The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit - Fabienne Fredrickson
a reflection on patience
The other day I was having a conversation with my mom and I was voicing some things that have been asking a lot of patience from me lately and let’s just say, patience, is not the exact quality I have an abundance of. She shared with me a comment a friend of hers made recently: “Some people plant potatoes and harvest tomatoes or grapes or something else entirely. You planted strawberries and you are harvesting strawberries.”
My mom's life hasn’t been particularly easy. Her mother died when she was 15 years old after a long journey with brain cancer, she worked multiple jobs all throughout her life and my dad, her love partner, died recently when they were just about to embark on their final chapter of savoring life together. She had to adjust, pivot, and reinvent herself many times. When I heard these words from her friend, I gave it a minute and thought: it’s true, even though, life has shown her challenges, imprevisibility and heartbreaks, she is harvesting what she planted decades ago not in a I’m-getting-exactly-what-I want out of life way, but in a very subtle internally gracious way. This harvest shows up in her attitude, in the way she dances with life’s constant changes and during difficult times. She is harvesting in her relationship with me and my brother - way back she planted a type of intimacy and love that always felt like a safe harbor for both of us to return to. She planted independence and developed a pleasure to enjoy her own company and now she is harvesting this without making anyone feel as if they are responsible for her. She planted boundaries and clarity in her communication and she is harvesting the consequences of speaking kindly and clearly. She planted a love for her body and for who she is (even though being above the average weight women “should” display) and she is definitely harvesting a freedom to embody herself in her later years without pressure.
As I move closer to my 40s, I’m finding myself leaning towards what older people have to say about life, perspective, time and I guess… patience, not in an endurance or resilience type of way which both often involve some repression. But a kind of patience that relates to a friendly attention, a companion, a spacious container to rest. Patience with the version I was when I made certain choices, patience with the person I am in this very moment and a lot of patience with the person I’m becoming, as well as the people around me.
The quote from Joan Didion “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be…” is coming to my mind a lot lately. It has a relaxed permission to be in a constant state of transformation. It has a patient assurance to it.
In Buddhist Psychology, patience is a mental state that cultivates an awakened presence. It’s also considered as an antidote for anger and aversion, which can show up in many forms - resentment, bitterness, criticism, complaints and so forth— in any of these stages nothing seems to help, they feel very stuck. To turn to patience, when all else fails, can be an opening to compassion and honesty while contributing to not escalating things. Letting things be as they are.
Our relationship with patience is interesting. Starting with its definition, the word “patient” comes from the Latin word “patior”, which means “to suffer”. “Patior” also means “to experience, to wait”. No wonder it’s one of those qualities we subconsciously have some difficulty with, it comes embedded in a discourse that connects patience with suffering and waiting. Two things we avoid at all costs.
But then I think about older people and their wise perspectives. The way life stretches on their backs and their contentment with what’s in front of them. The many many different seasons they have experienced, the phases of planting, the phases of harvesting and all the in between. The versions of themselves they had to relinquish, the new versions forming as they put one foot in front of the other and the no rushing, patient energy they seem to embody as they approach their last years.
Stephen Grosz says “Psychoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we're going to, but an idea in our mind now. It is something we're creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.”
After my mom shared this comment with me, I asked her, “How did you do it?” This is what she said to me: “I didn’t always know I was planting the right thing but I learned very early on that this is it. This thing we call life is very precious and there’s no rehearsing it. I understood that I needed to dance according to the song and I needed to be very honest with myself. But above all, I decided I wanted to have a good time.”
I’m starting to relate to patience not as a lacking quality I don’t have access to or how annoying it is because it’s asking too much of me, but I’m trying to reframe it as a quality to bring along for the ride, a companion when I don’t know what else to do. A steady hand to hold when I forget life isn’t a sprint or a race.
with love,
Mariana
1- All playlists & meditation recordings
2- Who are you without the doing?
3- The quiet profundity of everyday awe
4- Erza Klein conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom on the Moral Panics of Our Moment
5- Intimacy with life. Tara Brach’s talk on something I talk about here over and over again. Part one & Part two
6- How to get to know all (the parts) of you
8- Laziness and discipline. A great reflection from writer Hanif Abdurraqib
9- Reading books is not just a pleasure: It helps our mind heal
10- What's a nice compliment you’ve received? I’m making an effort to be more specific on complimenting others and it has been so heartwarming
This month I won’t be able to host our free monthly gathering as I’ll be teaching out of the country but I hope to see you in September.
Offerings
Mentorship for New Teachers : One-on-One Mentoring Sessions to Beginner or New Teachers or people who wants additional training
Corporate Programs : Contemplative Program for Companies
Private Sessions: One-on-One Contemplative Psychotherapy Program
A little about the private sessions
My work is dynamic, present and unique to individual needs. Together, we will create the conditions for a safe and connected space that makes expansive self-exploration possible. Together we’ll find stillness and awareness to help meet yourself where you are and with inquiry and acceptance begin a process of self-compassion and integration, through a combination of the following:
Meditation instructions and coaching for both beginner and more experienced meditators
Body awareness practices and visualizations for a more embodied and somatic experience
Support in becoming more aware of and breaking free from negative patterns
Guidance to integrate techniques of both formal and informal practices into daily life
Practical tools to process difficult emotions, self-criticism, negativity and grief
Moments of dialogues, inquiries and processing
Advice to Myself
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic—decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
—Louise Erdrich