How to wait without freaking out

 “It was worth the wait,” she said quietly.

Malachi lay in the doorway, head on his paws, brown eyes turned up toward the bed. Casserole sat on a dresser and licked a paw.

Michael ran his hand slowly along Jellie’s body.

“Now it seems worth the wait. It didn’t seem that way while waiting.”

This paragraph from Robert James Waller’s lovely novel Slow waltz in Cesar bend, expresses so well how I feel about waiting.

Nothing ever seems worth the wait while you wait, does it?

To me it doesn’t. I hate every second of waiting. Be it waiting for a customer support person to answer my call or waiting and hoping each month to get pregnant. Now that I am the mother of my 3 fantastic boys, I know they were more than worth the wait. But while waiting it was horrible.

So how can we make something feel worth the wait while we are still waiting?

I use two ways. If you also dislike waiting, I hope these methods can help you.

Make good use of the waiting time

When it comes to things I know will happen, I make sure I make good use of the waiting time.

Let’s say you are standing in line at the grocery store. Rather than getting annoyed about the time it takes, use the waiting time. Listen to sounds around you, feel the handle of the shopping cart in your hand, notice the smell of the after shave of the person next to you. Practice mindfulness during these gaps in your day and they will suddenly become valuable.

Stop the negative speculation

When it comes to things I don’t know when or even if they will happen, I have come to the conclusion that the problem is not the waiting. It is the uncertainty.

What if I will never get pregnant?

What if I will never become a best-selling author?

What if our cat Stripe will never like the new kittens?

It’s not the waiting that freaks me out, it’s these types of thoughts. When I wait for something important to me, I often negatively speculate.

When I notice I am worrying about something that may never happen, I say:

“Change!” out loud.  This is a way to remind my brain that there is no point in making these unpleasant scenarios up.

Just because something has not happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t.

Now that I have re-read Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend and saw the wonderful paragraph I used in the introduction of this blogpost, I will add this method. 

I will tell myself, even before something I want has happened: 

It will be worth the wait.

Maybe you want to try that approach too.