm talking to you about something where I thought, why not sharing this? Because I feel like that could be of immense value for some of you, because I feel like I would love to hear that. So I don't feel or I feel less alone with this. And and I'm sitting here with my coffee behind me, my two fur balls. So if you hear some white weird noises, my dogs can make some weird noises. And now looking out of this big window across the Biscayne Bay, which is the bay between downtown Miami and Miami Beach. For those who don't know Biscayne Beach, I see a weather that's actually as fitting to the podcast content today as as it could any could be. Because, you know, it's like kind of cloudy, then it's sunny, then it's rainy, so it's all kind of different types of weather. And you know, it looks a little bit confusing because you know, one part I just feel like it's getting hot because you know I the sun is very strong in Miami, so you feel immediately warm and hot, but then you know it's getting cloudy, and then there is wind, and then comes rain, and then you feel like, oh, I actually need a second layer to what I'm wearing wearing. So good. Before I'm not going too much off record here with, you know, talking about the weather, which might not be the most interesting for you to listen to me, and also this is not what this podcast is about. Let's just dive right into this. So since a couple of months, so maybe it had to do with the move to Miami, where it might has that whole thing a little bit pronounced for me, but also not just the move itself, but I think also what's going on in a world that has actually accelerated kind of thoughts, changing beliefs, changing my worldview that triggered this whole thing. And I feel like every year things go more rapid, like events happen crazy fast, and obviously not just the positive events, it's like things that are mostly out of our control. And yeah, so a lot of things were happening, and I think since I turned or left behind my 30s, I look at things way more in depth. Not to say I'm ruminating or overthinking it, but I'm just going beyond the layers that I usually stop with my thinking. And I'm now in a season where I just don't have those clean answers anymore, and I'm also not pretending or trying to pretend that I do. And I'm in a season that I'm calling that I'm wrestling, and I put this title of I'm wrestling with God, not just because of a face perspective, but because I do think the relationship I have with the force higher above me, and I'm not an atheist, so I I believe in a God. The relationship so I have with with God kind of deepened, got more important to me because of certain world events, and also because of a very personal topic that I will dive into uh more towards the end of this episode. So sometimes I feel I'm a bit messy. I'm a bit messy because I have no clear answers, no clear answers to deeper questions I have. And and that is okay because for ver for some time that felt very discomforting. I felt like that's not very safe because I was used to having answers. And it was also part because I, you know, in your 20s and 30s, you still feel like you know you are kind of living forever, or the responsibilities might not be as crazy, depending for sure if you have kids or not. I don't have kids, so I definitely had not the responsibility over smaller lives of me, other than just maybe my footballs. And so let me describe where I am right now with my faith. So I was born and raised a Catholic. I've gone through everything that a Catholic has to go through. I was baptized, I had a communion, I had all those things. My parents were not strict in faith or religion. We didn't go to church. Topic of church was never ever any was never a topic in my family, it's never been anything important, but you know, since where I grew up, everyone was Catholic. You just go through every process. And I mean, you know, when someone got married, obviously in my family, they went, they had also a church wedding, so it's been a thing. And I mean, as a small child, I always had a belief in God, but and then of course I liked all those Jesus stories that you learn in elementary school because it's more about storytelling than really having to understand the deeper meanings behind. But then obviously, as a teenager, I just rejected everything that has to do with religion. I found it super boring, I found it not giving me what I needed. And yeah, but there were structures, rules, and clarity in place. Also, how your life should look like and how it's going to be. You know, you finish high school, you do grad school, you find a good job, you build a career, you build a house, you raise a family. And I think that is what I'd say most Catholics, at least in the country that I was raised, follow as a path. Maybe not necessarily, not everyone is building a house. Some like buy condos in the cities or yeah, villages that they live in, but you know, they obviously invest a high amount of money into wherever they want to settle. And for me, that was not the path. I think latest when I started to build my career in corporate, I realized that's not making me happy. I might just tick off all those boxes of what a successful person is supposed to look like in my country, which is Austria, if I haven't mentioned it before. But then I'm like, that isn't giving me anything. I feel still very empty. So fast forward to today, I obviously realized that a corporate job isn't it isn't it. And I found different ways how to feel me, feel meaning and fill the void that I had inside of me. And that is that was my past 10 years. It's been a journey, it's been very rich. But then of course, when I left my 30s entirely, things kind of slowly changed for me. And I started to question a lot of parts. I questioned whether I should come back to a religious faith. If believing in God is suffici is sufficient, if I should go back to praying, everything I've learned in the past. And, you know, I was even thinking, do I need to go back and read the Bible? Uh I haven't touched the Bible since I was like, I don't know, 13, 14, or I was forced in religion, you know, when we had that as kind of lessons in school to open and read in. So I was going forth and back and with with this, and I not rejecting faith. I trying to understand it for myself. I want to find a footing in there. And I want to understand, you know, can I take parts out of this Catholic faith and make it work in my life? Can I use it as a scaffolding to help me navigate my ups and downs or challenges or, you know, how I'm with other people? Is this something that I could imagine for myself also kind of blading into my coaching work without obviously making this about faith or God or Jesus, you know, because a lot of my clients are not of that faith or religion or rejected religion, are atheists. So yeah, no, I've obviously not coming to any conclusion. Right now, I'm still going forth and back with a lot of questions I have, and um, because I mentioned the Bible. I was like, for the first time of my life, I had this epiphany of like a lot of life questions, deeper questions that don't require an answer right away, but where the answers lead me down a beautiful rabbit hole, not an rabbit hole where I say, like, oh my god, you know, going down a rabbit hole, meaning more in a negative sense, but going down a rabbit hole of put like pulling pieces together or coming from one question to another question to another question or assumption or then even forming a belief. And instead of listening within often, what about consulting, let's say, the big book and having a look what when I had a question about something that I'm questioning in my life, if I find kind of an answer and guidance in the Bible, and of course you do, you do it, it's it's not that hard. And I respect the Bible, but at the same time, you know, I know that the Bible has been translated, it has kind of been written by a lot of different people. And for me in my younger years, why I rejected the Bible overall was because I'm like there can be mistranslations, there can be misinterpretations of certain people, and then also I don't trust the Catholic Church, at least not the one that's been in place since I think I don't know when it actually was really like a Catholic church, right? When there were like those leaders and rulers kind of who, you know, dictated what should be in a Bible or not. And I don't trust that institution. I don't know what was their agenda back in the days. It wasn't necessarily a good one. And I felt like for a lot of times that as a good thing it is from the Bible's perspective to put out rules in a way that's benefiting living together in a community, being peaceful, not lie, not hurt anyone. I think that's that's good, but I also know there are a lot of rigid things in there that are more black and white. And I still have a part in me that says a lot of those things were put into the Bible or are intentionally misinterpreted. And this is my own bias and this is my own assumption. This is not grounded in any evidence or reality necessarily, but that's what I believe, that make you follow an agenda and a rule that's not benefiting me, not you, not the community, but maybe other people in the world. So sorry, I'm adjusting my seat. Am I sitting here? So yeah, and I'm very respectful. I'm I I'm as respectful as I can be saying this. I have observed that people who follow the Bible, like former friends or acquaintances, or people I came along, they've been kind of rigid in their thinking. And I respect that, but that doesn't necessarily work for me or want to have in my kind of environment, if that makes sense. And I'm I've I'm questioning what I've been taught versus what I actually believe. And again, I'm not rejecting faith, I'm just trying to make it work and understand it for myself. And I just I just don't want to blindly follow everything without a deeper thinking, without and it's not about me cherry-picking and just picking out the things that work for me and the things that I don't want to make work, or I'm too lazy, or I feel like, oh no, that you know, rejecting that. I don't think cherry-picking is either is even a good thing either. But or twist it so it makes so to fit whatever is convenient for me. I just I don't want to be rigid and follow things blindly. And I just I I also don't want to just making things mean whatever I want. At the same time, I just don't want to take on something and rigidly believing it or taking taking it on in my life a hundred percent. So that's kind of the way how I see things. I mean, I'm I'm a spiritual being, I believe in a God, in a higher force, and I can also completely be comfort with the thought that there's a universe, and maybe there isn't God, maybe there's a universe, and that are energies or energy itself, like atoms, new neutrons or whatnot that created everything here. That is a little bit more of an atheist atheist perspective, but to me personally 100% resonate with with a God. I am not sure if I'm resonating with Jesus as much. Not that I don't believe he existed, not that I don't believe he has done those things that he's done, or maybe, you know, done those miracles he has done. I I just there's just no resonance. And at one hand I feel like I want to resonate, I want to talk like other people, oh Jesus is the one, you know, Jesus saved us. I don't know. I also always had that belief that religion contributed to so like to kind of wars, spiritual wars, sometimes, emotional wars, sometimes it's not always just physical wars, where someone thinks that their religion is better or is the one religion or the other chosen people. I think that is a downside of it. And there's so much to say about that. Where I'm you know reading about and trying to educate myself. But yeah, I'm wrestling with the connection and resonance to a Jesus. I don't know, because I've always believed in God how to believe in him, and I know in some ways he is God, right? The embodied human as a God or something. I might say that completely wrong, and I don't care because you can see there is not much conclusion here for me. So that's one thing as well. That's like, okay, how does he fit in, you know? And following his guidance and the way how he taught things, in some ways, yes, and in some ways not sure, you know, and maybe there's also a part of me that's still questioning authority and having a hard time following what other people are saying. And one hand, I'm also good at that, you know. So it's it's not a black-white thing. It's just like, you know, I'm jumping forth and back, and it all came also more pronounced up for me because I'm seeing the world differently, because you know, this is kind of not a darkness piece that I'm stepping into right now. Not talking about doom and gloom and everything is lost, right? With all the new wars, old wars, the lies, the deception. You know, this is more about me becoming more aware who is behind everything, because it's not a president, it's not the people that we see in media, it's not media itself behind those are invisible forces, and those invisible forces are secret societies, and then we go all down this, these rabbit holes of like conspiratorial stories or threads of what's the true history, how did it really happen? And it's so complex that I'm like, okay, I don't know. I would take forever to figure this all out, but every day I'm trying to follow, I'm reading, I'm following certain people on YouTube where I educate myself and I love to be aware of things. And then with this awareness, I also processing that and maybe changing beliefs, maybe changing the way how I see things. And what I realized is that life and history isn't as simple or as innocent as I once felt it. There is so much complexity in everything, so many nuances that are because we can't grasp so many nuances and complexities, we we simplify this so that the human brain can just so that we can live, right? And yeah, there's there's a lot of darkness as well. But I think part of growing up is seeing the world more and more clearly and figuring out. What you believe within that, not outside of it. So that's that's a thing. That's a threat. That's another threat to this whole religion faith as aspect that I just explained. You know, it's politically speaking, it's a disaster what's going on, it's it's crazy, and I've never seen it so clear. And the division of people, people falling into psychological psy-ops that I also fell into. And I could record a whole podcast about this because for me it was so eye-opening to understand this. And maybe not just to understand it, but to raise an awareness of how we are actually deceived and not losing the hope and the faith into a brighter, better world, and without being naive, but with also not being a pessimist about it. Because I speak with that about that with my dad very often. And I told him I still, although I know now so many new more things, even in the past two months, I have learned things that blew my freaking mind. I told him I haven't lost hope. I haven't lost my optimism. And I think that is very healthy, and it's very, very helpful because as soon as it skips over to losing the anchor and the groundedness into the present moment, and also to say, hey, I'm grateful for my life, I had a good life, and I have a good life, and I will have a good life, you know. That is important or not lose that anchor. Staying always grounded. And for me, as long as I'm grounded, I'm allowing myself to go into those positive or negative rabbit holes, or maybe there's not such a thing as a negative rabbit hole, because for now it has been just very beneficial to me, even though sometimes I just don't know what I'm digging out here, what to do with this information. What do I do with the information that there are secret societies or families since centuries ruling the world, that I always thought it's just a conspiracy, but now I have evidence and it's not. And that whoever you vote for, it's already decided. And it doesn't matter as much because in the end of the day, they are being ruled by somebody way stronger and more hidden. So this is another threat. And then my third one that I have a lot of uncertainty around, and that I kind of mentioned in the intro, more on a also personal vulnerable aspect that I want to share with you is the uncertainty regarding motherhood. So obviously, I'm not leading the most conventional life, and I'm not saying this in like, oh, I'm so much different and better. No, not at all. I'm just saying that in a way of I knew when I was still in high school, and I said that out loud, that I don't want to be I so I want to be an old mother. Old mother. I knew that when I was 18, 17, 20. And now I'm I left my 30s. And now you're considered in medicine as old and risky to conceive. And now we are talking about life decisions. It's like, you know, for mm 20 years I wasn't sure if I want to be a mom, when I want to be a mom, and will it even work out? And you know, I know that you cannot choose a date and say, oh, and now I want it, and now it will happen. And that is uncertainty and things that I can control, and sometimes it makes me a little bit like you know, because for 25 years I wasn't sure if I want to be a mom or not. Now I'm like, I'm open to it, I'm open to it because I feel so grounded in my life, in my marriage. I think I'm with my husband in a really great spot financially, emotionally, physically. But then now that I would call it now the perfect timing, because my husband and I had, you know, put so many strong foundation bricks in our relationship that makes this just a perfect ground for building a family. But now, will it even work biologically? Has it even ever worked? Would it have ever worked? So all those things that are coming up right now. And I don't have certainty here. And you know what? That it's uncomfortable almost every single day. Or every cycle when I get my period, I'm like, oh, let's see, I get my period. You know, hmm. Now another month of trying to get pregnant and conceive, and that's okay. It's I build a lot of patience and resilience to just be patient and know that this time I have a certain amount of things that I can do, but I have to give up the control. I have to give up, like, okay, and now I want it. Because it's not like, oh, I want to get trained in a specific field. Okay, then let's make it happen. Or I want to change a job, or I want to have more, more, more clients, or wanna raise my fees, or I want to get a better salary, or whatever it is, you know. This is not something that I can just now make happen from one day to the other. There is, and that's what brought me back more to God. Like, do I want to more connect with my faith? And puts all this uncertainty and kind of loss of control here towards this force and pray for whatever is the outcome, it will be just the best. Is this naive? You know, so all those kind of things. And I'm not sure how you go about all those questions, and maybe you are a mom since many, many years. You're actually now building a life with children that are maybe older or still younger or whatnot, and maybe you have different questions to the stage that you are in. And yeah, and you know what? Confusion. I would call this all as in the umbrella of confusion, but the confusion is not the problem. Being lost is when you are disconnected, when you are jacked out, when you're avoiding the truth. That's when you are lost. But being confused is you are right in it. You are asking the right questions, you are searching, you're paying attention, you raise your awareness, you are more critical with what you've believed, and think like if that's still online, what are my values? Do I need to change anything here? And I am not, I don't feel lost. I've never really felt lost. I feel like I'm in the middle of figuring things out, and that's a very different place than I was a year, two or three in. And you know, what I figured so far is that you can be faithful but also questioning your faith. And you can be grounded in your life, in gratitude, in knowing that everything is good, you've been grounded in your optimism and still feel very uncertain, especially if some of those things in the world happen that you feel like are atrocious. And you can be searching and you can feel okay at the same time. Because these are not contradictions, these are signs of you maturing, you're maturing in a different direction, you're maturing emotionally, physically, whatnot. It's it's all all okay. And the key is if you are in a season where things don't feel clear, don't make it about the belief you are behind because you're not. You're not doing life wrong because you don't have answers. And I'm pretty sure if you thought at times that you're lost, you're not. You're just you're you're thinking for yourself for the first time, and that is actually what I feel like. I enjoy this uncertainty, these questions I have, and this being confused at times. I'm enjoying it because it brings me to a way deeper path within me and then with in my relationship I have with with God. And yeah, I don't have a conclusion right now, but I trust that being honest in a process is just better than pretending to have it all together or pretending you already know. And I think that's really what I want to leave you with today. This season of confusion, of questioning, of not having clean answers. And I want to leave you with today that this doesn't mean you are lost. It actually right now means you were finally willing to go way deeper than service level surface level certainty. Because for a long time I thought I needed clarity in order to feel safe. I wanted answers so I could relax, so I could indulge into black and white thinking, into feeling like I had control, like I knew where I was going and what's going on in the world, in my life. But what I'm learning right now is that there's a different kind of safety. A safety in being able to hold the questions, a safety in trusting that even when things don't make immediate sense, if I have to ponder the answers to questions or pose questions that don't even require answers, that there is still something unfolding for me and not against me. Just like the weather I'm literally looking at right now, uh glancing over the bay, the beautiful water, and the side to downtown Miami, where I see sun, clouds, wind, rain, and sometimes all within the same hour. And it looks sometimes chaotic. The the weather in Miami Beach can be so unpredictable at times, but it's still nature doing exactly what it's supposed to do. And when I moved to Miami and suddenly realized I can't rely on my weather app because there can be a splash of rain, there can be sunshine when clouds are predicted, there can be yeah, a splash of rain when sun and clouds are forecasted. But that's exactly how it's supposed to be. And me living with the certainty and accepting things to change and be different is exactly the right place. And maybe that's what this season right now for me means. And maybe for you too. Maybe you are also now growing into a visor you into a specific age where you see that the clarity that you thought that you had, the outlook you had over life, how you thought you gonna like how your life pans out. Maybe you had a certain blueprint, is shifting. Beliefs are shifting, your thinking is shifting, your values are shifting. Not everything is shifting right away and at once, but slowly. And I want you to I want to tell you that it that's not a sign something is wrong. It's a sign that something is moving, shifting, and expanding. So if you are in a moment where you feel confused, like I am at times, where yeah, your beliefs are changing, where things don't feel as solid as they used to, I want you to know you're not behind. You're not doing life the wrong way. You are just in deeper conversations now. And don't be blindsided or distracted when you look uh to when you look over to other people, maybe in your circle of friends, on social media. Wherever you look, don't compare yourself and don't think because someone's life looks complete, it has clarity, direction, drive. They are moving, they're doing, they are producing, they are living the life. And you're sitting home, confused, sad sometimes. You you sometimes lost direction. You don't know who you are, who you wanna be. Just know that is okay. That is also a very powerful place to be. I know it sounds contradictory, but trust me on this. So that was a mouthful. I hope that was a very valuable episode for you. At least it helped me, speaking honestly, where I am at. So I wanna thank you for being here with me, for being in this real, very unpolished, in progress moments. And if you have any thoughts, reach out to me on Instagram at Femagical or wherever you know to reach me. Some of you are connected with me on Facebook, on WhatsApp, on Instagram. There is also a way how to send me a message on Apple Podcasts. There's a list, there's a link in the description where you can send me an email. So don't hesitate. And if you don't want to reach out to me, if you want to progress on your own, or if you just we're not able to relate much to this episode, that's totally fine. We are all somewhere on our timelines, and I just wanted to voice where I am. Voice if that resonates with you that you are not alone, that we are all in this together sooner or later, right? For some it came sooner, for some others it comes later, for some it is right now, like with me. And yeah, thank you so much for being here. I really really appreciate you, and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Thank you for tuning in. Bye.