Desert Wind(s)
Posted: August 5, 2013 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: blogging, fitness, free range, freshly pressed, friends, gluten free, happiness, health, hope, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, pain, passion, Patience, perspective, pilates, running, Suffering, trail running, whole foods, WOD, yoga 4 CommentsRivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day-
What does patience mean to you personally in regards to mindfulness and living an authentic life?
Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, difficulty and annoyance without getting angry or upset.
What are we to think after reading this definition of patience I pulled from a dusty dictionary? You may be asking: “Will I encounter delay, difficulty, or annoyance in my life?” All of us share a universal answer: (we) can’t recall a single day in our lives when at least one of “three” –delay, difficulty and annoyance … Didn’t make an appearance.
Throughout the years, my reaction to the presence of any one of the three was to get “angry” a little “upset” and completely “ticked off.” Then early one winter morning I realized that my normal response served only to make an already unpleasant situation, worse, much worse. Thus began my journey to making a conscious effort to respond to “delay, difficulty and annoyance” differently than I had done before. On the worst days? The best I could do was to simply “tolerate” their presence in my life. Although with practice, just like riding a bike and doing the yoga thing, I was better able to “accept” them kindly, with a smile and as an inevitable part of daily life.
When we start to weave tolerance and acceptance into delay, difficulty and annoyance … We sit up straight and start to notice a few things. Firstly, patience is a gentle way of treating ourselves with compassion. Keep in mind Dear Reader: Compassion is the act of reaching out to those who are suffering … Including ourselves.
Secondly, I noticed that being patient gave me a feeling of calmness that makes it infinitely easier to ride life’s ups and downs without being tossed about aimlessly. Seeing the correlation between patience and enhanced self-compassion and awareness convinced me of the value of practicing patience.
Notes:
I suffer deeply when I stray from the path of patience, lack of patience is a stress response to whatever is going wrong in my life. Stress firmly grips both my mind and my body … Cultivating patience is my way of taking care of myself, which is the heart of self-compassion. the calm acceptance of life as it is, right now in this precious moment
Now how does one share to the world, the hyper obsessed runners and fitness aficionados that the idea of suffering and stress from punishing our bodies is NOT taking care of ourselves?
CultFit 
Going back to growing up…
I came to believe that it is far more better for ourselves to suffer than let others be affected with whatever situation, decision that arise.
While still growing up…
I now believe that the original belief is… crap. Simply put, when we punish ourselves, thinking it is only ourselves in despair, we failed to realize that the others around us are not affected. Why I thought others would not be as sensitive, or why I deemed to be robots, is beyond me. There has been a cloak in this perspective. Whether because of traditions, culture, education, religion, somehow the TRuTH had been veiled. The cloak presents itself at times… we are all a work in progress, no? But I think the cloak now is made of sheer fabric. 😉
Indeed, we all are a work in progress. 🙂 Although I have been told in the past that I was a “piece of work” … 😉 Take care this evening!
All good things… I think we know the rest of the phrase. It took me many years to “let go and let God”. I have spent many years conditioning myself to realize that the only thing in this universe that I can control is myself, and that I need to roll with the punches.
Yes, for those who choose to wait 😉
I hope you are having a great day today, take care!