Be patient with yourself

First, learn to be patient with yourself

“Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal.

Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.”
— Brian Adams

Impatience is the same thing as not living in the NOW. If you are focusing on future outcomes, you cannot be fully appreciating all the wonderful things happening to you in the present moment.

The best place to start practicing the art of patience is with yourself. Once you’ve been able to see some effective positive results, then you can practice patience with your spouse, family, friends, and whomever or whatever you come across in your daily journey.

Create Yourselfl Daily

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
— George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

We start early in life saying certain things about ourselves, such as? I’m a shy person, or I’m intelligent, or I’m stupid, or I’m clumsy, or I’m slow, etc. At this point in our life, we can begin to understand the power of words and of the mind. We can come to the realization that all of these statements were creating self-fulfilling prophecies.

We have the power to be whoever we choose to be and however we choose to be. If you have instilled in your life that you are patient, then you have affirmed yourself into being that way. Conversely, if you’ve been saying repeatedly for decades, “I’m impatient”, that’s where you will find yourself now. But you can change all that on a daily basis starting today.

Each morning when we wake up, we have a new day ahead of us to be whatever we choose and act however we want. We can create ourselves daily. Consciously choose to let go of old resentments, grudges, habits, and fear, and fill the void with all positive and loving ways of being and growing. The power is in your words and in your mind.

Try something new

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems — not people; to focus your energies on answers — not excuses.”
— William Arthur Ward

Sometimes the saying, “Old habits are hard to break” is truer than you can or want to believe. You promised yourself that you were going to change your ways, not fall into the same traps. But here it comes again and you just can’t seem to stop it from happening.

Give yourself a break. We all know that it’s not easy to change. Especially when you have been doing something one way for so long — for some it might even be a lifetime. Coming down on yourself with blame and self-loathing will not help the situation, and will more likely reinforce whatever negative, fear-based pattern you were trying to change in the first place.

When this happens, it is important that you recognize the old patterns. Catch yourself, even in mid-flight. Then try something new. Try not to let it continue or end like it always did before. Throw yourself a curve and before long your habits won’t know what to expect the next time they try to creep up into your life.

Recharging your body, mind, and soul

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
— John Muir (1838-1914)

Most of the people I know would agree with me when I mention that getting away from the city and surrounding oneself with nature is one of the best ways to recharge the body, mind, and soul. It is my best prescription for relief of everyday stress.

But also, just like most people I know, it isn’t always that easy to get away to recharge as often as I would like. So my solution is to take mini nature breaks by just getting outside for walks around the block soaking up as much “fresh” air as possible, and looking at the well-thought out gardens along the way.

Just a little bit of nature everyday can help to balance out the surge of technology that we are faced with most days. Treat yourself with a daily dose of nature — walk, look out the window, or even get a few plants in your office space. It doesn’t take much, but it will have wonderful benefits for your body, mind, and soul in the long run.

And on the more serious side of things — we are quickly forgetting as a society the importance of nature with our energetic balance. More and more children are plopping themselves in front of digital media to experience life, when they really would benefit from running around in a forest.

Here are some books on the importance of aligning yourself and your children with nature again.

Honor your emotions, don’t dwell on them

“In dealing with emotions, the first step is awareness. Identify the emotion, but don’t identify with the emotion.”
— Stephanie Noble, “Emotions as Honored Guests”

How do you deal with your emotions? Do you let them overwhelm you, giving them added energy? Do you try to ignore them, forcing them to get your attention by whatever means possible?

Emotions are a normal, natural part of being human. Each emotion you feel — happiness, joy, love, frustration, anger, sadness — is trying to convey a message to you and has a purpose for your present journey. In order to learn from them, you must honor them enough to acknowledge their presence. However, it is important to realize that you don’t need to become the emotion in order to understand it.

My personal technique to deal with the more negative emotions is to become aware of the exact emotion I am experiencing. I allow myself to feel it. I allow myself to understand where it is coming from. And then I quietly say to myself, “release”, to keep the emotion in motion and out of my being (emotion = energy in motion).

Be the neutral observer to your own emotions and you will neither let it take over your life right then and there nor later when it ends up boiling over from years of neglect. Deal with each individual emotion until you understand why it has come to you at this time. You don’t need to be a victim or hostage to your emotions any longer. And you will probably surprise yourself at the wisdom your emotions hold.

What do you remember?

“Remember the compliments, forget the slights.” — Unknown

Why is it that when someone says something mean or critical to you, you can seem remember it forever, and how easy it is to forget sometimes how many good things have been said as well.

Why do the slights have more power? Or is it our mind / ego that wants to hold on to them to keep us in check?

Whatever the reason, the best advice I could give for this situation, is to hold on tight to the compliments. Savour them. Pull them out and use them when you need a boost. And simply forget the slights. Put on the teflon shield and let it slide.

See what is great!

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”
— Anne Frank

Whether it is a person, a house, a job, a country, you name it, I recommend that you see what is great. It is so easy to slip into the mode of seeing only the things that need improvement, or that are no good about each one.

There is usually one thing we could do to improve and work on. People are not perfect, houses need repairs, jobs have their up and down moments, countries go through trying times. However, I feel that it is so much better for us to focus on what is good already.

Doesn’t it make you feel better when you think about all the things that are already working out? And when you focus on all the good things, it increases that “happy” vibration and attracts more “happy” things to focus on. Yes, be aware of the other side too, but rejoice in what is already great.

Belief and expectations

“Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as you can change your beliefs.”
— Unknown

Positive belief is very powerful. It is also can be called “optimism”. This is a secret discovered by all who succeed during very challenging life situations. Nelson Mandela, Ernest Shackleton, Eleanor Roosevelt — all admitted that what got them through their most challenging times was an ability to focus on the positive. They used what can be called “the magic of believing.” (Claude Bristol).

These optimistic people tended to succeed not only because they believed that everything would turn out right, but because they had the expectation of success that made them work toward that success until they achieved it.

Slow down and hear the message

“The more severe the pain or illness, the more severe will be the necessary changes. These may involve breaking bad habits, or acquiring some new and better ones.”
— Peter McWilliams, Life 101

No one likes to be sick, but at this time of year it seems almost unavoidable, especially if you have young children in school who are constantly being exposed to viruses and contagious germs. I had been holding off strong until just last week when finally one caught up with my son…and then me. Surprisingly, the topic for the day in Simple Abundance by Sarah ban Breathnach was “When You’re Sick”, as if I had timed it on purpose.

The message was clear — give myself time to be sick (translation: slow down for a moment and take care of yourself!) So I gave myself the morning off…sort of. Don’t forget, my son was sick too.

Every sickness has a lesson for us if we are able to look deeper into our lives. Some can be as simple as taking some time off. Others can be more complicated and profound. The next time you are sick, after doing all you can do to make yourself feel better, take a moment to see if there is some lesson in it for you. And do your best to incorporate the necessary changes into your life to allow for a complete healing to take place.

The Secret to all-day happiness

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” — Anne Frank

Here’s a quick tip to changing your day around when negativity seems to be seeping in. A friend of mine told me the cure for negative thoughts was to say “switch” each time you catch yourself dwelling on the negative. It doesn’t matter what word exactly you say. Try out something that feels good to you like, “oops”, or “thank you for sharing”, or “next”.

Once you become consistent at catching yourself (you may be surprised at first how frequent it is), it becomes an instant reminder to switch your thoughts to more positive things and feel better in the process. And the good part is, you will actually have fewer negative thoughts by reprogramming mind one thought at a time.

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