The Waiting Room of Life
Will the test result be positive? Why didn’t she call? Will he get better and heal with a full recovery? Did I get the deal?
A situation halted, locked in time before the answers are revealed. The mind hates not knowing. It’s better to know the worst case answer, than be left playing out the possibilities in my mind over and over. It wants everything packaged in neat little answers. A mind set at ease.
But life’s mystery sometimes holds us at bay in the unknown abyss. Hours on hold like forever. Here life proves time is relatively too long whenever an anxiety producing unknown lays unanswered before us. The stage is set and the play has performed, but the curtain froze right before the climactic finale.
What sustains us through these trials? What inner strength can we raise to walk with us through the darkness?
As I have moved through uncertainties of relationships, illness , and other times of waiting for important answers, it is a foundation of positive beliefs that gets me through. If what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then I’ve survived many deaths. It’s calling on the lessons of past experience; that increases my inner strength of beliefs to support me.
Beliefs such as: It is what it is, and I know things will happen for the highest good. The answer is out of my control, so I trust it will happen the way it is supposed to. I wish for you what you wish for you, so I accept whatever you decide. I can handle whatever comes my way. This too shall pass.
Will the test result be positive? Maybe the waiting of this outcome, is to teach an important lesson, that we would only get by having to wait out this discomfort. Perhaps this discomfort, in our need to make sense of things, forces us to discover an inner strength we didn’t know we had. Or it reveals what our true priorities really are, and so we make life changes for the better.
Why didn’t she call? Maybe as we wonder why they didn’t call, we learn that because we cannot control another, we trust if it is meant to be, it will be. And I remember to wish for her what she wishes for her, trusting she is doing or not doing what she thinks is best. I know I care, and I care enough to let her go if that is what she wants.
Will he get better and heal with a full recovery? I can only offer my advice and unconditional support, but the rest is out of my hands. I can only control my actions and my reactions. I trust he is doing his best to take care, and it will be what is supposed to be. Maybe this is upon him because this is his opportunity to learn about himself and make life changes to aid his recovery and quality of life.
Perhaps this is our opportunity to discover how attached we are to a certain outcome. Expectation of a certain outcome, that we cannot control, is a sure recipe for anxiety and unhappiness.
I am leaving out of town today for a 10 day Master NLP and Coaching training in Vegas. I am travelling alone and I land there late tonight. Much is unknown to me right now – who I will train with, will this training be worth my time and money, how big is this sin city of lights and gambling and can I take in any shows, and will I be able to sightsee safely? I have certain ideas of what it’ll be like, and what I’d like to do there, but I really have no idea of what to expect. Perhaps that is best, because by dropping expectations, I am now open to possibilities better than I could even imagine.
When we hold a tight frame around our desired outcome, we actually limit it. When I was looking to buy a car, I had a very specific model in mind. However, this model is in high demand thus limiting my options. I had certain criteria about the car I wanted, but after a few weeks of finding nothing to fit, I chose to look at other models. After a month and by opening my options, I found my car, a sportier 2 door coupe and a year newer. I love my car and it’s better than what I had originally imagined.
So when you find yourself stuck in the unknown waiting room, recount the beliefs that will support your wait. Acknowledge what you really want and then put it into a balloon in your mind. Release it into the sky and let go of the attachment. When the result is out of your control, trust it will be what is meant to be, and be open to an ultimately better possibility.
