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Here
are some general guidelines to know if you are waiting:
1.
You have a sense of unease -- you know there is
something you need to be doing and you are not doing
it. And sometimes you have waited so long in a
particular area, you even struggle to identify what the
source of unease is.
2.
You are dissatisfied -- you are not living in the
moment. You are sure your life will be better when
it is different in some way than it is right now (e.g.,
you find your perfect mate, complete that project, go on
your next vacation).
3.
You are grumpy -- you feel like life is passing you
by. You get in bed at the end of the day and
realize you don't have any clear memories of anything
you did because in all your busyness you weren't even
present. You don't even remember if you took a
deep breath.
Waiting
can hide out in the nooks and crannies of our life.
To assist my clients in determining how and where they are
waiting, I ask them to list the top 10 reasons they won't
accomplish something they say is important to them.
This gives them the freedom to be unabashedly truthful --
to put on paper the lingering doubts that are hovering
quietly in the background or screaming loudly in their
face. We humans are sneaky. We have all sorts
of ways we sabotage our dreams. Only by telling
ourselves the blatantly honest and sometimes brutal truth
can we tell if we are waiting or being patient.
To
illustrate, I did the same exercise when I was writing my
book. I looked at the top 10 reasons I wouldn't
complete the project. Here is a sampling:
-
I
will continuously distract myself with busy work --
cleaning out the junk drawers never seemed as
appealing as when I am trying to write.
-
I
will repeatedly doubt and question my ability as a
writer and compare myself to other
"successful" writers.
-
I
will continue to look outside myself for inspiration.
-
I
will take on other projects and commitments and not
schedule any time to write.
You
tell me. Do you hear patience in any of these
"reasons"? No! These are excuses I
could use for not taking action on something that was
tremendously important to me.
Now,
I encourage you to look for yourself. Pick an area
of your life that you have been working on for a
while. Make your top 10 list. Be willing to
shed light on those hidden ways you wait. Be bold
and tell yourself the truth. See where patience is
needed or where you are making excuses.
As
a final note, the best place to exercise patience is in
our relationships with others. All too often, this
is where true patience is lacking. And yes, it is
important to be patient with ourselves, but once again, we
can be on a slippery slope. I can lull myself into
believing I am being patient when in fact, it's important
to take bold action. Or I may actually be lacking
acceptance for the way things are and what is needed is a
touch of patience.
Being
an eternally creative and mischievous human, I have to ask
myself constantly, am I being patient with my process or
am I simply letting myself off the hook?
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