About PATIENCE in YOGA
“Nature does not hurry. Yet, everything is accomplished.”
Lao Tzu
Patience is a virtue, we hear this expression often. But what does it mean exactly? Patience creates a feeling of centeredness, a feeling of balance and compassion toward oneself. Often, the inability to stay with patience and calmness and instead rushing to the next thing, relationship, task, situation and so on is a feeling of restlessness and emptiness from within that stems from pain. We avoid by all means the suffering and pain that can become more visible in moments of stillness and silence.
But where are we rushing towards or from? How can we get to really know ourselves and understand how this world is functioning if we lack patience and curiosity for it? It is the nature of our mind to think and take us away from the present moment, most especially if that moment isn’t comfortable.
A life in solitude and stress-free is non-existent. However, it is not impossible to be able to create a space for oneself among all the chaos. For that, we need a shift of perspective, to understand that our lives are just one aspect of Life itself and everything is coordinated by something higher and wiser than us. Nature has its own cycles and rhythms that make everything so connected.
Impatience, by its very nature, means a lack of acceptance of the present moment. When we race ahead to the next thing, we stop appreciating all of the beautiful things that are happening right now. And we forget that, in fact, the present moment is all we ever have. Impatience leads to more anxiety and chaos in our lives, so patience comes as an antidote to the goal-driven society we live in and here is where Yoga comes into play.
A wonderful place to start our work of gaining patience is our mats. For example, during the Yoga class, we can focus instead on the transitions between the poses, as being as important as the poses themselves. Or offering some more time and space to breathe, to reconnect to ourselves and to this moment, instead of jumping mindlessly from one asana to another. Or minimizing any unnecessary fidgeting and movement and aiming to understand the reason behind it. No waiting for the next big thing, the next pose since it will happen anyway. Sometimes we move fast not because of how many tasks we actually have to solve, but because of looking ahead, focusing on what is upcoming rather than staying in the present.
Many people avoid Yoga because of preconceived ideas about themselves, such as I am not flexible enough, I am not young enough and so on. But also, many avoid this ancient beautiful practice for the simple reason of lacking the time to dedicate to this or for wanting a quick fix or fast and visible results from the beginning, like being able to reach the toes or doing the split. Patience can help us deepen our asana practice, offering more quality and sensitivity to our bodies and needs. Impatience, wanting our practice to be something other than what it is, takes us further away from reaching equanimity in our practice, the ability to stay with whatever it is, even if it is impatience 🙂 But when we continually draw our minds back to sensations and back to the breath, we’re training the mind to stay with the moment, even when the moment is difficult, whether that difficulty is the sensation of the muscles working hard to hold a pose or the emotions or thoughts rising that we wish were different.
Yoga is a journey, in which if we focus on enjoying each step, we manage to get a clearer picture of all parts of ourselves and learn to be patient. First, we learn to embrace and accept our bodies, our possibilities as well as our limitations. Not striving to compete or get forcefully in the postures by pushing ourselves. With patience, we can learn to support our bodies in the process, listen more to what is happening, witnessing the unfolding of the practice, instead of focusing on the final result. Yoga cannot be rushed and each of its small victories is precious and an important milestone. The lessons that we learn as Yoga students take time to develop seeds and grow. We often get frustrated in our progress in our practice, wishing immediate results from intricate postures and hoping we will reach a certain level within a strict deadline. However, the way in which the body learns movement and how to integrate it requires repetition, commitment and correct alignment. Anchoring ourselves into the breath is a great start to cultivate presence and patience along the way, into our practice and then into our lives.
Secondly, we learn to have patience with our energy. We all have so called bad or good days, with more or less energy, so it is nice to give some space for quick check-ins on the mat, before diving into any practice. Some days, we might accomplish a very extensive practice, some days, even showing up on the mat can feel like a big milestone. Each step of the journey matters. And the journey keeps unfolding, because in the end, we practice for the sake of it and not for an anticipated goal.
Finally, we need to learn to be compassionate and patient with our minds, maybe the most difficult part of the journey. Our restless, often suffering minds are not very capable or willing to be in the present, either running to some wishful thinking of the future or ruminating about the past. Diving into steady meditation over time can also be a very humbling experience that teaches a sense of patience, as one becomes familiar to the day-to-day habitual thoughts and belief patterns. With patience, we can learn to get familiar to the beauty and importance of the present moment, as it is, embracing both negative and positive emotions that appear unexpectedly. We can learn to give ourselves some credit for the smallest step that we do in this journey, by always returning to the power of patience. One breath at a time.
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