Winston Churchill once wrote that ‘success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm’. He could have been describing resilience, the ability to remain calm in the face of problems and challenges, and to recover quickly from setbacks. You might think that resilience is an innate quality, but research suggests that it can be learned. And you can build resilience with mindfulness, using the quality of patience.
Being resilient does not mean that you experience less grief, anxiety, or stress than other people do. But it does mean you have good coping skills. You are likely to:
- Hold a positive view of yourself and your abilities
- Make realistic plans and stick to them
- Focus on what you can do, what is under your control
- Manage your emotions effectively.
For midlife women, being more resilient ‘buffers the perception of menopause symptoms’. Research shows that factors such as core resilience, control, and optimism are associated with better adjustment to menopausal symptoms. This can include milder physical discomfort, better life satisfaction and wellbeing, less perceived stress, and fewer episodes of depression.
Using patience to build resilience with mindfulness
The quality of patience helps you understand that learning new habits takes time. Studies suggest it takes at least two months to incorporate new habits into everyday life.
When you are patient with yourself, you can bring greater compassion to your own experience. You are more likely to persevere when things do not go well, because you see failure as part of the process.
One of the benefits of mindfulness is the ability to acknowledge and step away from negative thought patterns. Reframing thoughts in a realistic and constructive light, helps you face life’s inevitable challenges head on. This approach is at the heart of being resilient.
Trusting the process and not putting undue pressure on yourself also makes it easier for you to accept where you are in your journey. You can spend a lot of energy fighting things outside your control, and this takes away from your ability to take the actions you can take.
Five ways to use patience to build resilience
Patience helps you stop being so hard on yourself while you learn a new habit. Just as the caterpillar cannot rush through the pupa stage to become a butterfly, being patient helps you address the ‘not good enough’ self-talk and frame your thinking in terms of realistic abilities and goals.
Here are five ways you can practice patience:
- Slow down, in every sense. Take every opportunity to reduce the pace at which you habitually operate. Try talking more slowly, walking more slowly. May is National Walking Month, so there’s no better time to try being present to how fast you move. If someone in front of you is moving more slowly than you would like, drop back, do not rush past. Notice and acknowledge what that feels like.
- Get comfortable with waiting. When you find yourself in a queue in the shops, or at a traffic light, be grateful for the downtime. Embrace the opportunity to wait. Perhaps take a few conscious breaths, look around and notice what you see, hear, feel, touch, taste. Enjoy the opportunity to be in the present moment.
- Practice sitting still and breathing. Start counting your breaths, see how far you can get before your mind wanders. It is OK if your mind wanders – this is normal. When you notice it has happened, bring your attention back to your breath. Set yourself a target, say 10 breaths. As this gets more comfortable, try this guided meditation to help you practice being still. This practice takes 12 minutes.
- Listen more than you speak. It is tempting when you are in conversation to be thinking about what you want to say next, and not really listening to what the other person says. See if you can suspend your rush to contribute, ask more questions, and practice patience by not interrupting.
- Take up a new hobby, notice how your body and mind react as you stretch your capacities in new ways. Maybe learn a foreign language, or a musical instrument. Or do something you normally do, but in a different way. One which makes you go slower. Try brushing your teeth, for example, with your non-dominant hand.
On this website you will find other guided meditations, to help you build resilience through patience. And if you sign up for my newsletter, you will get a free eBook with 10 ways you can bring mindfulness practice into your everyday life.
Mindfulness is not a quick fix. Regular daily practice is the key. Click here to book a free consultation, and find out how mindfulness can help you use patience to build your resilience.
