I have always thought of myself as a patient person. In Maple Creek we have a lot of trains going through town. Some say thirty per day! When I have to wait I don’t get angry or make a fuss. When I am standing in line or waiting at the doctor's office I am generally calm and I can usually find things to amuse myself while I am waiting, like my phone. Yet, recently I had some technical issues that affected the work I do. As I was trying to understand and work through these issues, I asked my guides for help. They told me to have patience. What? That can’t be it! Did I understand that correctly? I actually consider myself VERY patient. How could they possibly insinuate that I needed to practice patience?
They say patience is a virtue. Society has taught us that waiting patiently is the correct thing to do. Yet over the course of my life I have also learned that the “squeaky wheel gets the grease”. Now I don’t like to “squeak” until I have given the issue I am dealing with considerable time to unfold. I like to give others the benefit of the doubt and when someone is taking a little longer I like to think that I am being understanding. I don’t generally overreact to things either. So this is why I have always considered myself patient. I mean wouldn’t you say that is patient?
Yesterday I came to a realization that I did not understand the true meaning of patience. In fact, I actually realized that all this time I have actually been a pretty impatient person. I found out that patience and surrender go hand in hand. Patience is an attitude of surrender. To be patient is to be content in the moment. It means that you are willing to not only accept but possibly also rejoice in the unfolding of the situation that is beyond your control.
Sometimes we have these life situations where things don’t happen the way we expected or not in the schedule we had wanted. This particular day things weren’t going as planned. There was a deadline involved and we had now moved dangerously close to it and things were not progressing the way that they should be. Besides that, it seemed that everything we had done to make sure this didn’t happen, failed. I started to get really frustrated and upset. I could feel the emotions coming up to the surface. There was fear and anger. Why was this coming up so strongly? The victim mentality started chiming in letting me know that this whole situation was totally unfair.
The wonderful thing about what I have been through with grief is that I have learned to recognize the emotions for what they are, e-motions “energy in motion”. I know that if I allow them to happen and I take the time to spend with them, they will reveal to me what it is I need to understand. In this case I took a good walk and basically cried the entire time. Lol! I had no idea why I was crying. None of it made sense, but I knew that it didn’t need to be understood. Clearly whatever was there just needed to be released and so I let it out.
I was ready and willing to learn at this point. I just wanted to get on with the fix for this. Yet my guides were saying I needed patience! I just didn’t get it. How could I possibly be more patient? I had waited forever for this technical help. It had been months! And then the aha moment came. Here is what I realized. While I was displaying all the behaviors of a patient person, waiting calmly, speaking kindly, etc. underneath those pleasant behaviors there was a volcano that was brewing and steaming and actually I just wanted to scream. Duh! Just because you act and look patient doesn’t mean you are!
Under all the facade I was putting out there, I was pissed. Despite my persistence and best efforts, things were not going the way I had planned. I had tried to do it myself and knew I was beat. I knew I needed help and when I finally asked for help it still wasn't working the way I wanted. There was also was a lot of resentment that I had waited so “patiently” for so long without advocating earlier for what I needed. It is a difficult balance, isn’t it?
Luckily I have a great coach who was actually patient. He humored me as I insisted that I was the patient person and everyone else must be wrong. Ha ha! It was such a classic resistance to realize what was right in front of me.
As I battle some new personal challenges right now that keep me from moving forward on the schedule I would like, I realize I need to take this time to enjoy, to embrace all of me - even my impatience. Thanks for your patience! It is something that means so much more to me now than ever.
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