The Power of Waiting
Explore the benefits and paradoxes of a waiting practice
The voice is soft, barely more than a soft whisper. “Karna… hey, Karna… it’s not time yet. Just wait a little more…”.
It’s a small still voice within that’s talking to me. I can’t say the exact location where this voice is coming from. But the sense I have is that’s it’s coming from a deep, true part of myself.
Let me tell you a little something else about me. Or rather, what my experience of being myself is like.
Imagine a horse race. With your inner eye, watch the horses right before they start racing. See their strong, powerful muscles rippling under their skin… So eager to take off and run the race finally!
Since I was young, I’ve often felt like I have that horse energy inside me that just wants to go, go, GOOOO!! And do! And explore!
Part of that energy is good, healthy, vibrant, and exciting.
The dark side of that energy is when coupled with a lot of trauma and painful inner states it can become a force that creates A LOT of projects and pursues relationships but they are never actually sustainable.
It can also become problematic when the survival patterns I developed as a child, like overachieving to earn my worth or to constantly be in motion to avoid pain, are fueled by the inner drive to perform or DO.
Given all this, I think you can understand when I say that waiting for things to fall into place, or to take measured action, or to slow down and truly listen to what a given situation calls for has not exactly been a strong suit for most of my life. #understatementoftheyear
So how did I get introduced to the idea that slowing down and waiting might be a good idea?
The concept that an important part of my healing would involve slowing down was introduced to me at the age of 23 by my soul sister Katrina.
Back then, I’d gone to Costa Rica to help Katrina with her son who had autism and a seizure disorder. I lived with her, her (then) husband, and two kids outside of San Jose for ten months.
When I got there, Katrina helped me begin to slow down and sat with me and I began sitting with my pain in a way that I’d NEVER experienced before.
It was pain at a whole new level. Raw, real, and absolutely paralyzing.
The way I see it, slowing down and waiting are related and serve similar purposes. While I’ve been working on slowing down for over 14 years the power of WAITING has not come into my awareness until this year. This year I did a lot of conscious waiting and the results have been – uncomfortable af – but mindblowing nonetheless.
Before we go on. I bid you take a deep breath. In though your nose… and out though your mouth - Aaaah.
Exploring waiting, and being with waiting, inspires a certain iridescent quality of human existence. That almost ungraspable aspect of living that brings poetry to life!
Waiting also brings us to our knees is the deepest grief but also inspires our deepest wonder and awe. Waiting asks you to touch into the timeless, yet eternal, moment and simultaneously invites you to put your choosing power to the task of not choosing. It asks your inner racehorse to stay and not race when the doors open...
In other words; waiting can be really fucking hard.
Especially in a world full of timelines and other people who are begging or attempting to force you to act or DO SOMETHING through any means possible. Threatening, reasoning, pleasing, punishing, manipulating, or complimenting - because when you slow down. When you wait. You pull other people with you, and they are forced to slow down, and inevitably that can bring up a lot of pain. And in general, people don’t like that you made them feel this way. (Which of course isn’t true, but most people will not be aware and self-responsible enough to be able to own their triggers.)
John Tarrant in The Light Inside the Darkness says:
"We are waiting for the seasons to change. We are waiting for our time to come around, or that opening to appear in the Tao where we can walk through and touch somebody. Whereas if we had moved before, everything would have been wrong - no point, no effect. Sometimes the right thing to do is to wait. In the hexagram in the I-Ching about waiting, it says you should enjoy yourself with this kind of waiting, you should eat and drink and be of good cheer. We do not need to be dour about waiting because we are in tune with the seasons. It is the right time to wait."
Yes, indeed. Being in tune with your seasons, the ebb and flow, comings and goings of your life is very powerful.
Let me attempt to summarize what I’ve learned about waiting here for you.
Waiting is aligned with simple BEing - not doing.
Waiting allows you to be slow enough to HEAR both inspiration - from God, if that’s how you perceive your reality (or from your Gut, if that’s how you see the world or from Reason, if that is more up your ally) AND from a place of quiet personal power.
Acting impulsively usually means that you are not resting in your center and that you have placed significance on something OUTSIDE of you.
By waiting for your next true action step to arise from a quiet, clear, and peaceful place, odds are that you will create more ease and alignment in your life, as opposed to creating drama and acting from old patterns.
Waiting attunes you to the natural order of nature and allows you to feel more in harmony with life itself.
Waiting can allow for your soul’s true desires to arise and by waiting you can dance with desire itself and let it be the medicine and purpose rather than the outcome of a certain action.
Waiting can allow for things to resolve themselves and save you time and energy.
Waiting will reveal hidden treasures, solutions, surprises, and gifts that you would have never known if you had acted immediately instead.
Once you’ve repeated the waiting cycle - waited until you got a calm answer and action step and taken it, only to wait again - many times you will increase your overall wellbeing because trust in life gets re-established and you may move from survival to thriving. Trust in YOUR life is an invaluable state of being that enriches every aspect of your existence.
Have I convinced you that waiting for a calm knowing before acting is the f shit?
Because it truly is. But you didn’t think it was going to be that easy did you?!
Enter the paradox of waiting/action
Just like with everything else in life it comes with some paradoxical elements to spice the plot up a little bit - gotta keep this “being human” movie exciting for us!
So, naturally, as I mentioned there are some caveats:
Sometimes waiting is not the right thing to do, like in an emergency situation - part of the art of waiting is to know when and when not to use it.
Sometimes you have to act without the “knowing” feeling.
Sometimes while waiting you could feel absolutely abandoned.
Waiting might make you feel crazy and you should have a support network to help you through this if it’s new to you.
Waiting can cause conflicts and bring hidden things to the surface in relationships that seemed “fine”.
This is the Dream
by Olav H. Hauge
This is the dream we carry through the world
that something fantastic will happen
that it has to happen
that time will open by itself
that doors shall open by themselves
that the heart will find itself open
that mountain springs will jump up
that the dream will open by itself
that we one early morning
will slip into a harbour
that we have never known.
There you have it. My contribution of the week. 🐛🦋
I’m so curious what your relationship to waiting is? If you feel so inspired, please send me a line or drop me a comment or heart!
I’ve truly only just begun my journey with waiting, listening, and living slow and attentively. And I look forward to exploring this aspect of healing and living with you.
From an inpatient race-horse woman, and waiting-novice to you, my beloved friend,
Karna
Waiting
I sing to use the waiting,
My bonnet but to tie,
And shut the door unto my house;
No more to do have I,
Till, his best step approaching,
We journey to the day,
And tell each other how we sang
To keep the dark away.
- Emily Dickinson
This is so beautiful. I find an urgency to get things off my to-do list, even when it is a task that requires thoughtfulness or spaciousness, eclipses the opportunity to wait. But, when I wait, things resolve themselves, communication clarifies, and emotions distill. It is okay and safe to wait.