The lost art of waiting- how to be patient
My beautiful friend said to me recently “people resent how well someone has done but they don’t see the years of hard graft behind it” which I thought was so incredibly apt.
I am an extremely impatient person, by my very nature, and have found the last few years to be painful, frustrating and tedious.
Which is, of course, why I felt a deep need to write about it, because waiting is hard.
More than that, it’s trying, testing, and drains us of joy, momentum and enthusiasm. Whether we’re waiting for our big break, a lucky chance, to be recognised and in demand, or for a miracle to happen, waiting is tough.
Waiting in the waiting room
I see this period of waiting as time spent in a metaphorical waiting room.
There are lots of other people there. Some have been there for years, some only a few days. Some people are restlessly pacing around, others are flipping through magazines, and a few are furiously tapping away at laptops perched on knees.
The one thing they all have in common is their eyes that are all trained on a door.
It’s not any door. It’s the door that represents everything they’ve been waiting for. It’s the door through which financial freedom, abundance, recognition, validation, success and prosperity awaits them. It’s a door that they see others called through to, yet it’s never their turn.
They wait and wait and wait, and some, when the waiting gets too unbearable, pack up their things and leave the waiting room entirely, and never return.
Maybe that door was about to open for them. Maybe it would take several more years. However, it is often the case that we give up right before things get good. As the saying goes ‘it’s the darkest before the dawn’ and it’s most certainly true.
So, how can we keep going when the waiting gets hard? How can we drop into trust when our measure of faith is dropping by the hour? How can we remain in the uncertainty and uncomfortableness when we’re itching to give up and retreat into the safety of the known?
Step away from resentment and longing
It’s very easy to look at someone’s surface-level success and question why they got lucky and why we’re still so far away from achieving our goals. The thing is, they didn’t get lucky. They worked damn hard to get to where they are, we just don’t see it.
Their tears of frustration, shame and humiliation aren’t moments they’ve publicised, those happen in private. After all, breakdowns happen behind the scenes and breakthroughs happen on stage, where brilliance can be witnessed and admired.
If we think about the toughest moments on our journey, the ones where we felt the pain of our skin scraping the rock bottom and the hot, wet tears that threatened to drown us in sorrow, we can only begin to imagine how many others must have felt the same frustrations and pain, yet carried right on through.
The difference is, we just don’t witness it, we only witness our own suffering.
Once we recognise that everyone we admire has been through the same uncomfortable journey as us, we can begin to ease away from resentment, longing and lack, and into one of appreciation for their tenacity.
Let’s be humbled by those who have gone before us and paved the way, it didn’t come easy for them and it won’t come easy for us, but the reward will be all the sweeter because of it.
Highs and lows are part of this crazy journey, we only need to embrace them, rather than fear them.
Living in the culture of instant gratification
We live in a world of instant gratification. When we want food, it comes on a bike half an hour later. When we want sex, we pick up our phones and swipe. When we want something new, amazon prime delivers it the next day.
We never have to wait.
This culture of instant gratification has also swept into the new age movement which is saturated in manifestation techniques and promises of instantaneous abundance. While the law of attraction is part of the infinite intelligence, alongside other spiritual laws which govern our lives, we have been misled in its simplicity.
We absolutely do have the power to attract what we desire through our thoughts. Yet, the problem is, we expect miracles instantly. We think it will rain down in fortune upon us as soon as we’ve glued the last photo onto our vision board.
We cannot seem to wait and be patient in the waiting. We lose faith so quickly when the results are not instantly visible, without realising that part of our spiritual lesson is in the waiting itself. We can never hurry or rush Divine timing, because, as soon as we carry those feelings of desperation or frustration, the energy becomes blocked.
We have to trust that everything will fall into place when it’s meant to. Good things take time and it’s this time that can be so well spent.
Waiting is both action and non-action
There is this beautiful place where action meets non-action.
Non-action is about trusting that what is meant for us will come to pass. It is absolute faith and assurance in ourselves and in the Divine plan. It is sitting comfortably in that waiting room, with our feet up, safe in the knowledge that what we’re looking for is also seeking us.
When we sit in stillness, it can find us and call us through the door.
Action, however, is momentum, inspiration and passion combined. It is working smart, not hard. It is allowing what we love to take over us and fill us up with an energy that drives us forward.
This is action powered from pure joy of what we do rather than resentment, lack and longing that we’re not yet where we want to be.
The time will pass anyway, so why not fill it with action that builds the foundations for our desires? It’s this foundation that we must take the time to build, for when any storm comes to pass that threatens our dreams, attacks our hopes or damages our confidence, we have the strength to withstand it.
A healthy foundation for our dreams to launch off takes time to build, and it’s in this waiting period that we must build it.
The power of resilience
There’s no denying it, waiting can be deeply unpleasant.
It is the deep unknown, when the door could open any minute yet it never seems to, no matter how much we stare at it, willing it to open. However, it is in this waiting room that we can discover our hidden depths of resilience and patience that so few of us get the chance to uncover.
Whether we’re waiting for love, success or recognition, there is such power to be had in waiting.
We build resilience, we strengthen our foundations, and we create rock-solid trust in ourselves and in the greater intelligence that is flowing in and around us.
When that door finally does open and beckons us inside, we won’t need to rush through, taking our time to appreciate the work, dedication and patience we’ve put in, knowing that it is this very effort that has propelled us forwards and through that door.
At the cusp of it all, we can stand there and look back into that waiting room and feel nothing but gratitude at who we have become in the years, months and days spent in its company.
We wouldn’t be the person we are today without it, so, when our time comes, remember to look back and smile at the wonder of it all.
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