It's the home stretch to the end of the year. What happened??? I want things to slow down!

And yet...I'm impatient.

When I become impatient, it’s because my expectations of timing have not been met. When those expectations are fabricated by me – for example if I’m working to achieve a hand-stand or an arm balance by a certain day – I’m setting myself up for disappointment. Goals are useful, but unless I’m competing professionally in arm-balancing, it’s foolish for them to be fixed to a point in time. The only expectation I need to have of myself is to practice. To be clear: patience is by no means complacency; in fact, it takes more effort to remain patient outside of time constraints because there’s no opportunity to give up.

Waiting for someone to take a photo requires patience. Why not use yoga? If you're wondering what's going on here with the getup, look up "mummering"; it's what my husband used to do in Newfoundland. Fun and totally creepy.

So what about timing involving others, like deadlines or a lunch date? I once had the insight while driving in a panic through heavy traffic to get to a new client meeting to say 'fuck it. This is out of my control.' and I let out a deep sigh of resignation. Ten minutes later I arrived at the meeting on time. I'm not preaching magical thinking here; I would have arrived at the same time whether I was relaxed or not, but relaxing slowed my perception of the passage of time, I burned less energy worrying, and my attitude going into the meeting was that of post walk-in-a-breezy-meadow.

My breathing is connected to my sense of time, and therefore to my patience.

When I teach, I encourage students to use this tool: mark the passage of time with breathing. Clocks are unnatural; I use one to start and end a session, but in between those markers, there's an opportunity to experiment. When students start to count their breaths, invariably the breathing slows and they relax mentally, even if they’re in a strenuous posture. They’re being patient with their circumstances, and in turn patient with themselves, which is transformative.

So, the year is NOT over. Keep going. Breathe slowly. Your time is as long or as short as your breath will allow.