Practicing Patience

It's summer, and not only are temperatures rising but so can tempers. With summer comes family vacations, trips to theme parks and trips to visit other family. The saying "patience is a virtue" could never be truer!

Things requiring our patience include: waiting in a long line; traffic; visiting family; waiting for an important call or email; waiting for a late friend or business associate for a meeting; waiting for a delayed plane, train or bus; waiting for a child to express what they want or finish what they are saying; and managing a child that does not want to go to bed or take a bath or eat their food.

In researching this issue, I found that research supports patience is not something we are born with, rather it is something we learn.

Yoga has been a tremendous vehicle for me to learn patience in my life. I still remember my first yoga class- my feet, hot and sweaty, were slipping on the mat in a yoga pose in which I was trying to look good. As I followed the instructor's many verbal cues: "square your hips, turn your back foot at a 45 degree angle, make sure your front knee is not over your ankle, reach your arms up, but watch that your shoulders don't rise, turn your pinkies towards each other and breathe", I really wondered when I was going to experience the calm everyone talked about!! After ten years of practice, I feel I've come a long way and I still find patience is the key to my practice. These days I practice a slower style of yoga called Yin Yoga, where you hold poses for 3 to 5, sometimes 10 minutes. I like this style because it causes me to slow down, pay closer attention to my body and breath, and practice a deeper level of patience.

I find the patience I practice in yoga follows me off the mat and in the grocery line, in traffic or waiting for someone to get back to me.

Patience helps me when I'm teaching a yoga class and the class I have in mind to teach changes when a child wants to tell me their story, which cues another child to share her story, and so on. Patience is one of the character building words we teach our students in class. It is one of the words I've had instructors thank me for having in the program because it reminds them to be patient, both in class and in their lives. When I am leading a training one of the things I remind my instructors is to be a model for showing the yoga poses correctly and for the character building lessons we teach. I feel it is inauthentic for us to teach kids compassion, peace, non-judgment, caring, forgiveness, acceptance, and patience if we are not practicing these virtues ourselves.

So what is the best way to practice patience? First, remember to be gentle with yourself, practice patience in small increments, and build as you go.

Ways to Practice Patience:
- Take deep breaths.Count to ten.
- Take a moment for yourself.
- Practice patience in small increments (either by time such as 5 minutes, the drive from home to office (one day), and/or standing in a line). As you reach those milestones you can gradually build on them.
- Practice empathy. Depending on the situation, imagine yourself in the other person's shoes. This is a good one to practice with family.
- See the innocence in a child's behavior when they are interrupting you at work or on the phone. (They are not interrupting to bug you.)
- Notice how your body feels when you are not experiencing patience as well as when you are. Use this information as cues to practice patience.
- Resist the impulse to finish another's sentence. By listening fully we show our respect and let the other person know they are worthy of our time.
- Give yourself plenty of time to get somewhere.
- Read a magazine instead of watching the clock when at a doctor's appointment.
- Only do one thing at a time.
- Remember some things take time.

Patience is a change in attitude and without patience we experience frustration, become easily annoyed, bothered, irritated and angry. With patience, we become more accepting of what is and we experience ease and a sense of peace.