The Waiting Room
Image from Unsplash
I first heard this term from Christina Rasmussen, who is a writer, crisis counselor and grief educator. She wrote about it in her book Second Firsts. And she talked about it in her online course that I took, called Life Reentry. At that time, I read and thought about it through the lens of grief, and it was really helpful to talk about it with my grief therapist as well. But it can also be used when discussing loss/change of any kind.
The concept goes like this..
The Waiting Room is a comfy place. It is a safe psychological space to which you retreat, after you’ve experienced loss. It’s a mindset that is a holding pattern. You go there to be protected, to let go of fear, to not be hurt by others. It’s a place between grief and what’s next. You go there to postpone your dreams. Your brain is too exhausted to dream of better days.
The survivor in you is keeping you in this place, after you have survived any sort of grief/loss/change. It’s trying to protect you - your brain is in a loop and it gets so used to active grieving or avoiding people and places, that it just keeps it up, whether you need the “protection” or not. This avoidance becomes habitual and it’s hard to stop it. It’s a survival technique and it can actually remap your brain.
You’re sort of stuck. You’re in this waiting room and sometimes you open the door and look outside, sometimes you actually go outside. But you always return. The mindset is keeping you “out of danger” but it is also keeping you from living life.
You’re grieving your old life, and you can’t quite make yourself wholeheartedly enter a new one. It’s your mind’s way of minimizing mental anguish while you adjust to your loss. I would guess many of you who have gone through a divorce have felt similarly. And you have to do some work to get out of it, and return to life.
I was in the waiting room for several years. One thing that sent me further inside, was when I compared myself with others, who had overcome so much and yet achieved greatness. I did not measure up and I didn’t think I ever could. And so I waited.
Here’s how Rasmussen describes the situation…
“When we’re in the Waiting Room, we’re still attached to the past. In this place, we struggle with our new reality. We are unable to see ourselves clearly and make decisions as we used to. The brain’s ability to plan and reason is temporarily gone.”
To begin to leave the waiting room, we have to take some action.
Here are her steps of action…
Get real with how you feel. You can maintain the facade that all is well, but you know it’s not. One of the best things you can do is to share with others how you feel.
Plug Into Action. Start with just giving 5%. These are easy steps that feel safe but start you on the right path. Start doing something tomorrow that you had stopped. Even small accomplishment feels good.
Shift Things Around. Shift your mind back into something you can control, as opposed to the loss/grief/change that you cannot. Paint a wall. Move your furniture around. Plant something. ( I still do a lot of all of the above.) Concentrate on solid things you can control.
Discovery. Don’t ignore your emotions and discover the truth about certain people, places and things. Who are your real friends? What is your calling? What do you really need and want out of life? ( I did a lot of this after early grief.) When you reconnect with life, make it one you really want, don’t just go back to old habits.
Reenter. Do the things you’ve wanted to do but have never taken the time to do. You might have new interests, new habits, new wants. “Meet yourself with grace, action and vulnerability.” ( I love that line.)
The concept has resurfaced during Covid as well, in her more recent article for Medium.
This completely applies to the whole Covid situation, right? In fact, this time, we’ve literally been stuck in a room(s). We’re in this waiting room, and we’re ready to discover what we want to be, or do, after this gap between Before Covid and After Covid, to be the better version of ourselves. And the longer we stay inside, the harder it will be to reenter the live world. Our brains are trying to keep us safe. And we are seeing huge increases in mental health problems, in those who are trying to reenter and those who don’t want to. Millions of people can’t make plans, they can’t organize anything, everything has been put on hold for months and months. We can’t take the action needed to get out of the loop. It’s hard. I suggest you also take those 5 steps to be ready when this is over.
“..The whole problem with people is - they know what matters, but they don’t choose it. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.” …………………………………….The Secret Life Of Bees