“Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety.”
There is a point in the classic telling of the Hero's Journey, (we can call it the Heroine's Journey), where the heroine crosses the threshold into the unknown, the place of mystery. She may have chosen to cross over into the mystery. Or she may have been pushed.
Either way, each day brings something new and she has no idea where her journey will take her.
She has no idea how long it will take. No idea how long she must reside in the not-knowing.
She has no idea what adventures await, though she's right to suspect there will be some things that will test her mettle and her resolve to continue. Annoying people. Cliff scrambles. Lightening. Tiny monsters with multiple legs, sometimes hairy.
The heroine has one choice to make on a moment by moment basis.
Choice #1:
To worry and stew and fret about being in the unknown. To submit to the anxiety that comes with not knowing, not being in control. To be overcome with questions that stick like bad John Denver songs in the mind and risk crowding out the small voice that, given time and space and wonder, eventually brings the answers.
"When will this be over? Where am I going? What's my purpose? What's the point? When will this change, work out, shift? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING WITH MY LIFE?"
Or Choice #2:
To accept and feel what bubbles up from within--fear, anxiety, boredom, self-judgment, elation; then to keep putting one foot in front of the other and stay present to the moment by moment wonders that are unfolding.
To be okay with slowing down, observing what's there, getting quiet and accepting where we are.
To be okay with not always knowing, with not being in control, with not being sure.
And to trust our inner compass enough to know we will get there even when we're not sure where "there" is.