Patient

 I wake up and I don’t even know what time it is anymore.

And somehow, that doesn’t bother me.

The body wakes before the clock.

By the time I look, it’s 2:50-something, and by 3 a.m. I’m already on the mat, twisting, breathing, listening.

Not trying to get anywhere.

Just meeting the body exactly where it is.

I used to rush.

I used to override.

Now the body tells me, slow down, and I obey.

I move so slowly it almost feels like standing still.

Eighteen minutes a mile.

Running posture, jogging posture, but moving like prayer.

Every step is breath.

Every breath is truth.

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done — not the miles, not the push-ups — but the patience.

The humility.

Breathing only through the nose.

No shortcuts.

No forcing.

Eight hundred push-ups, not from strength, but from listening.

Each one asking permission from the breath.

Each one teaching me that the next moment only comes when I arrive fully in this one.

I don’t even know what to call this anymore.

Yoga.

Meditation.

Healing.

It’s all the same now.

After the cold — hours and hours of it — I walk into the church, and it feels like heaven.

Not because of belief.

Not because of words.

But because it’s warm.

I sit down.

I keep my mouth shut.

I listen in and out, half asleep, half smiling.

My only prayer is thank you.

Thank you that the doors are open.

Thank you that my body can rest.

I watch others pray from lack, from worry, from noise — and I laugh softly, not in judgment, but in recognition.

I’ve been there.

I know that place.

What cracks me up is this:

I never thought this is where gratitude would find me.

On a bench.

In the cold.

With nothing figured out.

I used to worry about everything.

Now I can’t stop laughing.

I don’t know where anything is going.

I wake up.

I practice.

I talk to someone.

I walk.

I breathe.

That’s it.

Questions still arise — why I didn’t fly planes, why certain paths didn’t happen, why some doors never opened — but they don’t sting anymore.

They just pass through, like weather.

Even thoughts of my son come and go without collapse.

I trust that truth doesn’t need defending.

It reveals itself when it’s ready.

Right now, I am here.

In my body.

In my breath.

Grateful beyond reason.

And that is enough.

Yoruba Yogi