“Most problems, given enough time and space, will eventually wear themselves out.” – Buddha

Two nights ago my son, 19 months old, woke in the middle of the night crying. It was so unusual that I had to go in to check to see if he was sick or cold, lost his lovey or something else disastrous. And in going in, I found that nothing really was wrong. He’d just woken up so I held him until he got sleepy again and put him back in the crib. So then the next night he awoke around the same time and started crying. Over the course of his learning to sleep, this pattern has happened before. He wakes one night and I check and then for the two nights after, he awakens at the same time. I had no idea he knew how to tell time. But I have learned through trial and error that to stop the pattern, what I need to do on those subsequent nights is let him cry and soothe himself back to sleep.

The discernment of when to leave others alone is tricky. Thinking of the times that it’s been hard – whether it was bugging my mom incessantly for something I wanted to buy when I was a kid or needing resolution from friend or lover in the middle of a kerfuffle, I can feel the tension of those moments. My impulse is to insert myself and push things the way that I want because I can’t stand the internal conflict. Or, I take the opposite approach and walk away entirely, hardening myself against needing at all.

The longer I live the more I am able to sense the Cosmic timing that helps guide us. Like some grand orchestra, I play my instrument but it sounds better when I wait for the cues from the conductor. I can ask for what I need but the response may be in the next movement. Expressing my hurt to a friend is best done when I’m feeling the clarity of my own notes and they might need to tune up before they can reply. Listening to my kids work themselves or their relationship out is like letting them practice their parts, something they’ll never get a chance to do if I step in too quickly.

I don’t like listening to my baby cry for the time it takes him to soothe himself back to sleep. But it makes it easier when I have the music of the Universe ringing in my ears.