Patience for the Process

I am tired of being in such a rush all of the time. What is all of the rushing for, and why do I pursue something which brings me nothing but anxiety? I'm coming to see that any emotional process takes a long time, and works from a timeline which usually isn't available to me, and I'm not in control of what is happening. I need to feel and react to what comes my way, and not rush it.

Those words are so easy to type, and so challenging to walk out in the Mondays and Tuesdays of my life (and every other day too). I want to move faster than I do most of the time. I want to get better and healthier and I don't want to waste any time spinning my wheels. Sometimes I can glimpse the finish line of life, and look back to the starting gate and it seems further and further away, and I panic at the idea of wasting time.

But our processes have their own purposes, and we can't commandeer them. There is no way out, except through. We have to walk the path that is before us, and learn what there is to learn at each signpost along the way. It all takes time, and maturity, and when we least expect it, we are through the worst of it and have come out the other side. We become a little stronger at each bend in the road, and when we survive one storm we learn things that will help us through the next one, and that is what the process of maturity looks like.

I wish I was better at waiting. Patience is its own process, with its own unique reward, provided we will wait for it. I can see that patience will be a reward, as long as I can slow down enough to appreciate what it can give to me. I don't have to do everything right away. That is part of the immaturity of youth. With age comes the dawning realization that waiting is good for the soul. It teaches us something that rushing in to circumvent the process cannot come close to imitating.

Each emotion we experience has a purpose. It can teach us something, and change us in the deepest places of our hearts, provided we will allow it to do its work. I'm wanting my processes to work for me, instead of fighting them, rushing ahead to the next thing on my list. I know that the way to grow is to plant the seeds, water them, and wait. I don't have to do the job of the sun or the soil or the farmer. I have to wait, and see what the harvest will yield.