Practicing Patience with Others
Theme for The Week
Reflection By Scott Stoner
Why is patience so important? Because it makes us pay attention.
- Paulo Coelho
This week we invite you to shift your focus to practicing patience with others. We encourage you not only to practice patience with others “in general,” but to choose a specific person with whom you would like to be more patient, and focus on practicing patience with them. This very likely will be someone with whom you live, work, or interact with regularly. In yesterday’s reflection, Amy Sander Montanez wrote, “I seek to find a way to move forward in relationship with authenticity, truthfulness, integrity, and surrender.” Let us draw inspiration from her journey this coming week.
One of the foundational teachings of our Living Compass resources is, “Whatever we pay attention to is what will grow.” If we pay more attention to what annoys or concerns us about someone and how they are not living up to our expectations, our impatience with that person will grow. If instead we pay more attention to what is good and what we appreciate about the other person, our patience and gratitude toward that person will grow. This week we invite you to practice paying attention to what delights you about the person you have chosen to focus on, and to see if your patience with them grows.
Because emotions tend to run high during the holiday season, we will have opportunities to practice patience with friends and family members whom we don’t see that often, which can be a gift if we choose to see it that way.
Making It Personal: Do you see a connection between practicing patience and noticing what you are paying attention to about others? As you begin to pay attention to how you practice patience with others, what do you notice and learn about yourself?
TO JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK DISCUSSION GROUP FOR ADVENT, CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW:
Follow along with us this Advent season with our daily devotional and engage in discussion in our closed facebook group moderated by Robbin Brent, Carolyn Karl, Jan Kwiatowski, and Scott Stoner.
In this group, participants will have a chance to share their responses to the prompts in the daily readings, and also the chance to receive additional material for reflection.