The Art of Waiting - Entry by Jessica Wright
I write about this topic as an investigation of how to truly master it. As I’ve heard numerous times, we teach what we know. How does waiting on something make you feel? I know for me that waiting makes my stomach become in knots, it makes my shoulders heavy. Waiting is literally the epidemy of stress for me. We all have our triggers for stress and anxiety, and God and my family and friends know that me having to wait on something of importance to me can overwhelm me.
Currently, as I write I wait to hear about a start date on a new job and I am frustrated with the idea of doing self-care to calm myself down. Even the idea of writing while I am waiting annoys me. I continue to check my email and obsessively and wonder why it is taking this agency so long to give me the go ahead that my background check has cleared. This job, by the way is of importance to our family financially with both benefits, a great pay and potentially a huge change of pace in our life style. So, I sit here and wait. As my kids are peacefully sleep, I stir around all the facts of what I don’t know in my mind and pretend to have some sense of control.
Have others struggled to wait? I have asked myself this question many times today, to feel more at ease. Waiting for me growing up was when my dad didn’t show up for Christmas until 5 days late, he was drunk, my mom was angry, and I was so relieved that he finally he was there, so we didn’t have to wait anymore. She quickly kicked him out and I felt angry at her because we had waited so long.
Other times I waited were every few years at a new school, I would wait and decide if it was worth talking to new friends or if I should just not get attached and wait until we went to the next school instead. Waiting for me was, waiting on my mom to come home after she and my stepdad fought, and she revived her engine with pure rage as she drove away. Waiting for me was, marrying the wrong guy way to early in life, and waiting until his nieces got older before I asked for a divorce.
As I go through an edit this work, I think about how the art of waiting will be passed down like a torch from generation through generation. I watch our babies struggle to wait as two- and four-year old’s and I try to think of the good examples they are learning on patience. I remind them the importance of taking their turns, yet at 8p when it’s bedtime my patience is thin and I encourage them to focus and brush their teeth or go to bed like I’ve asked. Some of that is just good parenting yet all of that feedback is their inner voice developing.
My therapist practice has shifted our slogan to this. This is my reminder that you have the inner wisdom inside on how to be patient you just need to find time and the calm to get there. As a licensed clinical social worker, I know how to teach waiting and here’s my reminder for myself and you.
How to work on patience:
Work out 5 days a week, at least 30 minutes a day. This is golden for me. It’s my medicine. I can’t do life patiently without calming my inner lion.
Get up an hour early to work on yourself. Rachel Hollis coined this idea for me. As a mom I need me time to be thankful for all the busy everyone else absorbing times.
Don’t stop working on your dreams even if it’s not fully in motion yet. As I write this I’m praying and hoping on finding a private practice therapy office. One option didn’t work out, so I’m working on getting a go ahead on the other. I love writing so I figure writing will only help my practice and give me joy.
Tell your friends and spouse how hard patience is for you. Get a tribe of people around you who know it’s a struggle. When we shine light to all the stuff, we don’t want to talk about that stress of what we weren’t talking about dims.
Write it out. Journal, write your book, blog, whatever! Just get out what you are worried and struggling to be patient on. When we write we connect both our left-brain logic and right brain feeling. For example, me even writing this helped me process why waiting sucks so hard for me! My issues have been passed down from generation to generation. But I know that if I talk about my struggles, I can teach our babies to overcome and do better than I did in the past and then I currently do at my worst.
