How do you respond in patience
Impatient? Why and How
to Practice Patience
Patience in times of stress fosters peace of mind instead of
anger.
Posted May 20, 2013
What is patience?
"Patience: is the capacity to
accept or tolerate delay, difficulty, or annoyance without getting angry or
upset." I don’t
know anyone whose life is free of these three. In fact, I can’t recall a single
day in my own life when at least one of them didn't make an appearance.
For many years, my reaction to the presence of
any one of the three was to get “angry”—or at least “upset.” Then I realized
that this response served only to make an already stressful and unpleasant
situation worse. So I began making a conscious effort to respond to “delay,
difficulty, or annoyance” differently. Sometimes the best I could do was
“tolerate” their presence. But I kept at it and, with practice, I became better
able to “accept” them open-heartedly as an inevitable part of life.
When I could do this—tolerate and sometimes even
accept delay, difficulty, or annoyance—I noticed two things. First, being
patient is a way of treating myself with compassion. Compassion is the act of
reaching out to those who are suffering—including ourselves. I definitely
suffer when I’m impatient, because lack of patience is a stress response to whatever is
going on in my life. I can feel the stress in both my mind and my body. And so,
cultivating patience is a way of taking care of myself, which is the essence of self-compassion.
Second, I noticed that being patient gave rise
to a feeling of equanimity—a calmness of mind that makes it easier to ride
life’s ups and downs without being tossed about like a boat in a storm. Seeing
the correlation between patience and enhanced self-compassion and equanimity
convinced me of the value of this practice. I thought, “Hmm. Less suffering and
stress, coupled with more calm acceptance of life as it is…sounds good.” Here’s
how I recommend that you undertake the practice of patience. (Note: This is an
approach to transforming thoughts and emotions that I set out more fully in my
books,How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and
Sorrow and How to Live Well
with Chronic
Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide)
1. Recognize that impatience has arisen.
This may not be easy at first. When things
aren’t going our way (for example, we’re stuck in traffic), we tend to think
that the cause of our impatience is external to us—what’s going out “out
there.” But, of course, the cause is what’s going on in our own minds—that is,
our response to whatever
circumstances we’re facing. So start by setting the intention to watch for
impatience arising in your own mind as a response to not getting what you want
right away.
You may know some of your triggers already:
being put on hold for a long time; getting stuck in a long line; struggling to
figure out a computer problem; facing an extended wait at the doctor’s office;
having to listen to someone take what seems to be an interminably long time to
explain something simple (this last one being a trait of mine that tests my
own family’s patience!).
Notice how impatience arises when we’re not
getting our way—specifically when people or our environment aren’t conforming to our expectations, even in circumstances over
which we have no control (for example, the flow of traffic or the length of a
line). Our expectations are often out of synch with reality. I can think of
four ways in which this is true, and all four can be triggers for impatience.
First, we tend to expect the environment to
conform to our expectations: no traffic jams; no absence of parking spaces near
our destination; no long lines; no airport delays; no waiting too long for food
to arrive at a restaurant.
Second, we tend to expect people to conform to
our expectations. They ought to behave the way we think they should behave. “That woman ahead of me in the check-out
line should not be making small talk with the cashier.” “If he said he’d phone
at 3:00, he should phone at 3:00.” Even if we’re “right” (it is polite, after
all, to call at the time you say you will), the fact remains that people often
don’t live up to our expectations.
Third, our expectations are often unrealistic
when it comes to mastering new skills, whether it’s taking up a new craft or
figuring out a new computer application or learning a new do-it-yourself fix-it
skill. We think we should be able to master new skills quickly, no matter how
foreign or difficult they are to us.
Fourth, our expectations are almost always
unrealistic when it comes to what goes on in our minds. We think we should be
able to control what thoughts and what emotions arise. But unwelcome thoughts
and emotions pop up all the time. It’s the nature of the mind to think and to
emote; in my experience, there’s no stopping it. Certainly being impatient
doesn’t put a stop to it!
Think about these four categories of
expectations and see if you can pinpoint which ones you tend to be unrealistic
about in your own life. This alone can help you recognize when you’re
responding with impatience.
2. Investigate how impatience feels in your mind
and in your body.
Allowing yourself to really feel the impatience
is a major step toward accepting its presence. This is important because, in my
experience, I can’t begin to transform a stressful mental state until I accept
that I’m caught up in it. So, work on becoming well-acquainted with how
impatience feels. Is your mind calm or agitated? Is your body relaxed or
tensed? I have yet to experience impatience as pleasant in either my mind
or my body. And the realization that it feels unpleasant helps motivate me to
try and change the way I respond when I’m faced with “delay, difficulty, or
annoyance”—our three friends from
the dictionary definition.
3. Begin to transform impatience into patience.
This takes practice—patient practice. And
because patience is an act of self-compassion, I hope you’ll treat yourself
with compassion over your inability to be patient at times. That said, here are
some strategies to help transform impatience into patience.
Let’s start with those times when the
environment or people aren’t conforming to your expectations: for example,
you’re stuck in a traffic jam or you find yourself behind that person in the
check-out line who’s chatting with the cashier. First, notice that you’re
responding with impatience. Second, pay attention to how it feels in your mind
and in your body. Then ask yourself: “Is there anything I can do to change the
situation without making matters worse for myself or others?” If the answer is
“no” (which it almost always will be), then see if you can find what I’ll call
“the good” in the situation. By this I mean, begin to focus on something
pleasant or interesting while you’re waiting.
This is a mindfulness practice, meaning you’re making a conscious choice—backed up by
effort—to pay attention to everything that’s going on in your field of
awareness. When I feel impatience arise, I can almost always find something in
my present moment experience that arouses my curiosity or interest. This allows
me to respond, not in “anger” or “upset” to what’s going on, but instead, with
patience.
In a traffic jam, it might be checking out the
different makes and models and ages of the cars on the road; it might be
begining to chat with another person in the car; it might be finding a radio
station to listen to. If I’m in that check-out line, it might be noticing with
amusement the ridiculous headlines on those sensationalistic mags that sit in
racks at the cashier stand; it might be looking at the people around me—how
everyone looks different and has a whole life story of their own that I know
nothing about; it might even be eavesdropping on the content of the chatter
that’s holding me up!
In fact, I try to cultivate friendliness toward
those chatterers—to enjoy how they’re enjoying each other’s company. After all,
what’s another minute or two in line? If, like me, you have trouble standing
for long, you can look for something to lean on or take a wide stance with your
legs so you’re better balanced. Sometimes I bring a cane.
My point is that, yes, our first choice may be
to institute a “no traffic jam on the freeway” rule and a “no chatting at the
check-out counter” directive, but most of the time in life, we don’t get our
first choice. When this happens, if the alternatives are to get upset and angry
versus finding a way to make the experience enjoyable, or at least tolerable, I
know which one feels better to me.
Then we have those unrealistic expectations
about mastering new skills. That expectation partially stems from our cultural
conditioning to hurry hurry hurry no matter what we’re doing. Yet, if we were
to proceed more slowly and patiently, not only would we enjoy ourselves more,
but we’re likely to do a better job of mastering the skill in question.
Finally, about those unrealistic expectations
that we should be able to control our minds. Instead of getting impatient
(“upset“ or “angry”) about what arises in our minds, can we work on holding
unwelcome thoughts and emotions more lightly—even sometimes with humor over the mind’s
unruliness? Doing this is a compassionate response to what arises in the mind.
In my new book, How to Wake Up, I quote a passage from one of the first Buddhist books I ever
read, Mindfulness
in Plain English by
Bhante Gunaratana. He said this about the mind:
[Sometime] you will come face to face with the
sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a
shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill,
utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem.
I love this quotation for two
reasons. First, I find it reassuring to know that I’m not alone in having a
shrieking, gibbering, madhouse on wheels for a mind. Second, Bhante says, “No
problem.” I take “no problem” to mean that I can learn to be patient with this
“crazy” mind. I can learn not to get upset and angry when unwelcome thoughts
and emotions arise, but instead, to calmly accept their presence, knowing that
with time the universal law of impermanence will help me out. Conditions will
change…and so will my mind.
We can transform impatience into patience. It’s
well-worth the effort because being patient is a way of treating ourselves with
compassion and it also helps us calmly accept things as they are…and that
always feels good.
© 2013 Toni Bernhard. Thank you for reading
my work. I'm the author of three books:
How to
Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide (2015). The theme of transforming impatience
into patience is expanded on in this book.
All of my books are available in audio format
from Amazon, audible.com, and iTunes.
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You may also like "Tapping into Self-Compassion to
Help Ease Everyday Suffering."
Reference:
www,psychologytoday,com, shared article: Impatient, why and how to practice patience.By Toni Bernhard J.D. Turning Straw Into Gold