The Sacred Turtle teaches us that the patience and inner strength are the foundations of the unfolding of life. – Chef Phil Lane, Jr.
In December 2014, I purchased a glass painting at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. with the quote from Chief Phil Lane, Jr., which you can see above. Although I gave the painting as a gift to someone, this saying kept coming back to me. So intensely that I have begun to see, recognize, and live for myself the wisdom of the ‘sacred turtle’ in my personal world.
Especially in difficult life situations, this realization has helped me to gain tremendous confidence for whatever may come.
From fall 2015 to summer 2019 I had to cope with some difficult situations in my life and there were many moments when I cried and felt a lot of pain, that’s when I started to call the spirit of the turtle to support me.
A fascinating animal, this turtle – since about 220 million years there are turtles on our planet, because they have an extremely great adaptability and highly developed sensory abilities.
These are abilities that are also required from us humans more than ever – especially in this time of uncertainty, ambiguity, volatility and disorientation. By enduring and persevering during the pandemic, we have all had the opportunity to practice patience and adaptability – even if it was and still is really difficult at times.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) once said:
“Whoever says patience, says courage, endurance, strength.”
JU’s 3 questions of the month 👇
👉How do you manage to tame your impatience in everyday life?
👉Patience and inner strength are the foundations for the development of life, says the ‘Holy Turtle’ – what do you associate with this wisdom?
👩🏻🇹🇷🇮🇹🇦🇹 Zeynep Öztürk Girstmair
What a refreshing, cheerful woman has been living next door to me for five years 😇 along with her ‘awesome husband Florian’. Zeynep is from Istanbul, studied Communication Science, is currently studying business administration at the University of Vienna and works part-time as an office manager. In her free time, she loves to take pictures, paint with oil paints, travel, play PC-games and shoot with bow and arrow – I admire Zeynep for her talent for languages, beauty, warmth and courage.
👩🏻 🇻🇪🇦🇹🇺🇸 Angela De Sousa
In October 2019, Angela and I stood side by side on stage as finalists at the end of the Kolbe Conference costume competition. Though none of us won the competition that day, we both surely won a friendship in Phoenix that day!
We soon found out that Angela used to live in Vienna, and we were already connected. As a result, we met several times on ZOOM minding the gap across the oceans – Angela is originally from Venezuela and lives with her husband, children & step-children in South Florida from where she transforms people’s lives around the globe as, a bilingual, Speaker, Coach & Entrepreneur’s Mentor (https://dynamicgrowth.coach ) she loves to empower, motivate and inspire people to leverage their strengths so they can reach their goals and create a life plan they enjoy living and leading in.
Her hobbies are traveling, spending quality time with family and friends, dancing and co-creating. What I appreciate about Angela is her sunny, inspiring, open and direct manner – she is a real power woman, conscious leader and motivational artist.
👩🏻🦱 🇨🇿🇩🇪Gabriela Spengler-Hluchnik
Gabriela and I met in the fall of 2018 at the Grandmother Turtle Center in Vienna, where our joint training journey to become a ‘Spiritual Healer’ began.
Gabriela lived in a communist system for 22 years and fled what was then Czechoslovakia via Yugoslavia to Germany in 1986 – .. “I fled with only what I had on, a shoulder bag and with a baby in my belly, with no language skills except for a handful of words in German.” Gabriela is a trained nurse and has also completed training as a certified pharmaceutical representative.
Her hobbies include Nordic walking and cycling – Gabriela spends a lot of time around the house and/ or in the garden or taking care of her family, dogs and cats.
I admire Gabriela for her determination, her willingness to learn, her big heart, for her beauty, her writing talent and for her commitment in many areas.
👩🏻Zeynep Öztürk Girstmair🇹🇷🇮🇹🇦🇹
Answer 1
Yes, my biggest challenge with patience was the time when I had to wait for my residence permit. I had nothing else to do for a whole year, except waiting. I had no official home, job, study. My entire life was on hold, in the hands of a person, who didn’t even see me as a person. It was also the biggest challenge for me, against racism.
After 12 months and not having any control about my own life, I learned that calmness pays off. I learned how to be patient; with a little bit trust and help from the people who care.
Answer 2
On my everyday life I am rather impatient. I get frustrated when something I want doesn’t happen quickly. About the things that only affect me, I just feel like a rabbit that jumps and jumps and jumps! I just love the change way too much to wait for it!
But I learned that patience is the key when doing anything that involves anybody else. Everybody has their own tempo and own preferences. When I remember that people are going through their own stuff (positive or negative), and that it is rarely personal about me, I don’t get easily frustrated and it even enhances our communication.
Answer 3
I think patience lets you see the right moments and the inner strength lets you take the necessary steps on those right moments. Patience without courage is just waiting. Time is the most precious thing. It goes even faster with every moment. It would be a waste of time to just wait for that perfect moment to arrive. But with courage to carry on, to keep on, to work patiently and passionately towards what we desire, now that’s a life to have.
👩🏻Angela De Sousa 🇻🇪🇦🇹🇺🇸
Answer 1
I believe that we are continuously challenged throughout our life path and now more than ever, change remains the constant so cultivating patience has become the pixie dust or magic key to successfully navigate the volatile times we live in today. Easier said than done right!
When you are a parent, step-parent, wife, entrepreneur, business owner and leader juggling all those hats at the same time, your patience feels like is being challenged constantly, almost by the minute. In my personal and professional life experiences I have many stories to share on this, but I will pick one that marked my life forever, and I continue to recall almost on a daily basis. The one story that made me embrace what a “Conscious Leader” is all about.
One of the experiences around patience, that I want share today, happened almost 5 years ago, when I was the leader on the board for a non-profit organization while navigating a huge loss in my life, the loss of my father. Imagine juggling that plus the many hats mentioned above, all at the same time. Believe me, one thing is searching for patience when you are feeling okay, and everything seems to be flowing right, and yet another is searching for patience when navigating grief, with other challenges all at once. Especially, when some of your team members are also going through loss and life changes of their own, at the same time.
I like this story because it has become very relevant at these moments, we are all living today, and almost anyone can relate.
To make a long story short, what helped me as a President to turn the chaos that our organization was facing, when some of us as key leaders were going into the dark side of loss, was:
– Number one, the ability to stop and step outside, in order to recognize that it was more than one of us going through similar difficulties, and someone had shift the energy around, and become the light!
– Number two was to remember and recognize the strengths and weaknesses each one of us have.
– And the third one was– Patience – the patience to pause, and to remember to take one step at a time. The patience to grieve, and to heal. The patience to allow time and life to unfold at its own pace, and the patience to receive the many gifts that come after the storms have passed!
Patience continues to teach me every day that making the choices a real conscious leader should make will bring out your wisdom to become the light when impatience hits or when it feels like darkness.
Answer 2
I pause, breath, and try to remember the choices I have available to me. Being in tune with my emotions and how my body reacts to them has taught me to hear the signs of impatience at an earlier stage, and that reminds me to pause and breathe, so I can consciously choose to respond vs. Reacting
Answer 3
We are all holy within, we are all perfect beings living an imperfect earthly experience and it is our duty and responsibility, while we walk on this earth, to tap into that inner wisdom we all came with and to have the courage to find the strength needed to become more conscious and aware as we lead in any roles or hats, we choose to serve the world with. Nobody said cultivating patience was easy, but I promise you it will be absolutely worth it!
👩🏻🦱Gabriela Spengler-Hluchnik🇨🇿🇩🇪
Answer 1
And every moment in the most different moments of our life can degenerate into an extreme situation and if one has already developed the ability of patience and consciously practices patience there, there is the possibility to master the respective situation, no matter how unsolvable it may seem to one at the moment.
With God’s help then very much is possible, actually everything is possible.
Answer 2
Often, in order to be patient, we need a great many human and heavenly helpers, but also trust, because I believe that patience cannot exist at all without trust.
And faith in God (in us, in life) joins it.
The dear God has equipped us with many “jokers” = “helpers” to keep us practicing patience.
I like to help myself with Bach flowers when I am impatient, first with No. 18 Impatiens = (from impatience…to patience) and with No. 12 Gentian = (from skepticism…to trust). This one gives with God’s trust when I have lost it and gladly also the No. 38 = (from the roll of fate…to self-responsibility), because this one gives me strength to get through it.
Of course, there are many other things that help, such as prayers, mantra, affirmations, spiritual cleansing/healing, our experiences, our fellow human beings and our guardian angels, who accompany and help us on the path of practicing patience.
Because only with their help, I can overcome the hurdles in my life, well and gladly. Thank you, God.
Answer 3
We expect much more patience from others than we ourselves would be willing to allow others.
I believe that our parents are the most patient, after all, it takes time for children to “wing it”….
And then I immediately have to think of our Father, of our dear God, who patiently waits for us to discover him, in us, in others, in every human being, in every plant, in every animal, in every word and in every loving feeling, patiently our all Father waits for his innumerable children to discover the truth, always and anew he patiently waits for us to become aware of our soul, that we discover the pulse of life and patiently let ourselves be carried in the stream of life, and our angels wait patiently with us and for us, are patient with us, although we make the same mistakes again and again, it is beautiful to become aware of how many people around us and with us are patient, although we often are not at all, certainly not with ourselves. Patiently they help us in our lives, that is so valuable, and I realize it just now, I realize that there can be no patience without love, the quality would be very different. Thank you, dear Judith for the chance to get to know PATIENCE better.
It is time to learn much more patience, with my family, with my children, with my husband, with myself, in every moment of my life.
Now I see even the grandmother turtle with completely different eyes, with much more respect and with much more respect than I could ever imagine.
Thank you again, dear Judith and thank God for this experience.
#betweenoceans2020
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