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Learning how to practice patience…

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Patience

Patience

Practice patience.  That’s the inspiration card that hangs above my computer at work.  I stuck it there because I need that kind of ‘in your face’ reminder every day.  I often feel like I’m running around, trying to beat a clock somewhere only to find my patience dwindle and be replaced by an excessive supply of worry or stress.  It happens in the grocery line, it happens when I am driving home, when I’m waiting for someone, and most of all it happens within myself.  It’s that internal chatter, telling me to ‘hurry up’ and ‘do this faster’ or ‘I can’t believe how long this is taking.’

The reality is that I’m not even sure what it means to practice patience. How do you practice something you don’t even feel like you have most of the time?  I meet people who make patience look effortless.  I’m sure you know some of these folks too.  They are the people who smile at the ‘slow-talker’ who is taking forever to tell a story.  They are the ones who drive without a hint of frustration behind the guy who has changed lanes 3 times without a blinker and cut them off at least once.  They respond to a hurried apology with “Don’t worry, take your time.”  And they tell you they had to wait at the doctor’s office for over an hour without even flinching.  Who are these people and what drugs do they take to make them so damn calm and patient?

My old perception would be that these people just don’t care and have no ambition.  I would see their lack of concern as aloof and unengaged.  My newer outlook realizes that these individuals are more present than I could even comprehend.  They are totally in the moment and able to appreciate exactly what is happening versus worry about what may happen 30 minutes from now.  They have figured out how to practice patience and make it work for them. I realize that when I’m around one of these more evolved persons of patience I tend to relax more and feel more calm.  I don’t always understand it, but I can’t help but soak up their sense of peace and wonder if I will ever feel that easy about deadlines, long lines, traffic, and all the other nuances.

As I figure out this whole concept, I found a quick way to measure my patience. I just have to stop and ask myself if I am being completely present in this moment.  If I’m worrying about how long this is taking or when I’m going to be done or how fast the line is moving….I’m not able to take in what is happening right now and what it is that I’m feeling and even more, what’s really triggering that feeling and creating this sense of urgency.   Instead, I’m 3 steps ahead and robbing myself of a moment of reflection and insight.  Granted, I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about being present in the grocery line as the lady in front of me piles up her 30 items in the clearly marked “express lane” but I’m starting to lean in to this idea that if I’m there, I should be present. I’m going to try this out for a while and see what happens.  Lucky me, I have plenty of opportunities to practice!

Monday attitude check

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Happy guys

I rarely approach a Monday with the same enthusiasm as a Friday.  Maybe it’s because I have more restless sleep on Sunday night, maybe it’s because my mind can’t turn off the ever-increasing ‘task list’ for the week, or maybe it’s just because I’m not quite ready to release the sweet but so short weekend.  There are a variety of factors at play here, but it is not lost on me how lack of restful sleep and a stressed mind impacts my overall sense of well-being and my attitude to approach the pending day.

The problem is that it’s not just me who feels this energy.  When I am overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated the people in my life can tell and feel this energy too.  I spend a lot of time exploring things that improve my well-being and working on my self-awareness, but things still don’t always work out the way I would like sometimes.  Some days I am simply in a foul mood or just don’t feel my best and being hopeful and enthusiastic doesn’t come so easily. I have to practice self-compassion on these days and remind myself that nobody is perfect and being happy or at peace doesn’t mean living in some delusional state that is void of frustration or challenges or even heartache.  However, when I am feeling frustrated, tired, or otherwise discouraged; it is important for me to pause and think about who I am subjecting all of this awesomeness to and what is my motivation in sharing this kind of energy? Do I just want everyone to know that I’m in a bad mood or am I looking for help and support right now? And most importantly, what can I do to change my outlook on things?

All of that said, I am not suggesting that everyone suppress bad days, gloomy moods, or emotional challenges…I am suggesting that we think about why we feel the way we do and what we can do about it ourselves instead of falling into the habit of using complaining as our primary coping mechanism.  And if you are having a bad morning or entire day, own it.  State that you are in a bad mood, but don’t just complain about it to people.  Assert your problem then figure out what you are going to do about it.  Otherwise it makes for an endless cycle of complaining and bad energy.  And that makes for an exhausting day, any day of the week.

My goal for today is to reduce my complaining and focus on solutions and healthy outlets.  I am not so unrealistic to say that I won’t complain at all….could you imagine?  But at least I’m increasing my awareness and maybe instead of continuing to complain, I will respond and resolve my feelings before it turns into a full-fledged bad mood!  Of course, it may mean that I do nothing more than pause, breathe, and repeat.  Who knows, with enough practice, maybe someday I will bookend my week with TGIM and TGIF!

Hope everyone has a Happy Day! 🙂

Vocabulary of Love

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One of the exercises for my Anthropedia training included developing a list all of feelings that I  link to the expression of love and kindness.  It seemed like such an easy task, and who doesn’t love to make out lists?  Ha!  But when I sat down to write the list, I realized a sudden limitation of my own vocabulary.  What feelings do I think about when I feel love or kindness towards someone?  I mean, it seems so obvious, you love someone so you feel love, right?  I mean, I guess “warm and fuzzy” don’t really qualify as formal definitions.  Needless to say, I had some work to do in this area.

I finally came up with this list, and no…it’s not my exhaustive list.  But it’s a start.  I associate all of these things, in various forms, to the idea of love and kindness:  Gratitude, kindness, compassion, joy, warmth, forgiveness, generosity, understanding, patience, thoughtfulness, happiness, adoration, helpfulness, meaningful, a sense of belonging, frankness, tolerance, comfortable, trusting, acceptance, modesty, and inspiration.

The second part of this exercise was to spontaneously define each of those words and then compare it to the formal definition in a dictionary and decide which definition I wanted to go with.  Then I needed to think of a specific time when I experienced that particular word.  My initial thought was ‘holy cow, that’s going to take some time’.  But I knew that it would be worth it to complete this exercise and see how evident love and kindness are in my life.  So I did it, and going through each word, figuring out what I thought it meant and comparing to a formal definition really helped me understand how I use the words in my daily life. The best part was writing one sentence about a time I experienced each of the words in an interaction with someone.  Boy, talk about a fun task….yes, it took me a little longer than I would like to admit when it came to some of the words, such as ‘tolerance’!  I tend to be pretty passionate about my views so it was a good practice to think about the last time I truly experienced tolerance with someone.  It also made me super aware of how many opportunities I miss to experience more love and kindness through some of these actions.

Overall, I realized that I can easily identify moments when I feel love or kindness from a family member or close friend but I often overlook those times when every day people opt to show kindness or spread love and I am the lucky recipient. Whether it’s experiencing gratitude from the lady at the DMV who helped me clear up a mistake on a traffic ticket, or understanding from a coworker who simply lets me vent about a crappy day, or the unknown driver who patiently let me merge on the highway instead of speeding to pass me up (and therefore is practicing tolerance)!   All of the opportunities are times when I can choose to experience love and kindness exactly as they are and store the goodness to help me through those days when it may not be so abundant. My hope is that after reviewing my sharpened vocabulary related to expression of love and kindness; it makes me more aware of how I can promote it within my own interactions each day as well.

Being versus becoming

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Goodbye comfort zone and hello brand new territory….yep, that’s me; a complete novice writing a first blog.  I have no idea how much I am supposed or expected to share in a blog, so I will keep it short and to the point for now. I have been thinking about using this venue for some time and tonight I finally sat down and started this process.  Hence the title “being versus becoming”.  See, I am often thinking about what I can become, what I can learn, or what I need to do on some task list that exists either on a piece of paper somewhere or on a fragmented thought that I had earlier in the day.  And recently I have realized that I am so busy creating these lists, figuring out how to improve myself, and thinking about ways to get ahead that I have essentially become stuck in an inner state of chaos and criticism that bogs me down and keeps me from fulfilling my own potential.  So today, I am practicing ‘being’.  My goal is to continue  to practice each day and use this blog as my platform.

“Intentional Luck” stands for living my life of intentional Love, Understanding, Compassion, and Kindness. I want to be so many things, but the most important thing for me is to be true to myself.  And being true includes loving myself, understanding myself and the world I live in,  as well as practicing compassion and kindness for both myself and those around me.    I came up with this idea one day as I was talking with friends and realized that we were all going through challenges and all of us were being pretty hard on ourselves.  I sat down and thought, what is going on with me right now?  Why am I being so critical? Then I started asking myself, what is it that I need right now?  I came up with four things I needed….love, understanding, compassion, and kindness.  As I looked down at those four things, I laughed out loud because they all spelled LUCK.  Lucky was the last thing I was feeling at that moment.  But I had to ask myself whose was responsible for that feeling?  I mean, if I wasn’t feeling lucky, why not?  Now, when I catch my inner critic being a little too loud I try to pause and think which part of my luck is not active?  And how can I change that?  Don’t get me wrong, this is a work in progress.  But it sure is nice to have such an easy way to remember the most important things I need in my life and a quick method to take inventory of what’s lacking that may be creating an inner agitation or feeling of tension.

I know there is much for me to learn about loving and understanding myself as well as practicing self compassion and kindness. Some day when I am much older (and wiser) I will think back and smile with gratitude for all the experiences that have helped me learn how to live intentional luck with minimal effort.  Until then, I will document my ideas through this venue and simply enjoy being here today.