This week's weekly intention is one that we touched on a few months ago, but I feel is incredibly important for all of us to be reminded of and make a conscious effort to practice daily, with ourselves and with those around us. Especially as we lead into the final few weeks of the year when life seemingly seems to speed up and we are all a little more pressed for time, and for patience.
So, this week's weekly intention will be to reaffirm patience with those around us and especially for ourselves.
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If you have patience, you are able to stay calm and not get annoyed, for example when something takes a long time, or when someone is not doing what you want them to do. (Patience Definition and Meaning | Collins English Dictionary, n.d.)
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The quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
- An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner. (Definition of Patience | Dictionary.com, 2019)
Patience is something we all have, some of us just have more of it than others. Some of us have lots of it some days and absolutely none on others. I know for myself personally; patience is something that I have to work on with myself. I have previously shared with you a little story of when I was first starting my yoga journey as teacher and how I was so impatient with myself. I most certainly have a lot more patience with those around me, but not always for myself. I know for a fact that I can still be my own worst critic. In fact, most days I am super hard on myself, which I imagine, most of us are. I think we all know that in our busy lives we hold ourselves to such high standards that the balance in our life can be tipped so far towards the stressful side it can be hard to pull it back (Finding more balance in our lives was a weekly intention I have sent out previously. If you didn't receive it, please let me know and I will send it to you). When we don't meet those standards, we're the first to point this out to ourselves. Which inherently, I don't believe is a bad thing. It's good to hold ourselves to high standards in order to keep setting goals for ourselves. However, have you ever caught your own self talk when you don't meet that standard? Have you ever actually listened to your own thinking mind and the words you use on yourself? Yeah, sometimes it's not so nice. Perhaps I'm only speaking for myself here, but I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we've all been a little guilty of the negative self-talk. When we think of the way we sometimes speak to ourselves, would you ever speak to another person that way? I think we would all like to say we wouldn't, but again, I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we all have. Why, because we all lose our patience sometimes. We're human. Every day we experience a multitude of emotions from happiness to sadness. We deal with a multitude of experiences from achievement to loss. Being human is basically problem solving on a daily basis. So that is why patience is something we need to remind ourselves of daily. We need to remember that each and every one of us is all walking the same earth, but our lives are completely different. We are all experiencing emotions daily, problem solving the things that come up in our lives each day the best we can. We are all experiencing things on our own level of awareness and perception because each and every one of us is different. What may come easy and natural for you might as well be an alien language to someone else.
Patience is something we need to practice everyday life, not only with ourselves, but with those around us. Friend or stranger. Patience with our children, our parents, our work colleagues, our friends, the person who cut you off in traffic or pushed in front of you. I know it can be so hard at times and our emotions can boil over, but just like kindness, patience is something that we actively have to do, practice and show for it to make a difference. We also need to remember a few things,
- We are not responsible for anyone else's actions, we're only responsible for our own. Just because another is not patient or kind, does not mean that we can't be.
- All of us will lose our patience at some stage. It's ok. Be kind to yourself when you do. Let it go. Apologise if it is called for and move on.
- Each of us will have different beliefs and that is ok. We don't have to think the same way.
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Sometimes the most powerful words spoken are the ones we don't speak and more often than not, listening can be the most powerful thing, which leads us back to the first point of only being responsible for our own actions.
Thank you again for being part of my little online studio. And thank you for all of the emails and feedback you send me. I love hearing from you.
Have a beautiful week,
❤️and be kind.