There Is Nowhere to Go, There Is Nothing to Do: Practicing Patience in Pregnancy.
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I thought I knew what patience was… then I became pregnant.
I thought I understood that patience was not simply waiting until a thing was over. It wasn’t grinning and bearing it and gritting my teeth and holding my breath until I was through. Patience is not holding on until done. It is about being fully present to the moment. It is softly sitting in it with awareness. Patience is stillness extended. Patience is bringing awareness and presence to each moment.
I thought I understood the lesson of patience. I was wrong. It is a whole unique experience to be patient when you are incubating and growing a human being.
Patience is the moment in between first-trimester nausea and being hungry. It is understanding, feeling and believing that although my energy has tanked in this very moment, it will return. Patience is love embodied. It is being okay with dropping a lot of personal projects and healing arts side-work in favor of rest and growing a baby and working the day job that pays the bills.
It is a morning Yoga practice transformed daily. It is a forward fold that changes and shifts each morning, and a breath that gets quicker or slower with each time I return to my mat. It is aching joints one day, and fluid motion the next.
Each day is so very different. Each day requires the trust and willingness to surrender. And again, and again, and again. Each time I think I’m being patient with the process, with my body, energy and mind, I find another layer yet to go. There is always another way I can craft more ease and softness in my mind, body and soul.
A consistent mantra that I keep by my side is, “There is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do.” Truly, there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do… even when I think there are millions of household chores to do, work to be done, creative ideas to generate, people to see, there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do. Rinse and repeat. And again. Breathe. And again.
I am so very grateful to my practices and teachers, and most of all, to my sweet partner.
He gently reminds me I am doing plenty, more than enough, and it is okay to slow down and do even less. He helps me see the additional layers of strength in softness and slowing down. Stillness. Stillness in our AcroYoga practice. Stillness in my Ashtanga practice. Stillness in my walks with my dog in the gently falling snow here in Michigan.
There is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do.
Patience. Ever evolving as this little being inside of me grows. Trust that my energy will return and move forward. Embodied knowing that so many women have done this before me. Since there were human beings on the planet, women were giving birth to them. Resiliency and courage are in my bones, blood and DNA helix. I practice being patient and having faith.
Five months down, four to go, and I am doing plenty by simply being aware, awake and practicing.
A whole new meaning to the concept of patience.
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Emily Dryzga grew up in the middle of the woods in Michigan. As a young child, she learned to sync/sink into the moss, wild blueberries and wintergreens, and listen to the animals and plants, whom she considers her greatest teachers. She focuses on connecting people with their sense of self and the wild world in order to foster a sense of belonging, wholeheartedness and intimacy. She is a wild woman criatura living and being and practicing shamanic arts, sacred intimacy and sexuality, Yoga, astrology, acu-detox, Shiatsu and many more threads in the tapestry of guiding healers. She has navigated the realm of Corporate America for over 15 years, held a professional practice of healing arts for over five years, and is deep within her lifelong practice of being wild. She encourages you to re-ground, re-center and re-member. Connect with Emily via her website.
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