Practicing Patience
by Roma Palmer
I have been struck time and again by how much patience we have needed over the past three years. COVID ground the world to a halt. Supply issues have meant waiting for goods and resources. One of the more recent needs for patience was airline and train travellers in this country enduring hours in airports and having to make last minute travel changes over the holidays.
In some ways all of these situations have given us opportunities to practice patience. In reality I think they have had the opposite effect: making us more impatient than ever!
As our world returns to pre-pandemic busyness, our expectations of instant gratification have also returned. Among other things, overnight deliveries and social media fuel our expectations that we should have what we want when we want it.
Along with immediate gratification, we spend a great deal of our lives in the mental frame of ‘getting on to the next thing’: completing the next task, finishing one meeting to move onto the next one, rushing to the end of our work day. The present isn’t as important as decreasing the discomfort of the next nagging task on our agenda. We don’t like the discomfort of waiting.
The more we are attached to our agenda, the more impatient we become. Other people’s inability or disinterest in paving the way for us increases our irritation, sometimes spilling over into outright aggression (think road rage). Our need for control is at war with the power of the universe. Letting go of our urgency to have our needs met leaves room for patience. Patience isn’t necessarily the ability to feel calm in the midst of frustration; it is the ability to tolerate the discomfort resulting from having to wait for an occasion or a result.
I often say to clients that much of life is waiting, and how we wait is important. We can choose to wait impatiently, frustrated that our needs aren’t being met on the spot. Alternately we can slow down and find something to focus on while we wait.
Some obstacles to slowing down include:
Discomfort because our society expects us to move so quickly
We are unsure how to occupy ourselves when we slow down
We feel guilty for not completing awaiting tasks
Our need to keep moving from project to project prevents us from learning how to move through the difficult parts of a task. We need to slow down and learn to move through the difficult parts; and that requires patience. Learning patience will help build the muscles of attention, focus and concentration. All tools that help us tackle the challenges life throws at us.
How do we build patience?
Learn to tolerate the anxiety of completing one task at a time instead of multitasking
Stop expecting everything to feel good - sometimes life is hard
Practice creative waiting - eg. meditate, draw, exercise, listen to music
Move more slowly to a solution - you will find a better fix by taking your time than trying to fix things quickly
Embrace the power of stopping - set a time for each task and stop when the time is up
Make a point of noticing when you feel impatient. How does it feel in your body? Can you relax your body even if you are emotionally uncomfortable? That physical relaxation will help with the emotional impatience. What is the anxiety that is rising in your body and mind? Is it real or imagined? Is something bad going to happen or are you actually okay? If something bad does happen will it be tragic or can you find a solution if you need to? In our discomfort we often catastrophize when it is not needed. Noticing our emotional and physical responses in situations allows us the opportunity to relieve our tension even if the situation remains uncertain.
Patience doesn’t happen overnight. Once again something to wait for! We need to invite patience in and make friends with it. We all envy Zen masters who make it look easy; but think of all they have to deny themselves, and all the practice they put into approaching life the way they do. We have some work to do. Be patient with yourself.