Great Expectations & Infinite Patience

When I am not at peace, I must’ve chosen wrongly. I made the choice but I can choose again. I want to choose again because I want peace. I go of guilt and expectations of my choice by allowing Spirit to help me to choose again. And He responds to the slightest invitation.

Insight from A Course in Miracles

This week I found myself confused… about a lot of things. I’ve come to learn about myself that when I’m confused for too long, I start to get bothered. 

I was aware of being bothered by how others were acting and surprised by how fast I was jumping into judgement. 

I knew there had to be a trigger before judgement that I was overlooking. And since this week made it really easy to be in this place, I kept going round and round with the feelings of both annoyance and confusion. 

After a couple of days, I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating tooth/jaw pain. I knew exactly what was happening — I was clenching my teeth so hard that I was close to breaking one. I know this feeling because I’ve done this before. 

I know this only happens when my subconscious is stress is taking over. The last time this happened was 4 years ago. 

I got pain reliever, my bite guard out of the cabinet, and I held pressure to my face as I prayed. 

But my prayer wasn’t a prayer. It was an ass kicking. I heard my inner roommate taking full advantage of this moment to let me know how I had failed. 

“You’re better than this. You better figure out what’s wrong before you break your tooth and have to get an emergency root canal. You can’t go to the dentist right now! You better get your shit together. I can’t believe you’re doing this to yourself.” 

I could feel the pain getting more intense with every harsh word I thought. Then a softer voice reminded me that this was happening because of judgements… and the self-judgements wouldn’t help. 

I felt the truth of that and started to be sweet to myself. Internally talking to myself similar to how my best friend would talk to me, gently. Then I was able to remember to ask Spirit for help. 

I felt the edge of the pain cut, and then it dissolved. I quickly told Josh what happened and went to sleep before it would come back.  

The next morning I came out of meditation with the realization of my expectations. 

Freaking expectations had creeped in and cracked the door open for judgements. 

Let’s imagine the ocean… now see us, humanity, stranded at sea in a storm. We are all together on the ocean, but in our own boats.  What you do in your boat is your business and what I do in my is my business. The storm is God’s business.

Now I can see what everyone is doing and I don’t always like it, because it makes me worry about my safety. 

You have this person over here chumming up the waters and tempting the sharks. Then this person over here keeps getting out of the boat to play in the dark ocean. This person over here is yelling nasty things to other boats. This other boat is somehow open for business. You get the idea. 

And I’m looking at all the boats thinking: WTF?! Taking shots at the bar of fear with every judgement I make. 

I’m upset in my boat because I expect there to be a baseline of collective desire for safety. This seems normal to me and not too much to expect of others. 

BOOM. And there it is! My unmet expectations leading me into impatience and then allowing judgements to flow freely under the radar, totally justified. 

Expectations for others and mainly myself. I wanted all of us to do better and I was being judgy as hell about it. To the point that I might even break a tooth over it. 

It took me days to dig into and figure out more of what I was feeling so I could name it, which was helpful, but I still didn’t feel better yet… like Florence and the Machine sings: so close to grace yet so far away. 

Then at 3:11am I woke up with the words “infinite patience” on my heart. And I knew that was my answer. 

The next morning I went to chapter 5 in A Course in Miracles and read more about infinite patience bringing immediate effects. 

As I studied, I followed the clues ultimately leading me to this: your patience with your brother is your patience with yourself. And a lack of patience for others is a lack of patience for myself. It calls upon infinite love. 

Infinite meaning: limitless, no end, it doesn’t run out. I hadn’t been thinking of infinite patience, so it felt very limited without me noticing. 

Once I was tapping into God’s infinite patience and peace again, I started to feel lighter. 

Then the biggest revelation came… 

Any kind of discomfort — a little annoyance to full out rage — it’s all a signal, an alarm, a warning sign. And these signals come to us in the form of disturbances with other people so we can see what needs our attention. 

And they keep coming until we get it. Yes, this is a total bitch but once you get past that you see the blessing.

The blessing is that if we never felt these things, all of the junk that blocks us from connecting to God and the Holy Spirit, would be hidden to us. 

And we need to see all that junk because it blocks us from being able to see that we can chose again when we don’t feel peaceful or loving or patient. 

It blocks our ability to give grace, compassion, kindness, and love. We can’t feel peace, wisdom, or our higher consciousness. Which are the things we want to give and receive and tap into. 

It all makes sense to me now, but it took me days to stick with the uncomfortable feelings to get here. 

And I didn’t just sit and stew on it to get clarity. I had to move. Emotions need motion so they can move out. 

I cleaned more this week and it helped to move the extra adrenaline and cortisol out of my body. And I rested more. And I also enforced healthy boundaries.  

Remember, when you calm down your nervous system, you get your higher wisdom, aka your pre-frontal cortex, back online, your command center. 

This is how we are able to remember Spirit is with us. Working in us, as us, and through us. Giving us the lessons and people we need for our healing. For our infinite patience and expanding hearts. 

I followed my practice for peace by knowing what helps me get back in alignment.

Identify the disturbance. Speak life and the truth. Get moving. Be open to letting it go. Welcome the strength of God to take over. Feel the peace. 

So family, I encourage you to not lower your expectations… not at all. I encourage you to add them to the list of what to burn. 

Let’s take a moment for an exercise. Close your eyes and think of the biggest challenge that rocked your peace this week. Envision that person or thing to be a ball. The red rubber ball we used to play kick ball with, but handheld size. The objective: not to throw the ball. 

Reflect on how you feel when the challenge rises up from something or someone. The lack of patience. The disturbances. The pain. It’s now you against them. The anger hits. In a split second you forget what you’re doing and you throw the ball at them.

But you also forgot that you didn’t want to throw the ball because you’re standing in front of a wall which causes it to bounce back right into your face! You’ll want to beat yourself up for doing this because you’ve done this a million times already. 

Every time we forget the lesson is there to give us a blessing, we hurt ourselves more than the other person. Let’s now think about being gentle with ourselves. Deep breaths. Grace on top of grace. 

Each time we throw it, we learn and grow. Each time we don’t, we learn and grow. As we pick up the ball we see this as trying again. Choosing again. Eventually realizing we can leave the ball once and for all.

Until next Sunday, family. Love you always.