What Are You Practicing While You Wait?

What are you practicing while you wait?

Not “how do I make the waiting stop.” Not “when will this finally resolve.” That was the question I brought to circle this week — and I brought it standing right in the middle of my own version of it.

There’s an energy a lot of us have been feeling lately. Several astrologers are pointing at July 21st through 27th, but honestly, it’s felt present for weeks now. Something shifting. Something arriving. Nobody in circle could name exactly what it was. We just agreed: something’s coming.

I’m waiting for something more specific, too. My cat Prince has been gone nine days now — he disappeared the same morning my mom passed. I’m choosing to believe he’s out on his own version of a Rumspringa, working his way home in his own time. Underneath that hope is real not-knowing. And not-knowing, it turns out, is a remarkably good teacher for the question I keep circling back to.

The Practice Inside the Waiting

Because whatever we’re waiting for — an answer, a move, a diagnosis, a job, a cat — the waiting itself isn’t empty. Something is always happening inside it. The real question isn’t when will this resolve. It’s: what am I building while it doesn’t?

One member of our circle spent a week off returning to self-care they’d been neglecting — yoga, slowing down, letting themselves simply be instead of scheduling every hour. Another named the practice of holding a high, hopeful vision of what’s ahead rather than rehearsing the worst-case version. And I noticed something in myself I wasn’t especially proud of: how quickly I reach for my phone to scroll when I don’t want to feel what’s here. I catch it, most days, within a minute. I set the phone down. I go do something that actually nourishes me. And then, more often than I’d like, I find myself right back in the scroll. That noticing — and the returning — is the practice.

Equanimity, Not Bliss-Chasing

In circle, we talked about a simple map — a scale that runs from fear and rage at the bottom, up through contentment and equanimity in the middle, toward something like bliss at the top. I asked the group: where do you want to be practicing residing?

My own answer hasn’t changed in a long time: equanimity — not numbing out, not forcing calm, but the capacity to be with whatever’s arising without getting pulled into it. My own way in is through the body instead of the head, because my head is where the walls get built. The more I practice coming back to my breath, back into my body, the more I’m able to actually be with what’s here instead of getting swept into solving, predicting, or controlling what hasn’t happened yet.

Enlightenment Is Not a Place You Arrive

At the end of our meditation, one participant joked that fifteen minutes of sitting hadn’t produced any enlightenment. I pushed back — gently. Because in that same breath, in noticing where his mind had gone and naming it out loud with a laugh, he had done exactly the thing.

Enlightenment isn’t a place we reach and then announce. It’s the continual practice of bringing light and awareness to a single moment. Again. And then again. If we do that enough times, if we practice it enough — that’s it. That’s the whole of it.

Enlightenment isn’t a destination. It’s the practice of bringing light to this moment — and then the next one, and then the next.

This Week's Practice

Here’s the invitation I’m carrying into this week, and offering to you:

Set a timer on your phone — once a day, maybe twice — that simply says: breathe. When it goes off, pause. Notice what you’re practicing in that exact moment. Are you in your head or your body? Are you rehearsing the worst or holding the highest possible outcome? Are you scrolling, or are you here?

You don’t need the waiting to end to begin practicing what you want to build on the other side of it. The practice is available right now, in the not-knowing, exactly as it is.

I don’t know when my mom’s transition will feel complete. I don’t know if Prince is going to walk back through the door tomorrow or next month. I don’t know what the shift so many of us are feeling is going to bring. But I know what I’m practicing while I wait. And I’d love to know what you’re practicing too.

If you’re in your own season of waiting — for anything — come sit with us. Mondays at 7pm ET on Zoom. We’ll practice together.

With love,

Sherwood