The weight of waiting (and why it’s never really about the outcome)

I've had a few conversations with women and clients recently around this desire for control and certainty over an outcome, and I see this particularly so during times of waiting. Whether that is waiting for an answer, for a result, for a sign, for a next step, for a reply.

And the waiting feels unbearable. It’s almost like you're on tenterhooks, like you're holding your breath, bracing for either joy or disappointment.

You tell yourself that if you could just know how it all turns out, you’d feel calm. You’d feel safe. You’d finally be able to exhale.

So you chase certainty. You crave control. You search for signs, obsess over outcomes, rehearse every scenario in your mind. 

Trust me when I say that I’ve had my own journey with this… I’ve been in situations where I truly truly believed that if something didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be able to cope and that everything would fall apart.

On the occasions where something did work out the way I wanted, to be honest the relief was short-lived because before long I was chasing the next thing. The next validation that I was enough. The next hit of certainty. The next piece of proof that I was worthy.

And on the times that something didn’t work out, it threw me and my mental health into a spiral of self blame and criticism and an overwhelming sense of not being good enough.

So I say all of this filled with kindness and compassion because I know this space is not an easy place to be.

But here’s the truth most don’t want to admit:

In these moments of waiting and clutching tightly to an outcome, you're not just waiting for an answer. You're outsourcing your self-worth to it.

You’re making that job, that news, that email, that relationship, and yes, even that positive pregnancy test, mean something about your worth.

You're unconsciously tying your value, your enough-ness, your success, your rightness to something outside of you.

And here’s the hard part to swallow:

Even if the thing you’re waiting on does come… it won’t fix you.

It won’t fill the ache you feel within.

It won’t magically heal the doubt or quiet the inner critic or fill the void you’ve been trying to outrun.

Because that ache? That void? That unease?

It’s not about the outcome.

It’s about the story you’ve been telling yourself, that your worth is conditional. That peace is something you earn once everything is sorted. That happiness lives somewhere in the future.

This is where hypnotherapy is so helpful… because it allows us to go beneath the surface, beneath the thoughts and logic so that we can rewrite these stories that have led you to believe your worth is conditional, that you’re not enough, that you have to do more.

We change these stories at the subconscious level so that even before the thing you’re waiting for arrives…

You already feel worthy.

You already feel whole.

You already feel loved.

You already feel certain within yourself.

This is the shift, and ironically this is often when your external world starts to shift to.

It’s often when you let go…

When you stop gripping so tightly to how it has to unfold…

When you stop making your worth dependent on something outside of you…

When you start feeling good in your life as it is, right now…

That’s when what you were waiting for arrives, not because you pushed or forced or hustled for it, but because you aligned with the version of you who no longer needs it to feel whole.

If you’re in this place at the moment, if you’re holding your breath, living in the waiting, and you are curious to explore how hypnotherapy could help you reconnect with your self-worth so that you feel more grounded, calm and confident no matter what you’re waiting on, I’d love to hear from you. You can book a free connection call or find out more HERE