endurance vs tolerating
December 3, 2010
In the coaching world, I often hear the question “What are you tolerating”? Meaning, what are you putting up with or ignoring, that is zapping your energy, your joy, and keeping you stuck. While this is a valid and important area of inquest, I wonder if that question has become a “catch phrase”. If we’re in a difficult situation, and we’ve tried to change it, we’ve asked and waited for direction, we’re doing all we can to make a change, yet it is unchangeable, perhaps it’s a lesson in endurance.
Learning to endure is highly beneficial to our spiritual health. Learning to move on with our lives in spite of the thorn in our side, stretches our spiritual muscles and strengthens our spiritual bones.
Crosby, Stills + Nash wrote a song “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”. While I never agreed with that policy as far as intimate relationships go, if we’re in a situation we cannot change, what can we love in it? What can we do to walk toward Love? Where can we find the love while enduring a difficulty? We might think it’s not possible, though Love can shine through the impossible.
Moving forward toward Love changes everything. It breaks the stagnant energy cycles, the hopeless thinking is replaced with freshness and possibility. When we are released, we’ve changed. We’re stronger, wiser, and play larger in the world than we did before.
Athletes do endurance training. As spiritual athletes, we can benefit too. Being able to endure with grace, richness and love, is a worthy goal and changes us from a hot house plant into a magnificent tree, able to withstand the winds of change, while giving shelter and joy to the world.
Tolerating zaps our joy. Endurance deepens our learning and increases our faith. We then find the peace and joy that passes our human mind’s understanding.
xo
