The first topic of today is patience. Patience is more than just waiting. It’s about many things, both internal and external. Impatience is something you see all around you and can inspire your own lack of patience. We teach it to kids, we grill it into students, and beg ourselves to follow suit and yet many of us never achieve it.
Patience has many meanings. It’s not just about waiting, it’s about not rushing, not pushing others to act, and most importantly not giving into an emotion that causes you to want to move, act, speak, or just do SOMETHING!!!!!
Notice that fear? That worry? That anxiety? That is what drives you to be impatient and then soon it’s a matter of habit and our way of society. When someone is waiting in line at the bathroom, they are moving, looking at all the stalls, sighing, making many facial expressions. They are impatient. None of these actions is going to speed up the waiting process, yet they do this anyway, frankly making that urge worse. What drives them to do this? They fear they will wet themselves and be a great embarrassment and will have to go home in mortal shame. If they were just calm and relaxed, the wait would go by faster and there would be less stress physical and mentally.
Another part of patient is willing to see from another perspective. When I go to work, which is a call center, I must use patience with my calls. It’s not just polite and keeps my job secured, it’s also needed to understand and help the customer. I get 60 some old ladies who find out they have fraud on their card. Since I work in the disputes department, I get these calls all the time. It’s not that big of a deal to me because I know exactly how this happened and what will happen to the customer. Yet the customer is panicked, worried, frustrated. and feeling helpless. This is their first time dealing with this and this is huge, life crisis bad for them. They need me to slow down, explain every step of the way, reassure them they will get their money back, a new card, and the bank is protecting them. I have to practice waiting for them to process the charge, process the idea I have to close the card down, and process the dispute steps. It’s a lot to take in and they need time to think and feel. I have to step into their shoes, use empathy, and wait. I may do this for money, but I also use the same practice of patience with students who are struggling or having their mind blown by a simple Force exercise.
Another part of patience is flexibility. This is a really hard one for me, and I suspect many of you. We often view the world as right or wrong, good or bad, yes or no. You get control or I do. We don’t like comparises. We don’t like middle ground. We struggle with empathy, perspective, bending, being creativity, and thinking outside of the box. It’s partly a survival trait and the way we were raised. We are a fast moving society who demands quick simple answers and we scream (literally in my job) if we don’t get our way, the exact way we want or need it, and right now!
When I teach a student who is just not getting my usual way of teaching how to feel the Force, I can feel my own impatience “oh come on, this is the easiest exercise! How could you not get this?!? Everyone else does?!?! You’re just resisting this or something!!!” When I catch myself in this mind set, I usually take a break and tell the student I will come back to them. I’m too emotional and not looking at this correctly. I want fast results and I don’t want to put effort into this. So I will take a walk and think over what happened. Why was I being so impatient? Was I hungry or wanting to go outside and enjoy the sun? Was I scared there was something wrong with me or how I taught it? Did I have the impossible student (that does exist sadly). Or maybe the student wasn’t getting my example I thought was crystal clear and they need an entirely different one. Maybe the student needs to be taught meditation. Maybe they have ptsd or ADD that makes it impossible to sit still or calm down. So after my walk, I will come back and start asking what went wrong or do they understand this step? Maybe I need to find out what their experiences are so I can use them to connect. All of this is about willing to slow down, think differently, not react on my own emotions, and try to think about the student rather than the method.
Another form of patience is the will and the drive to struggle through a tough task or situation. Let’s pick an easy one: cleaning. It’s been a super busy, emotional week, or maybe you were sick. Whatever the reason you let your room or your house/apartment turn into a dump. There are 3 maybe 5 hours of cleaning to do from 3 loads of laundry, a sink full of dirty dishes, enough fur on the carpet to create a kitten, and let’s not talk about that trash. It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. There is just no way you can get through, yet the mother in law is coming or the landlord picked tomorrow to look for bugs. Oh sithit!!!! But wait, use your Jedi patience and perverse and this cleaning will happen!
Patience in this case can be figuring out a plan. Or at least the first step. First you will take out all the trash in only the trash cans. The rest you can full up later. Then you will start a load of laundry. Then you will attack the dishes to at least fill up the dishwasher (I always have to carefully manage my hot water), next that bathroom. Anyway you get the idea. Rather than panic and madly dash about wasting lots of energy and getting little done, you end up with a clear place and more energy. By taking the time to plan, follow through, and then plan again you achieve much more. You can apply this to your training and to teaching and to creating and doing a project with the Jedi. And this is how my classes happen.
Another side of patience is learning to take the long view on many different things. Is it better to buy the small amount of laundry soap than to wait a little bit until you have the funds to buy a much bigger amount that will save you money? Of course, that depends on your situation. But with planning and patience you save your money. With Jedi it might be better to be patient with a struggling student who will turn out beautiful, but takes more time and effort teaching, than to teach a seemingly powerful and quick learner. In my experience, the quick and powerful tend to be less emotionally and mentally stable and do more harm than good. When you are cleaning your home, it’s better to do a longer, more detailed job and get things actually clean, rather than wiping off the top and shuffling and moving things to give the appearance of clean. Patience takes more effort and time, but it generally has a bigger and better payoff.
LASTLY PATIENCE IS ABOUT OBSERVING AND ENJOYING THE WORLD AROUND YOU. WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU REALLY DID SNIFF THE FLOWERS AROUND YOU? WHEN DID YOU WATCH A SUNSET? DID YOU EVER LOOK AT ALL THE GREEN AROUND YOU? THERE IS SO MUCH BEAUTY IN THE WORLD AND WE NEVER TAKE THE TIME TO REALLY NOTICE IT. FOR THOSE WHO STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION, TAKING THE TIME TO LOOK AND MARVEL AT THE BEAUTY IN BOTH RARE AND COMMON THINGS CAN REALLY HELP WITH DEPRESSION. IT WOULDN’T CURE IT, BUT IT HELPS YOU GET INTO A BETTER, HEALTHIER MINDSET. IF YOU ARE COMPLAINING WERE YOU LIVE ISN’T SCENIC, THEN I ASK DO YOU NOT ADMIRE YOUR BED? IF YOU HAVE A PET, REALLY REALLY LOOK AT EVERY DETAIL ABOUT THEM. LOOK AT YOUR ROOM. WHY DID YOU GET THOSE CLOTHES? WHY THAT COLOR AND TEXTURE OF THE BLANKET? WHY THAT SHAPE OF THE GLASS? TRY TO SEE THE BEAUTY IN ALL THINGS AND YOU WILL SEE A WORLD GLORIOUS, JOYOUS, AND WORTH PRAISE. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN MY FORCE CLASSES, I HOPE I TAUGHT YOU TO ENJOY AND FIND WONDER WITH THE FORCE. THE FORCE IS A SIMPLE, ENDLESS, LIFE GIVING, WONDERFUL FEELING THAT MAKES YOU SIGH IN PEACE AND GASPS IN AMAZEMENT.