Waiting is hard. It might be the hardest.

I've worn the word "patience" on an engraved silver charm hanging from a chain around my neck, daily, for over four years. I keep waiting for when I will reach some pinnacle of the word, and be able to release it from my neck.
But, nothing has come to be a stronger need in me to grow...to tend, cultivate, and simply observe.

The encouragement in this, is that when I first purchased this adornment as a focus piece to have resting at the center of my chest, I was a different person in a different place. There has been significant progress, despite my need to become even more patient.

Or, maybe my need to be more patient is a sign of progress. Like a meditation, and the journey of going deeper.

What matters is that the constant reminder of patience has been a force for change in me.
This change has gone deeper than I could have imagined, and maybe deeper than I would have wished for, at the time, had I known what it would mean for me.

When patience goes deep, you become present.

Presence sounds wonderful in the books, but if it was as instantly wonderful an experience as it's sometimes made out to be, more people would be clamoring for it. The world would be satisfied with seeing clearly, instead of rushing along.

We want to be present, but honestly, do we?
This is a big "We." It's bigger than you and me. It's the collective "we".
Everything mainstream, popular society tells us is that we don't want what we intrinsically have.
Our actions say we agree.

Sometimes the only light we let in comes from our cell phones.

It's bigger than my own experience of presence, but no different from it.
Capital "P" Presence is hard.
At least, it's hard before it's awesome.
Or maybe, it's standing outside of Presence, so disconnected from all of life, lost on how to get in, that is so hard.

Many basic skills are like this at the beginning.
I feel like I'm at the end of this beginning, coming into the middle.
So really, a new beginning, touching the door to a new experience of life.

There's no visible line to mark where I am, and there's no map to purchase at the state line for this. I sense it from within me. This sense is my map.

I've been at the entryway of Presence. It's not comfortable, but I sense approaching calmness.
Odd.

It feels like dissociation, only in reverse!

Maybe that's not really so odd, but it is new in my life.
It was all mixed-up, and presence once felt like danger to me.
As everything in the society around me expresses, I haven't been alone in this.

We are born into presence as babies, but some of us get hurt there.
Not just the pains of development, but some outside force tearing into our soul bodies, sometimes our physical bodies, in this place of receptiveness.
It's no wonder when we don't want to return.
It's easy to see presence as the source of the problem, and the pain.

We have built our world upon getting as far away from connection as possible.
This world is walking-wounded.
In such a preoccupation to escape, a large part of our common community has formed individual micro-disconnected cosmos around the human spirit so that each person can live in a culturally condoned illusion of togetherness.

What about social anxiety?
I've struggled with it.
I wonder why it's so prevalent?
I can write this all here, but can I look at your face, and say it?
How many of us could?

Well, I want to.
Which brings us back to patience.

Sometimes the need to wait is beyond our control.
We simply have to sit and wait, as quietly as possible.
Red lights, doctor's appointments, grocery store lines, test results.

But patience also moves and talks. Patience isn't always passive.
It interacts. It encourages connection from within, and can bring us closer to the safety of our breath, apart from the illusion of satisfied living amongst all the advertisements for false contentment.

Being isolated in physical form, or behind a culturally condoned mask, is not the cure because disconnection isolates us from our selves.

Patience can help us say "hello" while holding the door for a stranger, or to look the cashier in the eyes and say "thank you" on a busy day. Patience gives us time to think about ourselves, and others, and let them know it. On a big patience day, maybe we go outside and look around, look up, and touch the earth we're standing upon. Patience helps us not hate ourselves. Patience can help improve relationships, and overall confidence.

Patience is about genuinely being in the moment.
I've been practicing patience for years, and recently, I've really gotten into it.
It's not fun at all, at first, but I can say I am enjoying life more. Coming back to the power of my breath is now grounding, instead of a trigger to exhaust myself through the avoidance of it.
To have patience is to live in your own world, governed by your own laws, in the best way.
Patience bucks the system. Try driving the actual posted speed limit, and just see how anti-establishment you suddenly feel, and begin to identify as. Be prepared, your life will change.

I want to stop making life so hard for myself, and therefore, stop waiting to be patient.

The other word on the chain around my neck is "grace." Adventures into healing through a focus on patience is a journey, which pairs well with grace. We need patience with ourselves to not always get it right the first time, and maybe not even the 50th or 5,000th time. The funny part about this is that to attempt at all is to be engaging, masterfully.

Patience isn't about right and wrong. It's more about being where you want to be.
Connected here, now, just as you are.

Will you check out this path with me?