How to Stop Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop and Start Living Fully

by Lisa Edwards, PhD

...The truth is that life does change constantly, and there are ebbs and flows between happiness and pain.

In one instant our situations can shift so drastically that we will be left reeling, so expecting that every day will be wonderful is obviously both unrealistic and unhelpful. Yet I’ve found that anxiously awaiting some sort of tragedy or pain often diminishes my current happiness.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop is this tricky way that we rob ourselves of a good feeling in the now because we are nervously anticipating something negative in the future.

A balance between fear about the future and a naive optimism is possible; we could call this space living fully.

Living fully is where we acknowledge that life will bring suffering and beauty, pain and happiness, challenge and comfort, and it will all come at different times. If we live fully, we do our best to float gracefully between these times, aiming not to get “stuck” in a space of overwhelming tension...

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