Patience is one of the seven attitudes of mindfulness. Learn patience through mindfulness, and you help yourself and others.
The events of your life unfold over time. There is no need to rush. You may find yourself getting frustrated with your practice, feeling like you are not getting ‘there’ quickly enough. This is part of the practice, and you can use it to develop greater compassion, for yourself and others.
Understanding patience – opening to the present moment
The Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu observed that ‘nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished’.
When you practice patience, you are practicing being open to each moment, as it unfolds. If you find this uncomfortable, try the Soothing Rhythm Breathing to calm challenging thoughts or emotions.
Remind yourself that just as a caterpillar cannot rush through the pupa stage to become a butterfly, you cannot force your mind to change to an external time frame.
Grow patience with practice
Retraining your brain takes time – up to two months to embed changes visible on MRI. The more patience you can bring to your practice, the more effective you will be. Even if you see yourself as impatient, you can develop a more patient outlook with regular practice.
You may need to trust the process. Sometimes you can practice for a while without seeing any obvious results. Then one day, something will happen, and you will suddenly realise you have responded, not reacted.
Five ways to practice patience
- When you notice impatience arising, get curious about what thoughts are going through your head. Notice your mind’s talk and, when you are ready, gently challenge it. Is it true? What are the thoughts all about? Are there other fears underneath the main thoughts?
- Deliberately chose to slow down and increase your tolerance for patience – if someone in front of you on foot is slow, see how it feels to drop back, not rush past. Repeat several times and see if it gets easier (or more difficult) to be more patient.
- Notice how your body response to impatience. Do you feel your impatience somewhere in particular? Does it create tension, maybe even pain, if so, where? Can you use your breath to soften the tightness? When you do, how does this impact your sense of impatience?
- Resolve to listen more than you speak. It can take effort not to rush in with solutions, interrupt with your own agenda. Practice patience by practicing listening rather than speak.
- Take up a new hobby or learn a skill and practice patience with yourself. Give yourself permission to take time to learn. Better still, teach something you know to someone else. And practice patience with your skills as a teacher and theirs as a learner.
Being patient helps you stay in the present moment, more of a human ‘being’, as opposed to the human-‘doing’, rushing headlong to the future. Life is not a race. Be gentle with yourself, always remind yourself you do not have to have all the answers today.
Try this guided meditation to help you learn patience through mindfulness.
