In the process of evolving your identity, there's often a strange in-between as you move from who you used to be into who you're becoming. The old version of you no longer fits, but the new version hasn't quite landed yet. You've shed something, but haven't fully stepped into what's next.

Every time you go through an upgrade or decide to better yourself, you get to experience this fun little detour into discomfort all over again (yay...).

That’s where I found myself recently, and it's what I've been exploring in my blog series, The Messy Middle.

So, the decision has been made, you've been doing the invisible work (which I unpack in Part 1 here). But the results? They haven't shown up yet. You're trusting the process. You intellectually understand that the roots grow before the sprout breaks the surface... but your emotions are a whole other story!

Welcome to Part Two... the waiting game.

Waiting is hard. It's uncomfortable. We all want the instant gratification, same-day delivery, immediate results. We've built our lives around getting what we want, now - and as a result, our capacity for patience has quietly eroded.

But growth doesn't care about our timelines.

The waiting game cracks us open. It exposes our vulnerabilities, our need for control, our fear that "nothing's working." We start to second-guess the path we're on - not because it's wrong, but because it's slow.

We feel powerless in the pause. But that's where the deep work begins.

Waiting is an inherent part of the human experience.

It calls for a slowness, a stillness, that paves the way for spiritual connection, enhanced empathy, and the opportunity to witness what lays beneath the surface of our own psyche. The Universe works in the waiting - when we actually take a pause and create space for something greater to work within us.

There's also the risk of judging things too soon - turning back just before the top of the mountain, quitting right before the miracle.

I shared last week that I had joined a gym recently and was struggling with the lack of immediate results (lol). Well, this week I had my 6-week review and I was secretly hoping that my lack of results would all be redeemed with a kick-ass body scan that showed amazing results that would blow my mind! Well... let's just say that didn't happen.

And I got to ride the emotional rollercoaster of being human that shows up in the waiting.

But waiting is never wasted. It is where the messy middle teaches us emotional resilience. You don’t build emotional resilience by reading about it. You build it by living through the tension and choosing to stay. This is the time where we are challenged to steady ourselves in the uncertainty, to anchor ourselves into our why, and to forge ahead toward the new identity we're cultivating.

This is where the real growth happens.

Not just the evolution into your next chapter, but the evolution of your emotional landscape.

So, if you're in it, I want to remind you that the waiting game is calling you to keep showing up - not because you're seeing results, but because you’re becoming someone who doesn’t give up on themselves.

Not because it’s working. But because you are.