Cultivating Patience: A Reflection for Mental Health Awareness Month
Lynn Schlossberger LPC
Sometimes change can’t happen fast enough. We want our relationship to recover immediately. We want the storm to pass. We want the pain medication to work. We want to know the outcome of an election still 6 months away, or 6 hours away. Waiting is hard.
Patience is the art of coping with circumstances we cannot control. When our emotional resources fail short, we become frustrated, overwhelmed, and unproductively angry. Practicing patience is both a spiritual discipline and a mental health coping strategy. In a time of unpredictable change, we need tools to help us remain grounded. Patience is good medicine. Welcome to Mental Health Awareness month.
Patience does not imply passivity, accepting delays or disappointments or recurring injustice as a fact of nature. It is a discipline of attentive waiting, calming our spirit and engaging in emotional self regulation as we get our bearings. Impatience results in focus on what is missing, instead of what we have. Our culture feeds impatience; access to online resources leads us to expect fast answers, and we are frustrated when they are not available in real life. Frustration leads to impulsive decisions in anger or depression, assuming the worst, or giving up on dreams too soon. Cultivating patience and courage prepare us to clear our minds for effective action when the next right action becomes clear, and the moment appears ripe.
Patience is a form of self-compassion, honoring the importance of our unmet needs even as we accept the reality of not getting them met right now. Frustration is corrosive, and sabotages our ability to tolerate the need to wait. Mindfulness practice helps us cultivate patience, getting through the current moment emotionally intact. The change we hope for is not yet; patience is the mindset that allows us to be at peace in the meantime.
Mindfulness practice is the discipline of accepting the present moment, and increasing our frustration tolerance. It guides us not to give up, but to be alert for unseen possibilities while we wait and hope. Mindfulness practice invites us to cultivate awareness of the people around us that may offer community, and the natural world around us that may sustain us in the meantime. In these chaotic times, may we all cultivate patience.
Lynn Schlossberger LPC