How sick and tired we may become of people telling us to be patient or to learn patience. How frustrating it can be to want to finally have something, or to move forward, and then not have that happen. How irritating to have someone tell us to wait while our needs have not been met and were in the midst of anxiety, frustration, and inaction.
Do not confuse the suggestion to be patient with the old rule about not having feelings.
Being patient does not mean we go through the sometimes-grueling process of life and recovery without having feelings! Feel the frustration. Feel the impatience. Get as angry as you need to about not having your needs met. Feel your fear.
Controlling our feelings will not control the process!
We find patience by surrendering to our feelings. Patience cannot be forced. It is a gift, one that closely follows acceptance and gratitude. When we work through our feelings to fully accept who we are and what we have, we will be ready to be and have more.
Today, I will let myself have my feelings while I practice patience.
The best description I have ever heard concerning patience comes from a Buddhist teacher Suzuki Roshi, he said something along the lines of patience is not waiting for things to change but learning to allow things to be as they are
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
I usually feel really driven, compelled to take some kind of action to move things forward for myself, which generally involved me telling someone else what I thought they were doing wrong, and how I thought they should fix it so that I felt better. My situation now seems to be "conspiring" to have me just sit and accept the reality of me. I feel like I'm up to my neck in a huge steaming pile of my own doodaa, and every inch of me is fighting that I'm sitting in it. But instead of looking to myself to get myself out, I have been internally raging at my partner because he has been so wrapped up in his own stuff and hasn't been coming and making me feel better that I'm sitting in a pile of c**p. I've been waiting to be rescued and have been raging inside that that hasn't happened. Never has it been so clear to me that the only way things are ever going to be different for me is if I learn not to cover myself in c**p, learn not to pick up other people's c**p and cover myself in it, and learn that if I do, I need to gently take care of myself and wash it off for myself.
Right now I'm up to my neck. Have just noticed it for the first time, am not too impressed with how it looks and feels and feel a bit foolish for sitting here in it for so long screaming at the world.
