When I think of patience, I think of monks living within a sanctuary, with nowhere to go and no one to meet. You stick to a routine each day – for some, it could feel like torture, but to others, bliss. I often admire the patience it takes to just ‘be’. To not lose your cool or to fall into prison within your own thoughts. Not that I think that a monastery is like a prison, on the contrary. In a monastery, you can choose to leave anytime you wish. The choice is yours. For those who choose to stay, I question what gives them the patience to do so.
Confusing Patience with Resilience
I love the integrity of Resilience. It means holding power during tough circumstances. To be resilient involves mental strength and patience. However, patience isn’t acquired through resilience – it is through mastering patience, we build resilience—the Yin to the Yang.
Patience requires a special elixir of empathy, awareness and resolve.
Just the other day, after yoga in the park, we decided to get some coffee and pastry to go. While we all received our coffee, I was left waiting for my pain au chocolat which didn’t arrive. My first reaction was obviously being annoyed – but being present to my feeling of annoyance – I decided to practice patience and waited – in fact, even being nonchalant about it and grateful once it was brought out and handed to me. Yes, it was a small scenario and easy awareness practice, but I know many people who would have exercised their right to be annoyed. Choosing patience trains you to be humble & it is against our identity’s strive for self-importance.
“My life has been less like a light switch suddenly turning on, but more like a dimmer switch, slowly turned up, over time, more in some moments than others. “
— Dan Millman
The Art of Being Patient
When we master patience, we strengthen our resilience to life’s curveballs. So how do we walk down the path of understanding and practice being patient?
Being Patient with Yourself First
Our early beliefs of impatience are stem from our parents. As a parent myself, I know many moments where I have lost a nerve with my children. But, upon reflection, I realised it was an impulse I could not have controlled without awareness—my past programming. My mother (unaware of herself) was impatient with me, and I picked it up subconsciously from repetition.
So how do we change the programming? Be the parent your inner child needs and show yourself some patience first. Re-teach yourself the meaning of love and support through patience. Re-programming your past in the present moment is a powerful tool. As patience has it, nothing happens overnight. It will take time, especially if you grew up in an environment where you were never given the time to process your feelings or in a pressured environment. Take your time to enjoy exercising this newfound awareness.
Time Moves Slowly… When You Slow Down
The benefits of meditation go far beyond just learning to be patient. One interesting facet about quantum physic and its relationship with meditation lies within Einstein’s theory of relativity. When you meditate, you lose sense of time and space and in Einstein’s theory, time in space measures differently within different altitudes and or different speeds. Thanks to modern technology and precision measurements (atomic clocks), time can speed up or even slow down due to change in the frequency of energy.
Breathe, Relax & Feel
Let’s face it. We are all human, and we know that some days, emotions can get the better of us, and at times we successfully manage to curb negative emotions through mindful techniques. Again, remember to be patient with yourself. Know that not all negative emotions require action, but it does require attention. One mindful technique I like to use when things get uncomfortable is to approach Breathing – Relaxing and Feeling. Breathe – to allow yourself to calm down. Relax – by centring yourself in a safe space and to Feel. Feel – into your emotions, call it out by its name. Anger, Frustration, Annoyance, etc. (I like using the emotional wheel to find the right name that describes my emotions). From there, I can sit with it and allow it to be felt. No need to process or analyse. Feel where it might sit in your body and give it the attention it needs. This is self-care, being patient with yourself. Keep breathing. Keep Relaxing. Keep Feeling.
Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished
Lao tzu