Waiting in line.
Waiting for the water to boil.
Waiting in traffic.
Waiting for the doctor.
We’re all stuck with waiting on a daily basis, and most of the time it’s fairly easy to get through it. It may seem like forever, but usually in less than 30 minutes things start to move again. We get our turn. We move on.
We might deal with waiting in anger, frustration, anxiety, or choose to use the time to practice a body scan, deep breathing, meditation in the moment, or read an article on our phone.
Then there are The Big Waiting Games:
Waiting for a new job.
Waiting to find the right relationship.
Waiting to find the right home.
Waiting for the project to be complete.
These things don’t have a defined parameter, and that kind of waiting can feel crazy-making.
It can fill you with self-doubt, loss of faith, and going to every psychic, strategist, and therapist to try to figure out why you haven’t achieved your goal.
But there’s an answer to this waiting.
Especially if you’ve taken consistent action towards your goal.
It’s called gestation.
I’ll give Amy* as an example. Amy was 6 months pregnant. “I wish this baby would just come out of me already. I’m tired of being pregnant”
For some women, being pregnant can feel uncomfortable. The wish to “get it out already” is common. But in truth, if the baby did “come out already” it wouldn’t be healthy. No mother wants their baby born premature. It may feel uncomfortable, and in the moment of discomfort the feeling of “I wish this thing was out of me already” feels true, but in actuality, they wouldn’t want that.
The pain and struggle of discomfort, the pain of waiting, is the gestational period.
Everything in life has a gestational period.
Simply recognizing this shines light on the pain of waiting.
Going back to the example of Amy, since she has at least 3 months left in her discomfort, she has a choice: She can complain everyday and hate everyday and be miserable. Or she can acknowledge the discomfort, take a deep breath, and choose to make today the best day she can, even within the discomfort.
This is true for all of us:
When we want something, and when we have a deep knowing that change is coming, it’s easy to get stuck in the pain of discomfort. To wish that the gestational period was over already.
The truth is, if we got what we think we wanted right now, we wouldn’t really want it. Just as Amy doesn’t want a premature baby–you don’t want what you think you want to come prematurely.
Sometimes we, or the project, is simply not ready yet. That’s what gestation is. It’s the growth period where it seems and feels like nothing is happening, and since it feels like nothing is happening, it’s excruciating.
But there’s a lot happening.
Just as a baby in the womb is growing and becoming, your project and desire of what you want to manifest is growing and emerging. It’s gestating.
While it gestates, you can choose to be miserable, angry, and defeated, or you can choose to acknowledge your discomfort and then flip your mindset to: How can I make today the best day possible?
Ask yourself: What’s one thing I can do today to make today lighter despite my discomfort?
It might be a simple cup of tea, meeting with a friend, taking another positive action towards your goal, attending a class, meditating, or getting in a great workout.
You cannot force gestation. If you do, all the moving parts of your project wouldn’t as ready and whole as it can be.
Focus on making yourself more whole everyday as you breathe through the discomfort of waiting.
In Summary–here’s a 3-step recap of how to overcome the pain of waiting for your goal to manifest:
- Acknowledge the discomfort. You can even write it out on a sheet of paper to clarify the pain and discomfort you’re in
- Make a choice to recognize that gestation is real and with that reality, decide if you’ll choose to stay miserable, or if you’ll choose to make today as good as you can despite the real discomfort
- Take a positive action everyday to make yourself more whole. The more whole you become within yourself, the more cohesion emerges in all areas of your life.
Wholeness is the process of going within. Acting on every intuition, making empowering choices, and breathing through the gestational process–knowing things are happening, even when it feels like nothing’s happening.
Tova Payne is a writer and consultant. For more, please visit www.tovapayne.com
