The Unease of Waiting in The Space Between

The space between doesn’t stay still. It moves, shifts, breathes and sometimes tightens. One of the most difficult rhythms of this space is waiting.

• Waiting for clarity.

• Waiting for the next idea.

• Waiting for the emotion to settle.

• Waiting for someone to respond.

• Waiting for life to reveal the next shape of things.

And waiting, for most of us, is excruciating.

Because when the outer world goes quiet, the inner world grows very loud.

Our minds begin rehearsing conversations that already happened. We analyze someone’s tone, timing, silence. We revisit old wounds, replay old scenes. We project into the future, inventing scenarios to fill the uncertainty.

The anxious mind hates empty space.

It wants to fill the silence with something even if that something is fear.

But the space between is not a place that bends to pressure.

• It won’t deliver answers because we demand them.

• It won’t speed up clarity because we’re uncomfortable.

• It won’t produce inspiration just because we’re restless.

And here’s the unsettling truth: Waiting is not passive. It is interior work.

Waiting asks us to sit with emotions we would rather outrun frustration, uncertainty, regret, impatience, longing, anger, fear.

It asks us to pause long enough to hear what’s actually going on underneath the noise.

It asks us to loosen our grip on the past without yet having a handle on the future.

And communication during this time? It often becomes its own minefield.

When we’re raw or unsure, we read too much into silence.

We feel slighted by delays. We assume tone that isn’t there.

We take things personally that were never meant personally.

We want clarity from others before we have clarity within ourselves.

The space between exposes the parts of us that feel unsteady.

But waiting also holds something quietly miraculous: It is the space where integration begins to happen. The space where the sediment settles. The space where we begin to metabolize what ended. The space where the next version of ourselves forms below the surface.

Waiting isn’t wasted. It’s preparatory.

There are gentler ways to navigate this terrain:

• Resting your attention in the body instead of the mind

• Grounding yourself in physical tasks (tending to the garden, working with your hands, sorting tesserae, mushing clay, making bread, real, tactile work)

• Naming the emotions without trying to fix it.

• Interrupting catastrophic story-making with something as simple as “not now.”

• Taking communication slowly, giving space before responding.

• Creating small, steady routines that don’t rely on motivation: maintaining hygiene, getting out of bed, refusing to collapse onto the sofa all day.

• Avoid behaviors that will have negative results: drugs, alcohol, desperation-driven actions

The goal isn’t to stop the waiting or speed it up. The goal is to stay present enough that waiting can do its work.

Because what looks like “nothing happening” is often the most important part of the transformation.

And one day usually without a dramatic announcement the fog lifts just enough to see the next step. A small one. But clear.

And that is the beginning of the next chapter.

If this reflection spoke to you, you can find more here Past Reflections.