Moving Through the Messy Middle with Gareth Jenkins

By Sandy Glanfield

Listening to Gareth Jenkins share his story in our latest Let’s Reboot the Future episode, Love at the Centre, has left me thinking about the ‘messy middle’ and how we move on from here.

By this, I mean the space many of us pass through between the innocence of childhood, when the world feels kind and full of possibility, and the moment when life shows us its harder truths. Gareth speaks openly about experiencing racism as a child, moments that stripped away his belief in a fair and beautiful world. Like so many of us, this awakening didn’t stop there. Over time came the realisation that pain exists in families, friendships, and communities.

None of us make it through life without being hurt.

Some of us are bullied.
Some of us laugh along when we shouldn’t.
Some of us even become the ones who cause harm.

And often, the way we’re taught to cope is by toughening up. By putting on masks. By protecting ourselves. Sometimes those strategies keep us safe. Sometimes they distance us from who we want to be.

Maybe moving forward from the messy middle isn’t about fixing what’s broken.
Maybe it’s about remembering what each of us already brings.

Gareth talks about how our individuality is the magic. The unique flavour we each add to the world. When we’re aware of our strengths and brave enough to show up with them, new kinds of conversations become possible. New ways of thinking open up. People soften. Listening deepens.

Wherever Gareth goes with his work, he finds the same thing. People care more than we assume. They want better futures. They just often haven’t been given permission to lead with emotion, creativity, and humanity.

And this is where the Golden Rule begins to feel less like an idea and more like a practice. When we lead with the care, creativity, and compassion we ourselves long to receive, something shifts. We stop passing on pain. We start creating the kind of spaces we wish had existed for us.

Perhaps the way forward isn’t grand or complicated.

Perhaps it begins when each of us chooses to bring our own strengths into the spaces we’re in.
To meet pain with curiosity.
To lead with compassion.
To let creativity sit alongside logic.

The messy middle shapes us, yes. But it doesn’t have to limit what comes next.

What comes next might simply be us — more aware, more open, and more willing to offer the unique gifts we carry.

And maybe that’s where real change quietly begins.