How to Build Patience

Patience is a tough skill to learn for some of the more fiery go getter type personalities such as myself. To compound matters we live in a world of instant gratification where there is a total disconnect with the actual process. We want results and we want them now. You get thirsty you go to the store and buy a drink, no more long walks to the stream with a pail or pumping the well for some water. For a bite to eat we are tormented when the kitchen takes more than 15 minutes to produce our food.

The result of this modernization is unfortunately a lack of patience with the process. This is exactly what yoga seeks to remedy. You see, in yoga it is the process and the moment and not so much a fixation with a result or a destination. The element of competition is not really an issue to consider, not even in terms of within oneself. So in essence the entire yogic practice is a bit backwards with regards to the world we are conditioned to live in today.

The process in yoga and meditation is the best part of it. Remember the old cliche.. it is not the destination but the journey. Learning to enjoy the process of getting somewhere rather than rushing along trying to get to the finish line. Need I throw in the Fable of the Tortise and the Hare.

We not only do this with our health, our lifes, our jobs but also with relationships and people. What can we get from this person, or what can they do for me. There is a tendency to rush our relationships along based on certain bench marks that we anticipate or expect, deadlines that must be enforced in the name of logic and efficiency. But how often are we really present. How many times have we fast forwarded the process to get the instant gratification or end result we want and then found ourselves unhappy and looking for another grass is greener on the other side senario to repeat the cycle again. Never being happy as we are always pushing for more.

So patience with the process is really not so much about forced breathing to remain calm while waiting in agony for the desired result we seek, but is about enjoying the time as it moves and being present during the process of achievement. It is connecting to the whole product rather than a disconnected piece of it. It is about the art of living. Living from beginning to end, fully rather than racing from goal to goal. It is enjoying the work and really putting love into the manifestation of our dreams. This my friends is patience with the process, which is really being happily present and ready to live. Like they say yesterday is history and tommorrow is a mystery but today is a gift that is why it is called the present.

Be present and meet life where it is actually happening, in the now. So you see it isnt hard to be patient because what we want is already here.