Happiness Rx: Practice patience & stay faithful to your commitments even if the progress isn’t as speedy or visible as desired. Bringing our best selves to the world requires deep dedication, patience, and persistent work.
How patient are you? Are you willing to wait for something that is important? Can you recognize and appreciate the fact that everything has its necessary gestation period?
James Arthur Ray of Harmonic Wealth put it best stating: “Everything has a gestation period, a time period that must pass before things will come into form. If you plant a carrot seed, it takes about seven weeks for the sprout to make its above-dirt entrance. Bamboo, which can grow up to thirteen feet in as little as one week, takes up to seven years to break through the surface of the ground. But for seven long years it looks like absolutely nothing’s happening. Now that takes some commitment.”
Yoga has without a doubt made me more patient. This isn’t to say that I don’t at times succumb to the pains of impatience and frustration as is part of the human condition, but I’ve definitely improved over the years. So what has changed? For one, I’ve become impatient with impatience (pun intended), and have lost all desire for the constant TUG-O-WAR with myself and others. Impatience serves to create anxiety and chaos in your life. Yoga serves to alleviate that anxiety by teaching patience, the antidote to impatience. Patience creates a feeling of centeredness amid the chaos regardless of others’ promises or actions. It’s a feeling of balance and compassion toward oneself. When I practice patience I feel liberated from the over-attachment to the result of anything I attempt. In fact, the yogic ideology teaches us that detaching from the outcome through patience will bring about peace of the mind.
Thus, rather than expecting to see an immediate result we must accept the fact that trying teaches us unconditional acceptance. It is the essence that heals us. Practicing patience is a lot like practicing unconditional self-love. The issues of the ego are removed when we practice patience. Our minds in turn are fed from the constant games of pushing and pulling, creating anxiety, distrust, stress, and imposing expectations.
Let’s take a lesson from the moon! Did you know that the moon’s trajectory follows the sun’s trajectory only six months after? This means that the full moon during the winter comes as high as the sun does during the summer. It also takes the moon a total of 18.6 YEARS TO FULFILL ONE COMPLETE ORBIT! I find this incredibly inspiring. If it takes the moon 18.6 years to complete one orbit cycle, the same should apply to our downward facing dog pose, or anything new we attempt for that matter. We must not quit after the first or any set number of tries, but rather practice patience and allow ourselves 18.6 years to refine a new venture.
Yoga is no quick fix, much like the cycle of the moon. It takes long hours of consistent practice with a lot of patience developed while trying and refining poses. Today, practice tapping into your potential for infinite patience. Yoga shouldn’t stress you out. There is no need to pressure ourselves to hyper achieve our poses. Practice patience and allow yourself at least 18.6 years of self-evolution on your mat.
Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia
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[Editor's note: This is a guest post by new contributor Silvia Mordini, E-RYT, retreat leader, happiness coach, and yogipreneur. Enthusiasm to love your life is contagious around Silvia. Her expert passion connects people to their own joyful potential. Silvia lives her happiness in such a big way that you can’t help but leave her classes, workshops, trainings and retreats spiritually uplifted! Born in Ecuador, raised traveling around the globe, she is an enthusiastic citizen of the world and spiritual adventurer. She has over 10,000 hours and 15 years of teaching experience, owned a yoga studio for 9 years and after being run over by a car used yoga to recover physically and emotionally. Silvia leads Alchemy Tours Yoga Retreats and Alchemy of Yoga RYT200 Yoga Teacher Training.
Silvia can be reached on the Web at www.alchemytours.com or www.silviamordini.com, or via email at silvia@alchemytours.com. Twitter: @alchemytours, @inspiredyogagal; Facebook: Silvia Mordini; YouTube: lovingyourday; Pinterest: Silvia Mordini; Intagram: alchemytours.]