What If Waiting Is The Pattern? | Blog

For me, it often starts with an inspiration. A new idea, a path that feels alive, a heartfelt desire or dream. There’s a full-body, yes. Expansion. Aliveness.

And then, almost on cue, a familiar pattern begins to kick in.

I don’t do this every time. But often enough that life, in its intelligence, keeps giving me opportunities to see it. Again and again. And in a strange way, that repetition has been a gift.

Because what I’ve learned is this: when we accept the invitation to look, not to fix, analyze, or get rid of anything, but simply to see with more honesty, what isn’t true begins to fall away.

Old patterns loosen their grip. Not because we finally get it right, or master ourselves, but because we discover we’re okay no matter what.

Choosing what is alive, what wants to be expressed, or following those inner promptings begins to outweigh the need for safety, guarantees, or certainty.

Over the last few years, I’ve been more willing to meet myself fully, as I am, with curiosity and love. Not dismissing patterns as “just thought” or telling myself “don’t go there — it won’t help.”

In some ways, I overcorrected from the old fix-it mentality. The belief that I had to fix myself to have the life or business I loved. Seeing the misunderstanding in this was revolutionary.

But I may have turned that insight into a new formula: that it’s never useful to look at patterns of the mind or places that still feel hard or challenging.

I was concerned that if I looked at them deeply, or felt them, I was somehow feeding them, making them real.

The problem is that strategy wasn’t working. Especially in the areas that mattered most to me. The idea or desire didn’t go away, but I wasn’t moving on it either.

I could feel something deeper nudging me. A quiet wisdom saying there was value here. That something wanted to be met.

And the good news is this: there is a way to look, to open, that’s grounded in grace and honesty, and that actually liberates us.

One of these explorations has become a continual source of awakening and new movement.

I began to see how innocently I stall myself. How I wait. Overthink. Lose days, months, even years to ideas that once felt like a full-body yes.

I see the future possibilities — a new expression, a dream, something aligned and expansive — and yet I don’t fully go for it. I think about it. Write ideas down. Play with structure and possibilities.

But the action that takes it from an internal possibility into lived experience?
Not so much.

Instead, I linger in the space of: Is it aligned? Is this just another good idea with no legs? Is it the right time? Can I handle it? What if it doesn’t work — again? What if I’m disappointed – again?

What I’m seeing, both in myself and with clients, is that patterns like these are rarely personal failures. They’re protective mechanisms. Old ways we learned to guard ourselves from disappointment, uncertainty, or feeling too much.

And here’s the relief: we don’t actually need to know why the pattern is there.

Just seeing that its aim is protection, from something it ultimately cannot protect us from, has been deeply freeing.

When I meet the sensations directly. The tightening, the hesitation, the energy in the body, and stay present, something shifts. Not conceptually, but experientially. I have a felt-knowing that I’m okay. That I can handle this.

I experience it in real time.

Presence allows what’s been held to move. The nervous system settles. There’s a dropping into okayness that comes not from avoiding or protecting, but from allowing.

And in that, the need for the pattern dissolves. The pattern of waiting shows up less often.

Waiting for certainty. Waiting for clarity. Waiting for reassurance that I won’t be disappointed.

That waiting keeps me looping, half in, half out, stuck in a liminal space.

The questions sound reasonable: Is it time? Is it aligned? Will this work?

But what I see now is that clarity doesn’t come before choice. It comes from choice.

We stall at the point of decision, hoping to avoid uncertainty or disappointment, while longing for aliveness, movement, and creative expression.

What helps me in these moments is remembering that there is no right or wrong – only choice.

No choice guarantees an outcome. No choice avoids uncertainty, challenge, or feeling. No choice protects us from the unknown. No choice controls the future.

Every choice includes all of that.

So if that’s true, why not commit to what’s alive?

Why not trust the internal cues instead of waiting for external validation?

Movement happens when we choose and take the next step. Momentum builds when we stop re-evaluating the decision with every step.

When we say yes — or no — and move wholeheartedly, the mind becomes a creative ally instead of a gatekeeper. New doors open. New information arrives.

So pause for a moment.

Not to think, but to listen.

What curiosity or desire keeps returning?

What pattern looks real and reasonable to you but might be keeping you from taking the action your heart desires?

What if choice and commitment are the very vehicles through which new potentials are revealed?

Play with it, experiment, say yes or no, exactly as you are, and see what moves and what you learn.

We have what it takes to choose. We have what it takes to go all in and allow the full range of the human experience.