Learning
Patience
“Real
patience requires a gentle willingness to let life unfold at its own
pace. This willingness, in turn, requires mindfulness...Patience is
peace. Learning to be patient is a continual practice that takes
years to ripen. Let it unfold, day by day, and be gentle with
yourself in the learning.”
Joan
Borysenko (Inner Peace for Busy People: 52 Strategies for
Transforming Life)
My friend, Rebecca, is a
very patient person. As a therapist, she knows better than to push
her clients beyond what they are ready to hear or see. She allows
people and animals to be who they are without seeing any need to
redirect them. I watch her with amazement, and sometimes with
frustration. It is not in my nature to be patient. I want to keep the
ball rolling, and, better still, I want to determine in which
direction it rolls. This is a problem for me, since it is exceedingly
rare for the ball to obey my commands. I envy people who are simply
patient by nature.
Learning patience is, for
some of us, a life's work. Sometimes we can only pretend to be
patient, and try to camouflage the roiling inside. Some of us do not
have good poker faces, so that whatever we are feeling is instantly
communicated to anyone looking at us. Pretend patience requires a lot
of energy; in fact, it's exhausting. I compare it to trying to hold
an inflated beach ball under water—at the least distraction, it
pops up and even bounds away, out of reach.
Acquiring patience
requires us to live in the present moment. The whole business of
believing that the universe is unfolding as it should, and that with
time comes understanding is something one must hold firmly in one's
heart. I am not steering the stars—even the ones in my own small,
personal galaxy. Over and over, I must lay that onerous task into the
hands of One who knows what comes next, and will reveal it to me in
due time. Patience takes practice, and being gentle with oneself in
the learning is the first step.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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