The Practice of Patience

I believe that ‘patience is a virtue’. It is to our advantage to practice patience otherwise we may find ourselves worried, even anxious as well as slowing the progress we have already made and, most importantly, missing the beauty of today. The saying ‘all in good time’ reflects the true nature of our experience. This is the law of nature. Just as the seed requires time to germinate, our desires require time to come to fruition. 

I love the clip in The Secret when this concept is illustrated by a man thinking that he wants to have an elephant and voila, it appears in his apartment.  Yikes! Similarly, what we think we want today, may change by tomorrow. Time is truly a gift; time to set the stage for how we envision tomorrow. When we are in the flow (living in the present) and attracting what we want patiently, we are allowing the time necessary for us to slow down and let life unfold ‘all in good time’. 

The best way I’ve found to manage patience is with gratitude and accepting, not resisting, what is. When we allow impatient thoughts to permeate our mind we suffer. Negative thoughts of past disappointments and defeating future tripping are a waste of energy. When we focus on the negative or ‘what ifs’, we miss out on the satisfaction of the journey that is our life.

The next time you find yourself impatiently rehearsing in your mind, stop and admire what you already have, are doing, or have accomplished. Dropping resistance and noticing the silver lining stirs the pot of possibility. This is ‘going with’ or ‘being in’ the flow. Flowing with, not against, is always easier and more productive.