Unpacking process: waiting in the hallway

    Stop waiting for the perfect moment, do it now! We’ve all seen that admonition in self-help books, articles, blogs, etc. Many of us do spend a lot of our lives waiting for X or Y to happen so we can start living. When it comes to procrastination or clinging to an excuse to keep from stepping into something, do it now is valid.

    When it comes to larger changes, do it now doesn’t apply. I often refer to this as the hallway portion of a process. I’m no longer where I was. I’ve closed the door on what doesn’t work anymore. I can feel an amorphous sense of something coming, but it’s not here yet.

    This can be the most challenging part of a change process. Even in the excavation phase, even if I don’t like what I uncover, something is moving. When I’m in the hallway movement is imperceptible. I feel like I’m stuck or in limbo. I feel like I’m drifting in the dark, tripping over myself. The hallway seems to get longer and longer.

    Even if I get a fleeting glimpse of what the new looks like, the foundation is still forming inside me. There is nothing tangible for me to step into. I can’t do it now.

    I’ve lurched and meandered down this corridor more times than I can count. Each time I want to make the hallway into an either/or. I am either moving or I’m waiting for that tantalizing new to get here. But there is at least one more option.

   This kind of waiting has nothing to do with being physically still. I do that kind of waiting almost daily. I wait in check-out lines and in traffic. This small waiting doesn’t have a corresponding mind set. It’s a temporary pause in my day.

   Big waiting isn’t created by an interruption in my day. It’s a mindset; a no man’s land that I create by deciding this span of time needs to pass so I can get to the new thing. When I succumb to the perspective, I set up an internal conflict. Essentially I decide I don’t want what’s happening now. I want the possibility I feel coming in the future.

    The process hallway often seems pointless. Nothing is moving…or is it? Even when I’m asleep or still on a cellular level I’m breaking speed limits. Just as I’m unaware of my cellular busyness, I’m not directly conscious of the places in my process when the alchemy of change is most active. The greatest change happens in the hallway, where I feel like nothing is moving.

    I’m not really stuck until I lapse into the waiting mindset because I can’t feel the motion. Once I do that I’m no longer in the process hallway. I’ve made waiting into a room where I’ll hang out and redecorate. I’ve given all my power away to external events that may or may not happen. I’ve abandoned now in favor of waiting for the clock to move forward.

    Here’s the catch. As soon as I slip into waiting mindset, the new I’m waiting for begins to dissolve.

     A process is a journey that needs my active participation. A journey is a period of travel; a passage from one place to another. When I wait, I am no longer a traveler. I’ve stopped myself. Because I am the one creating the journey, when I wait it begins to unravel.

    The process journey is not like getting in my car and driving to another state to visit a friend. When I drive to visit a friend, I’m traveling on established roads. Those roads are public. They will be there whether I’m driving on them or not.

     On a process journey I’m creating the path. I’ve stepped off the pavement. I’m bushwhacking my way through the jungle with a machete. If I stop and wait the path won’t continue to create itself. If I wait long enough, the jungle will reclaim the path I’ve cut.

    The amorphous new I want so much that I am willing to abandon now to get there is not an established destination. That new possibility is being created by the process and my participation in it. When I’m waiting, I’m not participating.

    I’ve often wished I could skip the messy part in the middle of the process and leap from discovery/excavation right into the new. When I lapse in waiting and put myself on hold till the new arrives, I’m trying to skip the middle. It doesn’t work that way because life only happens now.

.  I usually slip into the waiting mindset without realizing I’m doing it. It’s easier to recognize when I’m already there than to catch myself before I make the jump. The waiting mindset brings impatience, restlessness and a sense of wanting to hurry up and get there.

    In the process hallway time I often feel like time slows down. Waiting magnifies my desire for time to pass so it seems to crawl and inch. Because in waiting I’ve decided that now is unimportant, I open the door to boredom.

    When I’m wandering the hallway, I cycle in and out of waiting over and over. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to completely stay out of it. The amount of time I spend there before I realize where I am and step away gets shorter and shorter.

     Letting go of the waiting mindset doesn’t alter the reality that change takes time. It does allow me to be present in big waiting the same way I am while waiting in the check-out line…mostly still and still present

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