Patiently Impatient
It is finally November 2nd. Tomorrow is the big day – the election in the US, which has been unsettling us, tormenting us, scaring us, and making many of us wish that politics would fall off the face of the earth.
So, it’s all going to be over on the third, right? Well, not necessarily so. They say with all the mail-in ballots, we may not get the final results for days or even weeks. “Oh no,” says our weary mind. “More confusion, divisiveness, lies, and endless political ads! I have had enough of that!”
But what would happen if the seemingly endless election cycle carries a great gift for us? The gift comes from understanding that we live in what I call the bubble of struggle. Imagine the most beautiful ocean you can. This is the ocean of being, and it represents who you truly are. But floating on the ocean is a small, opaque bubble: the bubble of struggle. This is where most people live, thinking about life rather than actually experiencing it. They may not even realize they live almost exclusively in their minds, cut off from the joy of simply being, struggling with big and small things all day long.
How do you come back to being? Not by trying, for that is just more struggle. You come back to being by learning how to see and not getting caught in the struggles of your mind. So, on November 4th, we will all have a great opportunity to see one of the favorite struggles that make up our busy minds: impatience. We want change right now!
The definition of patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. And yet there seems to be so much to be upset about right now that it is very seductive to be impatient. For instance, politicians keep on exaggerating, blaming, and lying. Or the line for voting seems endless. It feels almost natural to get impatient in these times, but we don’t realize the price we pay for it. It cuts us off from being present for life, which is where all the good stuff is.
We also don’t see the physical and emotional price we pay for our impatience. Amit Sood, the founder of a department that researched impatience at the Mayo Clinic, said in an interview with CBS, “Impatience is not simply the opposite of patience. Rather, the absence of patience brings anxiety, illness, injury, loneliness, and even death. An episode of explosive anger, stress, or impatience can increase your risk of heart attack and sudden death by two to eightfold for the next few hours!”
He also said something startling. “Impatience, or a lack of patience, can affect your longevity. Telomeres are the little tails at the end of each one of your chromosomes. The shorter they are, the older you are. And people who are impatient have shorter telomeres.” In other words, impatience shortens your life! The more we learn to unhook from impatience and instead respond with patience, the more we cultivate ease and peace.
Stephen Levine would say there is no such thing as patiently waiting. You’re either waiting, or you’re patient. Look for times when your mind goes into the hyperdrive of impatience and notice you don’t have to be run by its upsetting, unsettling energy. Instead, you can relax and open. Impatience is an invitation to step out of the bubble struggle and rest in open awareness, for this is it! This is the moment where you can actually be present for your own life exactly as it is.
So, you have little or no control over how long it is going to take for the ballots to be tabulated, and you have little or no control over how much unsettled and even violent energy that may show up in the days after the election. And you may have little or no control over your impatience at this point in your life. But the invitation is to get to know impatience. (And be patient as you learn to unhook from impatience!) Recognize that you pay a heavy price for getting lost in this state, and when you can, simply acknowledge impatience. If that is all you can do, that is enough, for it is a moment of stepping out of the bubble of struggle and seeing what your mind is doing rather than being at its mercy. And even two seconds of this kind of recognition, over time, makes a difference.
And the more you do this, the more you will be able, when impatience shows up, to breathe yourself back into this moment and say something like this to yourself, “I choose to let go of impatience and instead be present for my life right now.”
Slowly, when impatience shows up, you discover you can simply let it go and instead open into the joy of being present for life. Most of us, on our deathbed, would give almost anything to stand in a long line again, or wait on hold forever, or listen to endless political ads because we would finally see how precious every single moment is.
If this resonated with you, I invite you to join us for the next Free Night, on November 17th, called: Living in the Now. Here’s a sneak peek: We’ve all heard about living in the now, but if you are like most people, you have found that challenging. Join Mary in exploring a workable path back to the only moment where life is really happening…NOW! Registration is now open! Click HERE to learn more and register!
And as always, I invite you to listen to my podcast on Dreamvisions 7 Radio: Surrender…Really?. It will air on Thursday, November 5th at 5am and 5pm HERE. After the 5th, it will be available on demand, along with every other podcast I’ve ever done HERE. Please feel free to explore my catalog and listen to topics that call to you.