Patience
A segment of the weekly newsletter is a weekly theme and this blog post is an enhancement to that section. Each weekly theme is an invitation and encouragement meant to help the reader better connect to themselves. Please note that the selected themes can be reflected upon at any time and are not limited to the week the themes are shared and published.
Theme: Patience
Viktor Frankel is credited with the following quote: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” In that space lies a pause that contains our breath and our connection to our true selves. This pause is a representation and an embodiment of patience. This pause between stimulus and response is the patience to be, the patience to breathe, and the patience to let be.
This week’s theme is Patience and the encouragement is for you to create more space to simply be. We are so conditioned to think that we must always be doing that we forget that even non-doing is a form of doing. Breathe patience into your life and be open to what unfolds.
Practices for Reflection
Start by taking five deep breaths to ground yourself. Then, reflect on any or all of the following questions:
What does “patience” mean to you?
How do you practice patience?
Are there areas of your life where patience comes easier? Explore.
How do you think the breath connects to patience?
How can you be more patient with yourself? With others?
Personal Reflection
Patience is definitely a practice; I must actively choose to be patient by being aware of the space that exists between stimulus and response. Instead of responding quickly, can I create more space to breathe, think, and feel? Patience, for me, means that I am checking in with myself to see what I need and to see if how I am desiring to respond to a situation is objective or if it’s coming from a place of a bruised ego. Patience is the reminder that not everything needs an immediate response. Patience as a practice means using the breath to settle and ground myself while trusting the passage of time to bring clarity. Practicing patience and being patient is hard, I won’t lie to you and I definitely won’t lie to myself. In patience, however, I surrender and remember that life is happening for me, not to me.
The questions that come up for me when reflecting on patience are the following:
Can I be patient with myself? I can lovingly try by honoring the versions of me that have come before and by remembering that this current version of me is setting the foundation for future versions of me. I want all versions of me to know and feel how loved they are and how ok it is to not have all the answers.
Can I be patient with others? If I can give myself the space to remember that I can only control myself, then patience with and for others comes easier.
Can I be patient with the way life is unfolding? The hardest patience there is because patience with the unfolding of life means surrendering to the unknown and trusting that every step is moving me forward in some way.
Can I trust the process enough to be patient with the process? Baby steps here. Trust and patience are sisters in the act of being human.
Can I trust the process enough to be patient with all the unknowns that come with the process? This requires trusting that I have all the tools I need to handle the unknowns and I do believe the journey of my becoming is constantly preparing me for what’s to come.
