Patience is a Powerful Heart Medicine

Patience is a virtue. We’ve all heard this phrase.  Many people say it in response to some difficulty or troubling event.  But patience is more than just a virtue, it is a powerful medicinal for healing the heart.

What do I mean by this?  What I mean is that if we can be patient when our hearts seem to be torn apart then we can indeed find peace.  And peace has been shown to have a healing effect on our hearts.

In countless medical studies stress, anxiety, depression, anger, worry, rage-  many negative emotions have be shown to cause heart disease.  They have in many cases been shown to lead to inflammation within the body.  Inflammation has been shown to cause heart blockages.  Any feeling or action that has the opposite effect surely will create opposite results.

Dr. Dean Ornish in his book, Love and Survival, has chronicled the many research studies that have shown the healing power of love.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who doubts the curative powers of love.

No long ago, someone I cared deeply about treated me in what I felt was a very odd and saddening way.    At first, I was shocked at the lack of respect and politeness that they displayed.  My heart felt bruised and battered.  My mind tried to comprehend what had happened.  But at first, I could not.

Keeping our heart’s open when we feel rejected is difficult.  Some might even question the wisdom of such an approach.  For me as someone who longs to live more and more deeply in the heart,  my aim is to always see all things in the way of love.  By this I mean to look deeply at everything that happens to me as the universe’s attempt to make me more loving.

So I asked myself, “In what way can I approach this rejection from a loving space?”

The answer that came was:  “Patience.”    As much as we want to be treated in a certain way or to have life go as we think it should go, often this just isn’t the case.  Life moves in a way we cannot always fathom.   It is filled with twists and turns, ups and downs.

Patience is like an incredible balm that allows our bruised hearts to mend or even more importantly to endure.

We can’t always understand why or where life is leading us.

Yet, if we can find the strength to be patient, we can indeed mend our troubled hearts.  After struggling with the pain that I felt, I decided just to be patient.  I might never understand why a loved one would treat me in such an incredibly hurtful way- but I truly believe that all things are in the way of the love.  We have to just trust and be patient.

So I suggest you consider keeping a bottle of patience in your medicine cabinet.   Open the bottle and drink from time to time.  When life’s difficulties get you down it might be just what you need to overcome.

Patience is indeed a powerful heart medicine.