States of Wonder!
Mindfulness
The Attitudes of Mindfulness
2. The Attitude of Patience
For me, I always feel as if Time is racing me from event to event.
I’m constantly calculating how much time I have in which to accomplish a task, or how much time I have before my next client, or that’ll take ages and I’ll find myself rushing to get to the next ‘fun’ thing.
I am constantly reminding myself to just let things unfold in their own time.
That this very moment, IS the moment. This very moment, IS my life at this moment. There is nothing else.
Many people find that meditation is a race. Its a tool to make things better, to help us to feel better. That by sitting for an hour means that I should be calm, relaxed and better able to deal with life.
When practice doesn’t produce these results, often people will give up, saying that it just doesn’t work.
In fact, meditation isn’t actually about making you FEEL better.
Its about BEING better.
And it goes without saying that if we can not elicit the patience that we need in our everyday lives, that this feeling of having to get things done in a timely or quick manner will only bring about more feelings of stress and anxiety.
“Patience is a wisdom… In the same way we cultivate patience toward our own minds and bodies when practicing mindfulness. We intentionally remind ourselves that there is no need to be impatient with ourselves because we find the mind judging all the time, or because we are tense or agitated or frightened, or because we have been practicing for some time and nothing positive seems to have happened. We give ourselves room for these experiences. Why? Because we are having them anyway!” – Mindfulness Attitudes, Patience by Jon Kabat-Zinn
So number two attitude: Patience
No matter how you’re sitting, observe the feelings and be patient with them. Everything passes. Everything changes. The more we strive and push, the longer it takes to let go.
Practicing this will help us to let each and every moment unfold in its beauty, as the miracle it is.
The Solstice Space 