Patience

Let me tell you a story.

My wife is the oldest of three sisters, all very close in age.  When they get together, they love to push each other’s buttons.  I’m not sure how my father-in-law survived the drama.

Now that they all have adult children it amplifies the button pushing opportunities.  They are not bad people.  They love each other. It’s a family thing.

Thanksgiving we were to head out to her parents house and all the siblings would be there.

Before we left to go I had a talk with my wife and my daughter about patience.  When you get riled up by someone pushing your buttons, it is up to you how to respond.

“It’s a holiday,” I said, “This is your family.  I want you to have patience and be kind.”

I’m not sure if I had anything to do with it, but we had a lovely day and no one left in a huff.

Over the holidays there are many opportunities to practice patience.

And patience is a practice.

What is patience?

Patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

Patience is more important now than ever before.  We live in a kinetic and impatient culture.  The current times celebrate shortcuts, hacks, instant-delivery, and efficiency above all else.  Our time is so scarce we get triggered into impatience very easily.

Why do you care?

Impatience leads to anger and frustration.   Impatience leads to stress and anxiety.  Impatience causes you to make bad decisions.

This mindset of always being impatiently focused on the destination causes you to sacrifice the experience of the journey.

Impatience removes joy from your life.

Impatience has been shown to be a predictor of mental illness especially for depression.

But, if you can practice patience in your life what are the benefits?

You make better decisions, because your step back and listen to your gut more.  You’re not rushed into it. Patience allows you to have a longer term viewpoint for better long term decisions.

Patience is very good for your relationships.  Especially for the important, close relationships where there is ample opportunity for button pushing.  When you practice patience in a relationship it makes your kinder. Kindness makes you a more likeable partner.

Patience Increases your personal power, because you are able to stay in control of your impulses.  You can avoid being that person who ‘snaps’ and avoid the damage those types of reactions bring into your life.

Patient people have more hope.

Patient people make more progress towards their goals.

Patient people are healthier and sleep better.

How do we practice patience?

The key is in the practice.

Understand what triggers you.  Is it certain people?  Is it certain situations?

What happens when you lose your patience?  Your heart rate and blood pressure go up.  Your body starts pumping in those flight-or-flight chemicals.

Think of a situation where you lost your patience.  Step through it in your mind.  How could you have reacted differently?

Know your triggers and catch your response.  Step back.  Physically step back if you can.  This is the physical manifestation of detaching or disengaging.  Take a deep breath.  A deep breath or two will bring back your mindfulness.

Move this loss-of-patience out of your animal brain and into your big brain.

Think about it – does it make sense for you to get angry over something that is out of your control?  Can you make the truck in front of you move by getting stressed out?  What does it accomplish except to maybe shorten your life?

Many times, we are triggered by other people’s problems.  Why are you allowing other people to control the state of your mind?  Step back.  Take back control.

Move out of your own skin and move into empathy, help that person holding up everyone else in line.  That’s what I do on airplanes when someone is struggling jam their over-packed bag into the overhead.  Instead of worrying about why this person over packed the bag or why they are holding everyone up, I ask them if they need help.  Then I help them.

Many of the things we stress about are just made-up rules.  Are you creating stress inside yourself because of some made up rule?  Like, if I have to wait more than 10 minutes, I lose the game?  Why are you making up rules to create misery in your life?

Take back control – make up some new rules that serve you better.

Trust the universe.

You can see that there is a connection between mindfulness and patience.  The more mindful you are the more practicing patience becomes a tool for you.

You can see that the power of patience is that it controls the way YOU react to a situation.  It’s not the situation that is causing you stress, it’s the way you are reacting to it and that, my friends, is under your control.

Once you realize your reaction is the key you can stop resisting and work with the impatient moment. Most importantly, mindfulness allows you to be patient with yourself.

What are some specific elements of practice?

You can use that dead space waiting in traffic or waiting in line to your advantage.  A few minutes of reading, maybe a few meditation breaths.  I’m that weird guy who stretches or practices standing on one leg when I’m waiting in line.

Use dead space to your advantage.

Remember impatience is only discomfort.  You’re not going to die.  As endurance athletes we practice working with discomfort.  Practice relaxing into the discomfort of impatience in the same way.  Accept it and work with it.

Impatience can be an Indicator or symptom of something else in your life.  A canary in coal mine, so to speak.  Ask yourself what else is going on that is causing your shortness of patience?

Practice changes you self-labeling.  Change your mindset and self-description to “I’m a patient person,” or, “I practice patience,” or, “I practice kindness”.

I printed out a slide that says “Patience – Kindness – Gratitude” and keep it in my office where I can see it.

In review:

Practice recognizing your triggers and when you start to move into an impatience pattern step back, take a deep breath, or two, or three, and detach.  Become mindful.  Consider the source of your stress.  Reframe the moment to your advantage.

Be patient.

Be kind.

Be grateful.

It’s all tied together.