Patience Is a Virtue—for Your Health
When nowadays it seems that Amazon Prime isn’t even fast enough, it’s no wonder that today it’s hard to be patient!
We’ve all been told “Patience is a Virtue.” According to the dictionary, patience is the “capacity to accept or tolerate delay, difficulty, or annoyance without getting angry or upset.”Most of us encounter delay, difficulty, or annoyance on a daily basis, so there are many opportunities to practice patience.
Patience has been called “unglamorous courage” because we only notice it in its absence. However, patience is really the ability to abide with things the way they are.
Patience allows you to tolerate failure, disappointment, defeat, unpleasantness, and confusion—all without giving up. Developing patience is a skill that can be cultivated. If you can foster patience with yourself, you naturally become patient with others, and it spreads to those around you.
Patience benefits your relationships and helps those relationships stay healthy over an extended period of time. Being a patient person also teaches you to regulate your emotions, so that your well-being remains strong.
Being impatient causes stress that can lead to all kinds of detrimental effects on your physical and mental well-being. In the end, your physical and mental health grows when you practice patience.
Impermanence
Patience develops the habit of abiding by understanding the truth of impermanence. It is our capacity to accept how things really are and relax in the middle of the tension of waiting for the stressor to be gone.
Patience remains present as long as the mind remembers that things will end, the stress will leave, and that you are not in charge.
It is a quiet moment to moment adjustment to unpleasant circumstances that can’t be other than what they are.
Experiences unfold on their own when everything that needed to happen before has happened. There are times you may confuse patience with self-control as you wrestle with your feelings of fear, anger, or frustration. You may even try to control others.
Instead, you must recognize that impatience has arisen and bring mindfulness to how it feels in the mind and body.
What is the sensation in the body under the interpretation that things aren’t going your way? Discomfort and tensing in the stomach?
What emotion is underneath the impatience?
Do you have unrealistic expectations? Is there a rule that there should never be traffic? Or that cashiers must move at the speed of light?
You can learn to transform impatience into patience by remembering that things are always changing.
Cultivate More Patience
In terms of practice, patience involves learning to be present and upright with all our experiences without turning away from them.
This means:
Paying attention to when you are not patient. Get in touch with the feeling of the opposite of patience—anger, irritation, blaming, and shaming.
Being kind to yourself amid the discomfort of impatience.
Reframing the automatic judgmental and critical thoughts and feelings.
It’s recommended that you first train yourself to work with little pains and irritations so that when the big ones come, you will have developed the patience needed for adversity.
First, you feel the discomfort of impatience and how it feels in the body and mind. Get curious about when it shows up and how it feels. Feel the resistance to not wanting what is happening. So many of us believe that the only state that’s tolerable is one that feels comfortable. Instead, remember it’s just uncomfortable, not intolerable.
Second, be kind to yourself amid impatience. It’s hard to feel those feelings. When we resist waiting, we are the ones that suffer in the mind and body. Remember, you are not alone and being impatient is part of the human experience.
Lastly, change the channel and stop the story about how wrong everything is. Things are unfolding exactly as they should be and eventually this moment will change.
Learning to Be Patient with Yourself
When we are impatient with ourselves, we reject parts of who we are, judge ourselves harshly, and speak to ourselves unkindly.
“I should be used to this by now,” “I still can’t figure this out.” Shaming and blaming ourselves never leads to change or motivation. Self-compassion, kindness, and understanding does.
Instead of, “I can’t believe this still pushes my buttons.” how about, “It’s understandable that this is what happens when I’m bothered, but I can tolerate it. And I can tolerate my own flaws”?
Imagine how good it would feel to not be rushed or impatient with someone else or yourself. But that takes practice, which means it develops over time.
Try to incorporate little attempts at patience:
Let someone go in front of you in line.
Try not to interrupt someone when they are talking.
Watch only one show a night.
Pause before beginning your meal.
These are all tiny ways to cultivate patience. As you do this for yourself, it spills over to your relationships with others.
Practicing patience can be as simple as stopping your binge watching after only one episode.
Persistence
Persistence is the quality that allows you to continue doing something or try to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people. It is the determination to hold steady to your intentions and direct your attention to what needs to be done right now.
Persistence gives patience a purpose.
If there isn’t a goal with a set of values to which you are applying yourself, what can seem like patience is really dilly-dallying. If you’re not patient with yourself, you will not be able to be persistent.
Determination without patience works against itself. Patience allows you to tolerate failure, disappointment, and defeat without giving up. It allows you to meet challenges without falling into reactivity.
Patience relieves restlessness and avoids the tyranny of expectation. It helps with self-regulation that leads to greater well-being.
On the Mat
When you get on the mat or meditation cushion and wonder if anything is happening, you are learning to stay in the moment and are developing patience.
You don’t have to do anything but be patient and persistent in staying present. The insights will come.
You might think you’re “at the end of your rope” as if it’s quantifiable, but over time you learn not to give way to impatience.
Practicing patience is an act of self-compassion, since you are the one that suffers in the mind and the body when you resist the waiting. Over time patience gives rise to equanimity or a calmness in the mind that makes it easier to handle the ups and downs in life.
In the end you learn tolerance.
Whether it’s a yoga class or heath coaching, we can help you be more patient. Reach me at sharyn@truenorthwell.com. I’m glad to help you.