Last week in yoga class there was a discussion about waiting. There are all kinds of waiting: Anxious as in waiting for medical test results, waiting for school grades, waiting to hear if you got that ideal job, apartment or mortgage approved for your dream home. Then there is excited anticipation waiting for your vacation, an important package to arrive in the mail, the delicious chocolate cake to come out of the oven.
Waiting is difficult, no matter what kind it is. It can be big or small. The longer it goes on, the harder it gets. Often the waiting gives rise to questioning oneself and the choices made that brought you to this point. It is an opening for that part of ourselves that loves to sow doubt aboutour choices, abilities and future. The Super Ego, saboteur, judge, critic can have a field day berating us for not doing things differently. We can get all tangled up in our thoughts and end up feeling terrible while we wait.
A way out of this morass is to drop into our heart. In the heart are often the feelings we may actually be avoiding by joining our Super Ego in beating ourselves up. Our heart may hold feelings of fear, grief, sadness, loss that are related to whatever situation we are waiting to unfold. When we drop into that heart space, recognize and allow those feelings to be there, as we feel them, they magically transform after a while. And often what arises in their place is kindness, compassion and love for ourselves and this human journey we are going through.
Our tendency is often to move away from the heart, assuming that whatever we are feeling is frivolous and not important, or too big for us to handle. It feels safer to go up into our head and try to figure things out. But the heart is where we come alive, what makes life worth living. It holds the richness and beauty of living this life of trials and tribulations, sorrows and joys.
What are you feeling in your heart in this moment? What if it were communicating something really important to you? Can you listen to its wisdom and guidance? How would that change your ability to wait for what is to come to you? How would that change your experience of waiting?
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