On Patience...

I see patience as one of these fundamental ethical attitudes. 

If you cultivate patience, you almost can't help cultivating mindfulness, and your meditation practice will gradually become richer and more mature. After all, if you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment, patience takes care of itself. 

The Bloom of the Present Moment, Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Before writing this post tonight and before I started reading my book for inspiration for this post, I was thinking, "tell me something, help me figure this out." I was referring to the amount of anger and stress that spawned out of a car ride with my two boys and their friend.
Forget all of the yogi reading and practice, that flew out the window once the boys thought it would be a good idea to give each other "nuggies" and pretty much start an out-of-control brawl in the small backseat of our Prius.
Breathing, joined my patience that also flew away with the wind.
I tried my best to remain calm, and completely failed.
We got home and Elliott was whining about being hungry, and Aidan was mad that he just lost every dessert he had coming to him. It is now 9pm and we are all tired. The dog was ignored for too long, so managed to pull Aidan's School book out of his backpack and rip it to shreds (this "gift" that lay on the kitchen floor as we returned home).
So, what's the point?
I did manage to pick up the pieces (of the book and of our lives)... I talked to Aidan about what happened. I gave him a page of "What We Say Matters" that lists different kinds of feelings.
I had him circle that bad ones and star the good ones that he wants.
We cried and hugged, talked and said that we were sorry.
All in a days work. Not feeling too proud, but we'll give it another shot tomorrow.
t.