We’ve all heard that patience is a virtue. Yes, it is, and it’s much, much more.
Patience is a “power tool" of consciousness that can open the doorway to all possibilities. It serves as a path to witness consciousness, and when you’re in the witness part of yourself, everything relaxes, your perspective broadens, and you begin to see all angles of a situation. You see clearly, through the veils of your conditioning (past patterns, expectations, anticipations, wounds, and traumas) – you see what’s actually there in front of you.
If we become impatient, then we know that our vision is being driven by some ulterior motive. Sometimes we’re driven by a feeling, an emotion, or a false sense of urgency. Under stress or overwhelm, we’ll always make quick, one-sided decisions that usually are not the best decisions.
When I had my hip replaced, the doctors told me that in six months I’d be back to normal. After a year passed and I still had pain in certain movements, I became disheartened. I thought I was doing something wrong. It wasn’t until four years later that my hip healed completely.
I learned how to be patient and just let go. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. My body just needed more time.
We need to bring more patience to our body in terms of healing. Sometimes injuries take longer to heal. Impatience would insist on healing more quickly. But that can often lead to strain or trying to push the healing to go faster, which almost always sets us back a few days or weeks. Patience allows the body the time it needs to heal. The body’s timing is not always our timing.
Patience in relationships can be extremely helpful. We sometimes want our relationships to be different. Perhaps we want the other person to process emotions more quickly or make different decisions. We want them to change more quickly but they can’t. We want our adolescent children to grow up faster or make smarter decisions. But they don’t, until it’s their time. This becomes the perfect situation to let go of trying to control the uncontrollable.
In general, we could bring more patience into our yoga practice. Yoga teaches us how to be present with all of the sensations – both pleasant and unpleasant. In Ashaya Yoga, instead of pushing the boundary, we expand the boundary. The difference is that instead of forcing our body into a pose, we open to the bigger energy, hug in, embrace the discomfort, breathe into it, align, then stretch and expand past previously held limits, while keeping the muscles engaged. And it’s good to acknowledge that there are some days when the body tells us to do less or stop. We need to keep listening.
Patience is not about complacency. While waiting for the body to heal or the relationship to shift, there are many things we can do. We need to support ourselves by aligning with the bigger energy and doing the needful while we remain patient, at peace, and not too attached to the outcome.
This never became more obvious than when I had my basement renovated years ago. The workers promised the work would be done in a month. Meanwhile three months later it still wasn’t done! Ugh! House projects often take longer than projected. While I was disappointed at first, I took a deep breath and let go of the timeline they promised. At the same time, I continued to follow up with the workers to make sure things kept moving forward.
Patience becomes a doorway to the present moment.
To be present you have to get yourself out of the way. You have to calm the mind, slow down, and let go. It’s the acceptance of what is, letting everything be as it is.
What usually triggers impatience is worry, anxiety, and trying to get something done on a timeline. We somehow get pushed into the urgency of the moment. Impatience arises from a feeling of overwhelm, you have too many things to get done and not enough time to do them.
When we live in the fast waters of impatience every day, it grates on our nerves. Our nervous system is not designed to endure the bombardment of anxiety and frenetic energy day in and day out. We burn out, the body breaks down, and we’re forced to rest and reset. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is it necessary?
Impatience is a contractive emotion that separates, and leaves us frazzled and frayed. The Power of Patience brings cohesion and integration.
Patience unites you with your heart and is the doorway to presence, peace, and consciousness. Patience allows the conscious witness to rise up within you. Then you make better choices. You enter into the realm of all possibilities and you live more from your heart than from your head.
Patience has a way of making space for all that is to be as it is. It’s a very deep level of acceptance where instead of swimming upstream in resistance, you let go and swim downstream carried by the current itself.
Patience is a divine virtue, a powerful practice of consciousness. In life, patience is how not to push the river but to flow with it.
May you harness the power of patience and flow more fully in the current of grace!
I look forward to seeing you on the mat!
Namaste,
Todd
Journal Writing Exercise on Patience:
Reflect for a few moments on the word “patience” and what that might mean to you.
During your day become aware of moments of impatience. Allow impatience to be.
Reflect on the feeling of it.
Where in your body do you feel the impatience?
Describe the qualities of impatience in your body. What are the sensations of impatience? What texture is it? What color is it? What shape is it?
Now take a few deeper breaths. See if you can release the impatience and see what’s underneath it.
What is the urgency? If the situation really is urgent, then ask yourself what you can realistically do about it? Then simply take the actions.
If there’s no real urgency, then see if you can calm your mind. Follow the flow of your breath in and out for three breaths.
Allow yourself to invite more patience to enter into your awareness. See how softening your skin, letting go of worry, or letting go of the urgency can bring you back to your heart.
Once you feel as though you have returned to the present moment in your heart, allow your perspective to expand.
Flow with the current of grace and see if you can allow yourself to see the possibilities.
Take out your pen and journal and do some reflective writing. Perhaps start with, “This is a time in my life when……”
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