Waiting & Listening: Why Doing Less Can Help You Move, Heal, and Think More Clearly
“Don’t just do something, sit there.”
— Sharon Salzberg
Every night — well, almost every night — I sit on a yoga mat with a small cushion wedged under my seat, legs crossed at the end of my bed. I set a timer… and I wait. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes up to twenty.
And I wait.
In this blog, I’d like to talk about why a practice of waiting and listening has been so transformational for me — not just in my body, through injury recovery and improved performance, but across many areas of life.
For me, waiting and listening is something I had to consciously learn over years of practice: starting, stopping, putting it down, and picking it up again.
Nowadays it feels like a steady part of my life, and I’d be lost without it.
Sometimes it’s painful.
Sometimes it’s boring.
Sometimes it’s transformative.
Sometimes joyful and inspirational.
Some Context
As a child, my mum used to call me “go go.” I had a stim, which meant I constantly made odd noises, talked in strange accents and voices, and fidgeted all the time.
Growing up in the 80s, it’s no surprise that my mother dealt with this by threatening to take me to the speech therapy clinic in the next town if I didn’t stop — which seemed to nip that in the bud.
As I got older, walking, running, constant stretching (usually to Diana Ross, The Supremes, and any disco classic), and aerobics classes were the best thing I could find to scratch the movement itch.
If you’d told my younger self that I’d one day sit in silence for an hour in a Quaker meeting — or pay attention for a 45–60 minute Feldenkrais lesson, moving slowly and delicately — I would have said you were crazy.
Yet here I am, as an adult, feeling the joy of stillness and the delicacy of movement.
That’s not to say I don’t still struggle sometimes… but it has been necessary to learn.
From Fidgeting to Feeling
So why this massive shift from fidget to feeling?
What I came to learn is that constant movement got exhausting. So exhausting.
It wasn’t just my body whirring — so was my mind.
I hit rock bottom in my mid-thirties. I was having major problems in my relationship, I was in therapy, dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, burnout, and generally not well in myself.
Then I had a major accident with my right knee in dance class and tore my meniscus from back to front.
Within weeks, I was single, homeless, injured, and in serious need of change.
Learning to Sit With What Is
It was at this time that I found Quaker meeting, mindfulness, and Feldenkrais.
What I learned was that I couldn’t outrun my whirring mind, emotions, and restless feet.
I had to feel.
The only way out was through.
I still forget this sometimes, and thankfully I have friends who can sit with me through anger, fear, frustration, and sadness until it passes.
It’s almost too simple — and yet it took me years to accept it.
This is very close to what I explore in what the Feldenkrais Method is: learning through attention, not force.
Healing Through Listening
I had to listen to the sensations of my knee. Move when it was good, and avoid movements that weren’t.
I had to ice it and let the swelling settle.
I had to listen closely to my hips and ankles. Notice what moved — and what didn’t.
How do you move something that doesn’t want to move?
Slowly.
Gently.
With patience and awareness.
I had to notice my spine, my head, my arms.
Over time, with patience, I healed.
I can now do everything I did before, with minimal discomfort — though it still requires awareness and care.
Waiting Beyond the Body
My mood calmed.
I drove slower.
I ate slower.
I stopped jumping to assumptions about what others thought of me.
I judged myself less, and started to recognise my own value without needing to perform it.
Sometimes we just have to wait for a solution to come.
My knee improved.
I found work in Thailand.
I travelled.
I realised being single had benefits I hadn’t seen before.
It wasn’t easy — but patience became part of the process.
This connects closely to movement boundaries—knowing when to act and when to pause.
What Are You Waiting For?
Moving was always part of the solution.
But learning how to move was the key.
And to learn, we need to slow down, reduce pressure, and allow space for something new to emerge — mistakes, repetition, and beginning again.
So as I write this, I know I haven’t written in a while. I’m taking the pressure off.
I’ve been sitting, waiting, and seeing what comes.
I had expectations for 2026… and they didn’t unfold the way I imagined.
And that’s okay.
I decided to wait for the right moment.
And this is often my question when I sit:
What are you waiting for?
What are you listening for?
Inspiration?
The right time to move?
A thought you’ve never had before?
A change in your breathing?
Or nothing at all…
Just sitting without expectation.
The Most Rebellious Thing
For me, it feels like the most rebellious thing of all — to do nothing when everything encourages doing.
In a world of constant noise and information, waiting becomes a kind of freedom.
Zero pressure.
Zero expectation.
Sometimes my back hurts or my leg goes numb and I shift position.
Sometimes I fidget the whole time.
But that’s why it’s a practice.
There’s no final version of it.
It’s different every time.
And it is just what it is.
But it makes me feel better.
Sometimes, instead of doing something, I just sit there, be bored, and wait — and eventually action comes, a solution arrives, and life gets a little easier.
A Recommendation
If you’re thinking of taking up a waiting or meditation practice, I can highly recommend sitting with others to begin.
I regularly attend Quaker meeting in Norwich. You can find more information and your local meeting here:
https://www.norwichquakers.org.uk/
There are also many apps, of course — but if you benefit from guidance, I can also recommend my colleague Helen Pinnock. Helen is a meditation teacher, reflexologist, and novelist, and offers a grounded approach to meditation and self-care.
For details on her gentle 4-week meditation course, click here.
Happy sitting, everyone.