Making Patience Our Practice.

[blockquote source=”Christina Feldman”]”When our eyes and hearts are open, we glimpse buddhanature shining in countless moments.”[/blockquote]

I watched a young woman in line for coffee today – well dressed, and ready for work, with blackberry firmly strapped to her hand. At just 6:30 a.m., she was already engaged in a heated ‘planning’ session.

She was waiting for her drink order – a Grande Spiced Pumpkin Latte, double espresso, with extra whipped cream. As the moments passed, I could see her anxiety building – at first, the familiar pinch of restlessness, growing quickly to the burden of haste.

And though, it was only a matter of a few moments – to her, the delay was intolerable. She was so caught up in the energy of irritation that she missed the most precious little girl tugging at her skirt,

“Mommy, are you mad?” she asked.

Sometimes, we’re so eager to move onto the next big thing – that we end up missing the blessing in this moment now. As author Tara Brach so eloquently stated, ” If this is our habitual reaction to delay, we are at war with many of our life moments.”

Indeed, in our haste to move forward – we lose touch with life’s much simpler things. We shut down, close off, constrict – all, in an effort to pull away from life’s edginess.

To be patient, we must learn not to escalate our emotions…something, much easier said than done.

You know, the other day I was so very proud of my darling daughter – who called me on her walk home from work.

“Mom, you have to see the sky tonight!” she chattered on excitedly – as if seeing a sunset for the very first time.

Impatience can be such a terrible thief, my darlings – robbing us of the miracle of all those ‘first times.’

Perhaps, we might learn to make patience our practice? Instead of rushing so quickly forward into that next big thing?

About

Tara Lemieux is a mindful wanderer, and faithful stargazer. Although she often appears to be listening with great care, rest assured she is most certainly‘forever lost in thought. She is an ardent explorer and lover of finding things previously undiscovered or at the very least mostly not-uncovered.

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