A Spell for Gathering Patience

I have a personal definition of patience.

The ability to be with What Is, as It Is.

This spell will help you be free to be.

Here, and Now.

Not projecting into the future you want,

or stuck in the past you can’t change.

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Make Magic:

There will always be things we want for the future.

When you’re feeling impatient,

return to the present moment.

And find the glimmers of what you want

that exist in the things you already have.

Transcript: A Spell for Gathering Patience

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hello, my friend. I’m so happy that you are here with me today. I’m excited about this spell. I feel really good about it, especially because it is a cocreation. This spell was inspired by a couple of emails that I received, emails from listeners who were like, “Hey, you know what I could use a spell for?” [laugh] And these two situations look really different on the outside, but I think I came up with a spell that will serve them both. 

One of the emails, one of the listeners wrote to say that she is a young mother with young children. So, she’s home with a toddler and a baby, and she is, in many ways, loving it, right. It’s—what a blessing, and how lovely to be with small, adorable people. And on the other hand, she is wondering, how do I make it through this time? [laugh] How do I make it through this time when the baby has trouble sleeping, when there’s so much really drudgery work to take care of, when I’m sort of, you know, I’m excited for the kids to get older, and for me to have a little bit more freedom? 

And the other email was from someone who is building her new business, her new service-based business. And she wrote to say, OK. I know it’s happening. I know it is happening. I know I’m building this thing. I’m slowly starting to get some traction. I’m slowly figuring it out. But how can I be here now? How can I enjoy what is when, really, what I want is way more clients and way more followers and, frankly, way more money? Yeah? 

So, I came up with a spell for both of these situations, and for all of us to use as we are slowly, slowly emerging from pandemic lockdown because, my goodness, we have had two steps forward, four steps back, three steps forward, two and a half steps back, as we have—as a world and as communities—as we have tried to move out of this lockdown. And, yes, it looks better all the time and, yet [laugh], if 2020 and 2021 has taught us anything, it’s that we really can’t take a quick recovery for granted.

So, today’s spell is a spell for gathering patience—a spell for gathering patience. So, rather uncharacteristically, I did not head to the dictionary before this episode. I decided that I wanted to define patience myself from my own experience. The way that I define patience is the ability to be with what is as it is—the ability to be with what is as it is—the ability to be here now. When I’m patient, I can be here now; not project into the future that I want, and not sort of get mired in or stuck in what’s happened just before. When I’m patient, I’m free to be here now with what is as it is.

OK. So, here I am. I’m a mama caring for little ones, needing to gather patience, the ability to be with them as they are, as needy and adorable and sleepless and precious as they are. So, the first thing that I want to remind us all when it comes to gathering patience is that our power is always right here in the present moment, and the present moment is always rolling forward. Right? 

So, when do we have power? We have power now next now—now next now. We have power right here. We don’t have power five years ago, and we don’t have power five years from now, though we did and we will. But, really, our agency, our ability to see the world and to act in the world is concentrated in right now. So, I always have the power to be here in a different way, and a lot of that is mind witchery. It is the point of mind witchery. Can I work with my mind to be here and to exercise its fullest magical conjuring power right here and right now?

So, the first step in this spell for gathering patience is to ask my mind to find the glimmers of what I am waiting for, the glimmers of what I want, the glimmers of the future that I’m desiring, to find the glimmers of that right here. They exist right now. There are already seeds and signs of what you want right in this present moment. You just have to look for them.

So, our young mother might take a moment to clarify what am I waiting for? What am I excited to have someday, when the baby sleeps, when the kids are in school, and I have more time in my day? And then, tuning into that, maybe it’s like I imagine I’ll have peace. I imagine I’ll have an opportunity to rest. OK. Where is that right now? Where do you have glimmers, little, little shimmering seeds of peace, of an ability to rest right now? 

I imagine I’ll have more freedom. I imagine I’ll have more alone time. OK. Where do you have freedom right now? Where do you have alone time right now? And by attending to those things, first of all, we get to celebrate, oh, it’s already here, or at least some seed, some version of it is already here. And then by attending to those little glimmers and seeds, we can expand them. So, maybe, oh, you know what, I do have a little bit of alone time when both children nap around 1:00 to 1:30 p.m. 

And, so, then I might treat that time differently. I might treat that time not as, you know, the moment to finish the dishes or switch the laundry but rather as the moment to be alone, the moment to be on my own. And I might also begin to look for opportunities for more of that. Where can I get more of this alone time? Maybe I could ask for help. Maybe I could expand my mother-in-law’s visit to be a little bit longer so that there was time not only for errands but also for me to be by myself, not caring for anyone but me.

You see? So, when we attend to the little glimmers of what we want, what we’re desiring, how they’re already present here, we can appreciate them, meaning we can give them more value and more weight, and we can also expand them. I totally have done this as I have rebuilt my coaching practice this year. At the very beginning of the year, I sort of restarted my coaching business from scratch. And as it was building, of course, I was very impatient to have a full roster—of course I was, right?—and very impatient to be able to support myself with my coaching. 

And I am convinced the way that I was able to do that very quickly was to appreciate what I had. The few clients that I had that were so perfect for me to work with, the few connections I was making that felt so promising and potent, I appreciated those. I expressed gratitude for them, inside and out. I reveled in the chance to support these people. I paid the closest attention to what was going on with them so that I could evolve my approach and be even more creative in the ways that I could help people, right?

So, I had little glimmers—a client here and there, a connection here and there—of what it was that I was waiting for, that I was impatient for. And I tried as best I could, instead of lamenting that what I wanted wasn’t here, I looked at how, no, actually, what I want is here. Let me nurture it, let me expand it, and let me attune my energy to the energy of having it. Because when I am attuned to the energy of not having it, I feel anxious. I feel bereft. I feel impatient, and I’m not present. I am regretful about what happened or didn’t happen, and I’m worried about what might or might not happen.

When I’m attuned to the energy of having it, and I’m anchored into those glimmers, oh, I have it here, I have it here, I have it here, right? And, sometimes, the glimmers are very faint, my friend. I don’t want to pretend that, you know, you’ve got a field full of seedlings. No, sometimes [laugh] it’s like it’s the promise of a seedling that you’re tuning into. 

But when you attune to that energy of having it, and you get really present with it, I do really believe that your energy, your vibe shifts in a way that enables you to be more magnetic. And that empowers you to elaborate and expand upon, to build on what is already here. And that present, appreciative, cocreative stance is so much more empowered than the regretful, worried in the past, in the future stance.

OK. So, the first part of the spell to gather patience is to look for the glimmers of what you’re waiting for, what you want. Look for those glimmers right here and right now. One way of saying that is how do you imagine you will feel when you have the free time, the clients, the new partner? How do you imagine you will feel? And where do you already have glimpses, glimmers of that feeling right now? Expand that, work on that, and cocreation happens so much more smoothly. 

The second part of this spell actually comes from an Instagram meme that someone shared, and I looked everywhere for attribution of this quotation, my friends. Couldn’t find it. If you know it, tell me. Tell me who said this. I don’t know who said this. I’m sure you’ve heard something like it, and it’s this. Maybe what you’re going through right now is preparing you for what you asked for. Maybe what you’re going through right now is preparing you for what you asked for. 

So, let’s just say that you’re like, Natalie, I looked for glimmers. I found none. [laugh] This is not where I want to be right now. Maybe you’re building your business, and you don’t have any clients, for example. Or maybe you are wanting to start dating, you’re looking for a partner, and you’ve got no prospects at all. OK. Maybe what you are going through right now is preparing you for what you asked for. This knocked me out when I read it. And, you know, it was maybe one of—you know how sometimes something hits just right, like the novel that you read at just the right moment, the song that you hear at just the right moment, and it really touches you? 

And, for me, this passed through my Instagram feed at a moment where I, really, I was having a hard time finding the glimmers. I was in a situation where I really wanted it to be done, and I was having a hard time being patient. And as I read that—maybe what you’re going through right now is preparing you for what you asked for, right, preparing you for what you’re waiting for, for what you want—I was like, oh, thank you. Thank you for reorienting me into this present moment, and asking me, again, to appreciate what’s happening now. 

So, maybe what I need in order to have more clients, in order to have this new romantic partner that I want, maybe what I need first is deep self-trust, is intense self-honoring. Maybe I need to spend a little bit of time shoring my own self up. Oh, that’s what I’m doing right now. So, you can tap in by asking yourself the question, huh, what are the prerequisites for what I want? What do I know I need to cultivate? What do I know I need to strengthen in order to really have what it is that I want? Right?

So, in the case of wanting more clients, well, maybe right now you want to be so sure that what you are offering them is excellent. And, so, maybe it’s time to really think about that, and shore that up, and talk about it, and ask people questions about it. Yeah? And just think about what would happen if you’re in the place where, OK, I don’t have any clients. I really want lots of clients. 

But instead of fretting and worrying and regretting and self-shaming and blaming, I’m going to go all in on what it is that I want to offer them. I’m going to interview people, and I’m going to ask them, hey, how could I help you? What do you need? I’m going to really think about my approach, and I’m going to practice it. I’m going to perfect it. I’m going to create something that I think will really serve people.

Imagine, when I’m directing all of my energy, my present existing, present focused energy into that, the clients come, my friend—of course they do. [laugh] Of course they do, because you’re making something for them. When you’re just waiting—when you’re just waiting—your power is leaking out. Here you are, body, heart, and soul, you are in this now next now, and all of your thought energy is going into what could be, what couldn’t be, what might be, what might not be, right? 

And, so, when you gather your thought energy, and focus it in the now, OK, what can I cultivate that will prepare me—that will prepare me—for the clients, that will prepare me for the relationship, that will prepare me for mothering two kids that are running all around, that have all their activities, that have their schoolwork, right? What is it that I can do right now that enables what I want, and empowers what I want?

Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm. I love this spell. I love this spell. And I am going to use this spell very actively in this moment because, listen, so many of us—if you’re listening, I include you in this “us” [laugh]—my kind of people, we want, oh, we want the world to be better. We want our work to be more impactful. We want our babies’ childhoods to be magical. We want everything to be so good, right? We desire—and desire is forward-looking, so it can be easy to get impatient, to get antsy about not having what it is that we envision.

Like, I so get that. I have that too. I have that too. And/but when we gather our mind power, our attention, our appreciation, our creativity, and we channel it into this moment, number one, we discover how we already have what we want. It’s here. There are glimmers. Sometimes they’re bright, and sometimes they’re very dim and flickery, but they’re here. What you want, how you imagine you’re going to feel, you already have access to that. It’s right here. You just have to look for it.

And what you want, who you are becoming, you are becoming them. You are becoming that person. You are building strength, and forging openness that that person needs. You’re doing that right now. It’s all right here right now. And this now next now, always moving forward, this is the place to keep reorienting yourself. And, listen, that is a forever practice because there will be things you want in the future. There will be things you’re working to bring to fruition that you’re really excited for. So, coming back to the present moment, that is going to happen again and again and again and again. Might as well get good at it. 

OK. So, my friend, before I let you go, speaking of things to get excited about, speaking of future happenings to pull your excitement forward in time, I am leading a retreat in Taos, New Mexico in the summer of 2022. It is called Luminous in Taos, summon your star power in the land of enchantment. And if that sounds lofty and extra, just get ready because this whole experience [laugh] is lofty and extra. It is designed to help you see yourself for who you are, this miracle, this shining star of a person that you are.

And if you would like to keep posted about the retreat, about opportunities to sign up, please join the Luminous in Taos interest list. There is a page on my website, nataliekmiller.com/retreat. Join the interest list because though the retreat is not happening until July 2022, middle of July 2022, now is the time to start getting excited about it. Registration is opening very soon, and if you want to be first to know and first to get some sneak peeks, then you want to be on that list today. And you’ll see what I mean in just a few days from now.

All right, my friend, as always, thank you so much for listening. Take care. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is cocreated by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

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