A Shaman’s Guide To Patience And The True Self

“Learning the lesson of patience,” I told a friend recently, “is a mutherfucker.” As a shaman, everything I experience in life is to be used to help others. Ever since I was awakened in April of 2013 I’ve been able to see these for what they are. I may not like everything I go through but life has become easier since I started viewing everything as lessons. And as a shaman, I can illustrate those lessons for others. This is how we’ve been doing it for 40,000 years. Shamans have to go through the things and heal themselves of them before they can help someone else. You can trust the shaman because he’s been there, got wounded there and figured out how to heal himself.

The neat trick about patience is it is a discipline of letting go of control while at the same time gaining control over your thoughts and feelings. You really can choose to feel a certain way about anything at anytime so impatience is a sign that you aren’t ready for what’s next so it allows you to prepare. Do you have some self-work to do? Are there some personality defects to remove? Negative emotions are great ways to explore hidden parts of yourself.

The shamanic view of time is that everything has already happened. Time happens all at once. It’s only our human perception of time is that it is linear. The shaman can see through that illusion. You can control past events just as you can control future events as long as you stay in the present moment. In the present moment everything is perfect. And in fact, the past and the future do not even really exist. And while you may have evidence to the contrary all that exists is right now.

Decisions have already been made and life is going to play out exactly as it needs to play out according to your journey. So no matter where you are or what you’re doing, that is the exact place you need to be. Otherwise, you’d be somewhere else.

Be Here Now

Patience is part of accepting where you are and then being present in the moment. If you can change events, change them. But most of us are powerless on the Great Wheel of Life and Time so we may as well just relax and enjoy the ride, right?

If you don’t like where you are try and figure out why you are there in that uncomfortable place and feeling to begin with. There might be a temptation to escape and run or fill your head with nonsense like guilt, blame and shame. Maybe that uncomfortable place has something to teach you. Are you ready for the lesson?

If your life is serving the ego and your false self you will have high levels of stress and you will have many problems and obstacles. The reason for this is that your true self has more free will than your false self. Your false self wants unattainable things because they are false.

Stress is defined as what you feel when you’re doing one thing when you should be doing something else. Wrapped up in ego you can be in a constant state of stress and worry. In accordance with your true self you are exactly where you need to be doing exactly what you need to be doing. This is how stress and negativity fall away when you discover your true self.

If the future does not exist then setting goals is a way to place things in the future. Getting in tune with setting attainable goals from the place of your true self will get you in the habit of working towards a future you desire.

And as the past does not exist, you can take what happened as a lesson. While your ego will want to see it as a hurt or a painful experience, getting the lesson and letting go of what happened is a great way to erase the things in the past you feel might have hampered you. If you spend your life avoiding (and not owning up to) the mistakes you’ve made you can find yourself being stuck in the past while being impatient or fearful of the future.

No Matter Where You Are, There You Are

If you often feel impatient that’s a big clue that you are “on the run” from something. Be it a past trauma or unresolved things from your childhood. For some, standing in line at the grocery store triggers all sorts of emotions and stress. People, generally, don’t like to wait. But the shaman would encourage you to unpack those emotions right there in line and figure out why you’re so impatient. You’re waiting in line because the universe has to tell you something so look around and look inside. You’ve been given a brief respite from the day. Take the time to quickly meditate and clear your thoughts. If you can learn to enjoy standing in line, you can better enjoy your life when you are NOT standing in line.

If you want something really bad or if you want events to go down a certain way try hard to recognize what your input (if any) could effect your desired outcome. Most times events will play out exactly as they need to play out. You are denied things because you were not ready to accept them or they wouldn’t have served your path. Getting closer to your true self and your true path will help you understand this notion. Things appear in your life at the exact moment they need to and not a second sooner.

So driving yourself insane while waiting for something to happen is rather foolish. Like how people worry and obsess over elections. The only time you would want to worry about an election is on election day. The same goes for everything. Got an important meeting on Monday? All the worrying in the world will not make any difference come Monday. It might even make matters worse. You might even be impatient for the day to come, but trust me the day will come eventually whether you’ve worried, wished and stressed over it not coming sooner.

Whatever Will Happen Will Happen And Has Already Happened

You might be irritated that things don’t go your way and that irritation you feel is a clue that you’re trying to manipulate a situation or a person. Letting things, events and situations be as they are is an extreme test of patience. When working from the false self, manipulations rarely work and if they do work the outcome is usually unfavorable. The true self understands that grabbing, grasping, stomping and screaming to get your way leads to temporary fulfillment. The false self does not understand that you’ve already gotten your way. Everything will work out exactly as it needs to on your path.

Use moments of irritation as messengers and as exercises to disconnect from feeling the emotion. Note that you are irritated and figure out why you are irritated and follow the thread down into the buried thing your ego is trying to hide. Your ego is what gets irritated. You true self gets the lesson.

And once you master the lesson of patience you’ll find that impatience rarely bothers you. There will be an understanding that it’s just not time for what you want or need right now. So there’s no need to worry. You have everything you need in the present moment and that’s a place where impatience can never dwell.

Much love from your friendly neighborhood shaman,

Patrick John Coleman