Patience

Do you often feel discouraged on your spiritual pathway? How do you maintain the feelings of happiness, security, comfort, and peace? Why does it seem so hard to sustain these feelings or emotions? Why are we so hard on ourselves in wanting to be "good?" Are we striving for perfection?

Patience is the key to understanding ourselves and our humanness. The Law of Patience states, "all things arrive at their appointed time, impatience simply causes delay." We are hard on ourselves when we expect that we need to always be good or perfect. When we fall down and scrap our knees we have a tendency to stay on the ground and berate ourselves for falling. Instead, it is best to pick ourselves up, clean our wounds, and start the healing process. Soon the scabs heal and whether there is a scar or not the healing takes place if we are patient. If we pick at the scab too early, it bleeds and the healing time is extended. The question then is how can we learn patience to allow the healing to proceed without interference?

I sometimes find myself berating myself over not being good enough. I'm on a spiritual pathway and when I fall down on the pathway, I have a tendency to bring back all the insecurities, self doubt, guilt, unforgiveness in my self. I start wondering who I am and what my purpose in life is. It becomes overwhelming and the impatience that I experience brings on the negative energy and thoughts. The pessimism creeps in and all the positive energy and momentum on the pathway comes to a screeching halt. I have learned that this is the time to truly be your own best friend. Again, we are much harder on ourselves than we are with other people. When another person is going through a tough time, we gently provide them words of encouragement and support. Learning to change your thoughts and choosing to think positively will help make the situation better. We are human and not perfect beings, as we strive for a happier life there will be lessons along the way that will make us stronger. The pathway may lead us to other pathways or detours for a moment. As we learn the lessons from the detours, we must keep moving forward, trusting and knowing that any bumps in the road are lessons to learn and understand for our purpose in life. When these obstacles come into our pathway, it is best to take the time to breathe. Breathe deeply, slowly and feel the emotions as you surrender and let go the self defeating attitude. Learn to laugh and not take yourself so seriously. The situations may take on a whole different feel when you appreciate the lesson being learned. This is the time to look deeper and pay attention to what the true lesson is teaching you. Take time out to spend in nature or in solitude to quiet your mind. Start to journal the emotions that come up. You may need to re-focus your time to bring balance back into your life. Are you going through the motions in life, getting angry with the traffic, the intensity of work or juggling family responsibilities but not taking any time for your own health and well being? Sometimes these particular lessons in life come to us to help us slow down and realize the importance of bringing balance back. There is no statute of limitation on patience. Our understanding of time and life itself is very limited, we must make choices daily and allow the answer to our questions to come when the time is right, not as we know time but as the universe does.

One of the biggest things we can do to help with our patience is knowing, believing, and trusting that we are on the right pathway. We need to let go of the frustration and fear on the pathway and appreciate and practice looking at things differently.

When one is held up in traffic and late for an important meeting, the frustration and impatience arise. The worry about being at the meeting intensifies; however, this only creates negative energy and anxiety. The best thing to do is concentrate on taking deep breaths and stating "this is out of my control, there is nothing I can do now to make the traffic better, relax and breath and trust this is happening for a reason." You may not understand the reason at the moment but many times the answers become clear later.

Another example of patience is a gardener. The gardener carefully plants seeds of tomatoes. It takes patience to prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water, fertilize, tend to and hope the elements of the weather cooperate. Then months later, the plant has grown and the flowers indicate potential fruit. Eventually the green tomatoes turn into the bright red fruit. The fruit of the tomato tastes even more delicious and rich in flavor when finally picked to grace the food at the table. Without the patience of the whole process, the tomato may never become ripe to be eaten and savored. Each year as tomatoes are planted, new techniques, watering systems, etc. may be adjusted based on the lessons learned from the previous year to produce an even more productive crop. This is how we must look at ourselves in our pathway. We are preparing the soil, planting seeds, watering, absorbing the sun, growing each day, producing flowers and fruit and each season starts anew. Each bump in the road we can start anew, replanting the seed and continuing the process. Enjoy the fruit along the way but know we must continue moving forward to produce the crop of tomatoes each day. Think of your pathway in this way, it is always a work in progress. If we push on a door and meet resistance sometimes we continue to push because of our impatience and get nowhere, however, soon there is the realization that the door says, "pull." When we pull the resistance is gone.

Be patient with yourself, know there will be challenges, learn the lessons from the challenges, be kind and gentle to yourself. Pick yourself up from falling down, clean the wound and continue to move forward with gratefulness for the lessons learned in making you stronger and more powerful in your quest of a better you. Share the lessons learned with other so that they can learn to heal from your lessons. Remember the next time you fall, be your own best friend.

It takes patience for the caterpillar to become a butterfly.
It takes patience for the flow to bloom from a seed.
It takes patience for the tomato to ripen from seed.
It takes patience to learn how to forgive.
It takes patience to learn balance.
It takes patience to set boundaries.
It takes patience to understand our past.
It takes patience to learn the lessons of life.
It takes patience to believe.
It takes patience to surrender and let go.
It takes patience to live life.