When the Answer is Slow to Arrive

It’s hard to know what to do when the answer doesn’t present itself with the question. This is likely amplified by our addiction to the instantaneousness that we have come to rely on being online so much. 

It’s hard to sit with an answer-less question for a few hours let alone days, weeks or months. 

I hear Moshum’s voice from my first sweat again. Patience, acceptance, stop to smell the flowers, stop looking so hard and don’t do things for the power. They literally all apply when it comes to wanting fast answers to questions and challenges. 

“Maria, stop demanding the answer with hard rigidity and be open to letting it come softly and unexpectedly in it’s own time. As hard as that might be. 

Accept that the answer isn’t going to arrive simply because you want it to. Accept that you don’t have all the answers and don’t NEED to have all the answers. Accept that occasionally you might need help and might even need to ASK for it. Accept that one. And then, accept the help. 

Don’t stop enjoying just because you had a hard moment of not knowing what to do. Because that’s silly and wasteful. 

Stop looking so hard. That’s a tough one. How do you not swim when you’ve been thrown into the deep end of the ocean (especially with all the creepy things that could be touching you way down in the depths…shiver). How do you not eat when you’re starving and have a feast in front of you. How do you call off the search party. I’m not adding question marks to the questions because it doesn’t feel right. Maybe because they are rhetorical… 

What I do know, is that many times when I’ve released my grip on something that I felt I needed it’s arrived anyway. And usually much quicker and easier than I had anticipated. So maybe, in essence, the answer is in the release. In the void that’s created when the pressure to perform is gone. Like finding the hairbrush under the couch cushion within the hour of having just gone out to buy one.

And lastly, your worth is not determined by how much you know, how much you can control your experience or how you otherwise wield power. It’s determined by how you show up. Because that we can control. How we respond, how we react. Ease and grace. Eeeeeeeeaaaasssse and graaaaaaacccce. 

Then keep your eyes, ears and heart open. The answer might be on the other side of needing it.”