This fortnight we sat with a word most of us wear like a badge.
“Patience”
And we asked a simple question:
is this patience, or is this something else dressed up as patience?
Here’s what opened up.
Patience is a noble skill.
It’s being okay with the moment.
It’s being okay with the unknown.
It gives someone room to grow.
Tolerance is putting up with.
Often with no hope that anything will change.
Patience is soft in the body.
Tolerance clenches.
And what clenches has to go somewhere.
Squeeze a balloon and the air doesn’t disappear. It moves.
Into the shoulders. The jaw. The chest.
Into anxiety.
Into the anger that arrives out of proportion, at the wrong person, on the wrong day.
The line is not time. It’s respect.
Patience lives inside an empowerment boundary.
You can wait. You can endure a season. You can let someone learn.
But the moment you’re belittled, ignored, or spoken to without care,
and you call it patience,
you’ve stepped into the disempowerment zone.
That’s where we play small.
That’s where we lose ourselves slowly, and call it grace.
Three things to take with you
- Patience that holds your life on hold is not patience. It’s a pause with no end date.
- If your presence or contribution isn’t valued, ask honestly: is the value being communicated, or is it being added? Both are within your reach.
- Actions speak louder than words. That’s true for the people you wait on, and for you.
And when something arises in the room,
a flicker of tension, a thing you want to say,
don’t save it for later.
Start the conversation then and there.
Gently. Curiously. “I think I’m hearing this. Am I right?”
That’s the practice.
That’s the whole technique
Before we meet again
Notice where you’re suppressing.
Notice where you’re playing small.
Notice where you’re using patience or tolerance to your own disadvantage.
And underneath all of it, ask one question:
Why?
Why am I controlling this?
Why am I holding on?
Why am I not acting?
Think about it…
Heal Transform & Transcend
Manna 