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This was originally published on the Happiness Series

How to be Late… Gracefully

By Peter Ferko

Being fashionably late is one thing, but being late to a job, a meeting, or an appointment is not quite as hip. Instead being late is stressful! I’m often running on several tracks at a time and find myself running late more often than I’d like. I used to give myself a stomach ache over it, but I’ve found some perspective to help avoid lateness and some tools that help when I can’t:

1. When you realize you’re going to be late, call to see if you can reschedule or just adjust the time until when you’ll get there. You will be amazed at how often people could care less about you changing an appointment. Stress gone!

2. When you see you’re going to be late to a fixed appointment, call in to be responsible and to help create a workaround, if necessary. Once you get in, don’t mention it (you already called it in), just get on with things. Stress minimized!

3. When you’re late for things that don’t always start on time — the theater, a movie, a dinner party — surrender to the consequences. Since I stopped worrying about it, I’ve noticed that most of the time things starts late, so I’m on time anyway. Once in a while they don’t, and you watch the first 15 minutes from the lobby TV (for the theater) or you miss the trailers (at the movies) or you miss a cocktail (at the party). Stress never even appeared!

4. Trust that things work out the way they are supposed to. If you’re late, it will likely be okay. Just try to avoid being late in the future, it will be better for everyone involved. What stress?

5. Work on the causal plane. A yoga teacher can give you a mantra to help remove obstacles in your path, which could be a train that won’t show up or the forgetfullness around setting your iPhone alarm! Mantras are best when passed from teacher to student, so the energy the teacher has amassed around the intention passes to the student.

 

This was originally published on the Happiness Series in March 2011.

Graceful Self

By Peter Ferko

People all carry opinions about themselves, and have patterns of response and behavior that are deeply ingrained. Since the moment you were born, you’ve been using whatever tools you have along with your experiences to hone a “self,” or identity. Yogis locate these deeply held beliefs in the energy center called svadisthana, which literally means, “abode of the self,” where their influence plays out unconsciously in your mind and body. The problem with this scenario is that your current experience takes place through the filter of this old self — you are looking at life through a pair of glasses that alter the view. That’s why it’s so hard to change, to break old habits, or to grow.

To move beyond your deeply held belief patterns into something new, you have to be willing — and able — to see things as they are now, rather than constantly reinforcing your old sense of self. While something like therapy might help you see where the patterns came from, yoga aims instead to give you an experience of a present moment free of the filter. Practices like concentration and meditation provide moments of clear perspective, and some guided meditations will encourage the release of patterns on an energetic level. Those present moment experiences help your “self” evolve toward a wiser “Self” who has a more graceful approach to life.

With practice, when you hear yourself thinking, “I’m this that,” or I’m the kind of person who would never be able to blank,” you can pause, take off those filter glasses and look from the perspective of the “Self” that is actually experiencing this moment. The more you practice that new way of knowing, the more you expand toward the best Self you can be.