The Power of Patience

Success comes to those willing to commit with unwavering persistence. Committing to change first requires an open and willing attitude. You’ll find yourself tested with challenges that require you to develop tremendous inner courage. Ultimately you hope to see outer success as a result of the inner work you have done, but it usually takes some time. This will require you to develop the patience of a champion.

Unfortunately, while people may decide they want change, they rarely want to do the work for the time required to see tangible results. Understandably, they often get impatient to see change on any level, whether in regard to physical healing, mental healing, or life healing. While it has taken an entire lifetime to create what we see in the form of our financial condition, relationships, health, and general happiness overall, we may irrationally want instantaneous results. We tend to lose focus and move onto something else that offers a quicker return. There really is no easier or quicker way than inner healing work. That is ultimately the only way.

If you are going through a divorce that is causing financial and emotional difficulties, you need to look at it from the perspective that a bad situation is moving out. It is a situation undergoing the process of change. You may have traded what appears like one bad situation for another, but in reality, you are working towards an improvement. You have to view any negative circumstances in that way, when you are actively working on improvement.

Many people often neglect to realistically assess their starting place when working towards goals of self-improvement. If you have heard about the "illusion" of time, forget it now. If you have heard that it only takes the universe "one second," forget that one, too. It’s a whole lot more fun to contemplate change when we think it might take a second, but it’s unrealistic, given our starting point, to transform negative conditions in a second, in a week, month, or possibly even a year or more! Understand the necessity of cultivating the art of patience.

Do not allow your current situation to weigh upon you. It will pass. You may look at this and say, "How can I feel positive with this going on around me?" or "How can I feel healthy when I am sick?" Optimism becomes part of the healing process. Not only must you believe that the situation will pass, you must believe that it will ultimately produce the best possible results. The current situation is a part of yesterday. At some point, it will merely be history. Then, you can forget it entirely. For today, plod through with courage, and do not focus on negativity, as bleak as circumstances may seem. Focusing on the negative will encourage negative conditions to remain. Use the momentum of change to swing to the positive as you focus on positive change at all times.

People seem more willing to put time and energy into areas that do not hold as great a promise to transform their lives. Perhaps the pain of looking within serves as the impetus for seeking outer distractions and material possessions. But at the end of the day, no amount of money or stuff can substitute for inner peace and happiness. While you may at times feel overwhelmed by the inner work required to change your thoughts or habits, know that the longer you put off the necessary inner work, the more ingrained and habitual the patterns become. The best you can hope to achieve, lacking real change, is tolerant complacency to your own dissatisfaction. Eventually you will find that change is an inside job.

You will not find any better system to change your life. There is nothing more worthwhile than committing to your own growth. You can effect powerful change in your life right now with your growing awareness. It’s reasonable to want change to motivate you to keep moving forward, and this will happen. With the internal changes, your perspective will change. You will change. And then life will transform.