Patience

Taken from the book: A Moment to Reflect: Patience by Veronica Ray

We choose to be either patient or impatient many times each day. We have to wait for people, computers, traffic lights, and the preparation of food. Impatience doesn't make us feel better. It only makes us nervous, angry, and unable to enjoy ourselves.

We learn patience by practicing. When we drive up to a flashing light at a railroad crossing, instead of turning around and finding another route, we can wait. We can turn off the engine, relax, think, pray, look around, or listen to music. We can watch as children do, wondering what's inside the boxcars, noticing signs of where they're going. A quiet moment like this won't spoil our day or destroy our schedule. It just might help us, refresh us, calm us down, and remind us to be patient.

This hit me right between the eyes today. It was my second day back to work and by noon I was pooped. I found myself being very impatient with everything and then I started slipping into those old negative thinking patterns. I came across this reading on my afternoon break......Just goes to show that if you ask for help, the answer will be revealed to you. I stopped by a meeting on my way home from work and heard a very similar story as this one. Being back at work right now is a huge lesson in patience. My body will heal when its ready to heal and not a moment sooner. I am learning more and more everyday about all the things I have been taking for granted my whole life. As I am on my way to bed tonight I am grateful to be where I am today. I have been blessed with so many opportunities. I am especially grateful to have choices today that didn't exisit before. I can chose whether I will approach life with patience and absorbe all that each moment has to give or I can approach my day with impatience and miss all the beautiful things life has to give.

Conflict With Kids

Conflicts with the kids? Relax!

“Family life! The United Nations is child's play compared to the tugs and splits and need to understand and forgive in any family.”
-- May Sarton

Faced with a child (or a person of any age, for that matter) who is angry or rebellious? Consider the guidance from Vimala McClure:
“To discover what my child needed, a deep, yielding receptivity was vital. The temptation is to become more and more rigid, but the more you do, the less you understand. When faced with a child who is testing your resolve, relax and yield ….

“As a parent, the frustration of not knowing how to fill a need that cannot be articulated can be overwhelming. Often we direct the rage that stems from that frustration toward the child, which serves to distance us even further, making it impossible for the child to open up to us. To get to this type of receptivity, a practice of conscious relaxation is a must.”

“Those who have children can become masters of patience, endurance, and steadfastness, because children will test you at every turn. …The way to make our children patient and loving is to be that way ourselves.”
-- Eknath Easwaran

I am grateful for the two children that I have been blessed to help raise, even though there are times when they drive me crazy.

Heart Centered Life

how I'd like to live--heart centered

Guidelines for a heart centered life

When you love yourself and treat yourself kindly, caring for others comes naturally.

Listen to the sublest inklings from inside yourself. The heart communicates thru nudges, not shouts.

Celebrate your heart traits. Courage, kindness, patience and love all flow from your center.

Give of yourself from a place of genuine love, rather than obligation. Generousity toward others is intrinsic to the heart.

author--Victoria Moran

Thoughts For Today

My thoughts for the day.......most of them stolen from others.....

"The Lord is a good psychologist: he knows the way our minds run. Turmoil can be the Lord's way of tapping us on the shoulder and saying, 'Don't forget me.'"-- Eknath Easwaran

"It takes a lot of experience of life to see why some relationships last and others do not. But we do not have to wait for a crisis to get an idea of the future of a particular relationship. Our behavior in little every incidents tells us a great deal." Eknath Easwaran

"Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it." Eknath Easwaran

"Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose." Eknath Easwaran

“The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.” -Abraham Lincoln

"Someone was hurt before you.....beaten before you; humiliated before you; raped before you; yet someone survived." by Maya Angelou

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you." by Maya Angelou

"Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style." by Maya Angelou

"Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable." by Maya Angelou

"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded." by Maya Angelou

"Alone, all aloneNobody, but nobodyCan make it out here alone." by Maya Angelou

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." by Maya Angelou

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." by Maya Angelou

"Nothing will work unless you do." by Maya Angelou

"The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach." by Maya Angelou

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." by Maya Angelou