Patience, patience, patience

Hi my name is Stephanie and I have a problem....haha

Patience has never been my strong suit for myself.  I want what I want when I want it and most of the time I don't know what I want, but as soon as I figure it out, I want it right now.  It is funny how one can cultivate so much patience with other people: patience in listening, in responding, patience in check out lines, patience with driving, but when it comes to my own life and my own wants.... patience goes out the window.

I have become more and more aware of this lately as it is starting to make some changes and effects in my life.  I am starting to try and replace what I actually want with something else (ie exercise, food, etc.).  This still doesn't give me what I want, but just creates more disharmony within myself because I am covering up my emotions instead of sitting and dealing with them.  It is a hard thing to do to actually slow down when we don't feel entirely ourselves and ask why do I feel this way?  Instead, we want to cover up, we want it to go away, and we'll do anything to feel differently.

Every now and then it is perfectly healthy to just check out for a little while, but I have found there are constructive ways to "check out" and destructive ways.  Over-eating: destructive, Over-exercising: destructive.  Meditation: constructive, Writing: constructive, Talking: constructive.  Its an interesting paradox to know all these ways to cope with intense emotions and yet not always use them.

Do you ever find when you are in a highly intense emotional state that you forget to breathe, or think straight?  Your whole body is engaged in the repetitive negative thoughts circling in your head as you go deeper into the emotional depths of your feelings and your body becomes more and more rigid.  In this state most people will do anything to just get out of the loop.  To sit with ourselves in this state is hard and sometimes unbearable (mostly because even when we realize why we feel this way, we also have to come to terms that there might not be anything we can do in the present moment to remedy the problem).  I find myself going in and out of mindfulness when my brain goes to the depths of my emotions.  I'm not patient with myself here.  I have no compassion and I just want the feelings to go away.

This is a way I have been for a long time, but I didn't deal with my emotions well as a child and as I grew up I just learned how to numb myself so I still didn't have to deal with them.  Now older, and hopefully wiser, I have been on the journey of sitting with myself for a couple of years now.  Sometimes its not pretty, sometimes its not fun, sometimes I cry, and sometimes I engage in actions that don't help but hurt me.  Yet, despite how hard this may be, sometimes I laugh, sometimes I feel so much gratitude for my life my heart swells, sometimes I shed tears out of pure happiness.  To every situation there is both the dark cloud and the sun peaking through somewhere.

When you go through intense periods like this, remember perspective, remember that this too shall pass, and whatever actions you engaged in, never feel regret.  Each situation helps us to grow wiser and learn what we need to become more compassionate human beings.  Cultivate patience for your own personal journey.