The importance of slowing down and waiting

Posted in Balanced Lifestyle, Balanced Mind and Soul | February 26, 2009 | No Comments

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All modern life coaches say that you need to have a goal in your life and this goal must be clearly identified, something like “I want to get promoted in two years”, or “I want to buy a house in … area in the spring”, “I want to complete my education”, “I want to lose n pounds in 3 months”… Life seems to be much easier when you have a goal and know how to get there. But nobody ever talks about not going anywhere. There are moments in our lives when we just can’t go anywhere, when we just have to sit still and wait. This waiting can be the most difficult thing in the world because we are not prepared for this scenario. Mass media, books, friends, everybody tells us that we need to be going somewhere as fast as possible and we feel frustrated when we can’t go anywhere.

Right now I am experiencing this waiting period in my life. Something that seemed to be extremely easy at first (sit at home, do whatever you want to) turned out to be one of the most difficult periods of my life. I have just moved to a new country (my husband and I came to the US only three months ago), I don’t have a job, I am thinking about getting a degree from an American university but I don’t know what subject to choose and I can’t teach Pilates because I am just getting ready to get all the required certifications. Currently we live with my in-laws and are looking for a small house for ourselves but we haven’t decided about the area where we would like to live. All these questions seem to be endless and the more I think about them the more confused I get. My situation is not typical for most people, but I am sure that everybody experiences some kind of confusion in their lives. A moment when we just need to stop and wait, wait for the OPPORTUNE MOMENT (like Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean said). My life that seemed to be pretty balanced in Ukraine got completely out of balance here in the United States.

I am sure that most people just do not know how to wait (and I belong to this category). All my life I was moving somewhere at approximately 70 mph and now my life slowed down to about 10 mph. This change is not easy and that is why I am learning how to live at this extremely slow speed.

I guess the purpose of this post was to say that sometimes it’s absolutely natural to slow down and wait. There are certain things in life that you can do nothing about. Some of us are waiting for their second half, some of us are waiting for a baby, some of us are waiting for a good job, and some of us are waiting for a ray of light in their life. You can do other things while you wait but you just can’t control the factors that don’t depend on you. My husband and I have a favorite country song by Carrie Underwood called ‘Jesus, take the wheel’, so I guess that’s the only thing I can do in this situation. Waiting is not easy but I am sure that patience will be rewarded in the future.

Keep it balanced!

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