Developing patience is a special challenge for all especially for those who are self-driven individuals on reaching their goals. Patience with the process is essential to peace of mind. Most of life is spent in the middle season, between the excitement of starting something and the fulfillment of finishing it. Your projects, careers, and relationships all have long summer seasons. But your enthusiasm for new projects often wanes: The glamorous career becomes daily routine, courtship settles down into the everydayness of living with the one you love. When you focus too much on future goals, you can miss the rich opportunities before your eyes.
When you find our minds racing ahead of you in the middle season, you can cultivate patience by consciously slowing down, taking a deep breath, and bringing ourselves back to the present moment. Just like in aikido, a martial art that is also a spiritual exercise, the teacher reminds the students to stop rushing and take a deep breath to regain their center. When aikido students lack confidence, they often push through a technique, trying to get it over with quickly. Yet the point is not o get the technique over with, but rather to open our hearts, embrace the process, and learn from it.
So it is with all of life. Slowing down makes you concentrate on the energies within and around you, and it helps you become more aware of nuances, more open to insights. In every step and in every process of your life, greater wisdom comes from embracing the middle season.
How to Stop Rushing
Here is a brief exercise that can help you cultivate more patience. Ask yourself these questions:
Do you find yourself in a middle season with a project, a relationship, or some personal goal? Do you sometimes respond with impatience – rushing, complaining, and trying to force things?
If so, it is time to reframe the process. Do not concentrate so much on getting it over with, but rather on experiencing what it has to offer.
• Whenever you catch yourself frantically rushing to get something done, take a few minutes – wherever you are at that moment – to visualize yourself slowing down, enjoying the dance, opening yourself to the wisdom you find.
• Pause for a moment; take a deep breath and release it. Feel yourself fully present, fully here, right now. This is something you can do wherever you are at any time. Stop your mind from fast-forwarding into the future, so you stay involved with the ongoing process.
• Smile as you take another deep breath and embrace this new way of seeing things.
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