Patience: Your Secret Weapon in Improving Recovery

Patience – The Struggle is Real!

Practicing patience can often feel like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. We try again and again, only to see the gelatin plop on the floor. Luckily, we are provided plenty of opportunities daily to practice. Being patient in many situations is a virtue and critical to having peace of mind. With the right mindset, we can keep situations in perspective and deal with them in a healthy way. Both Stoicism and AA emphasize the value of being patient.

First and foremost, in recovery, we need to be patient with ourselves. Especially early in sobriety, we may feel like we are not progressing fast enough, we do not understand why we cannot find a paying job, or we get frustrated that people in our lives will not give us a break or trust us. We get impatient and frustrated as we finally do the right things but do not see results.

Turning our lives around is a long-term effort that requires a lot of work and, you guessed it, patience. In a letter dated 1957, Bill W. wrote about patience, saying, “In all these situations we need to develop patience, and especially for the new member, patience is a vital virtue. Without patience, our efforts to help others can be undone.” Another of my favorite quotes on patience comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who instructs us to “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” Recovery is a lifelong process that we do not need to rush. Doing our best is enough.

How to Practice Patience Today

Regarding developing patience, the Stoic concept of the dichotomy of control and the Serenity Prayer are vital guides. Many situations that we may become impatient in are ones that are out of our control. Epictetus notes, “We should always be asking ourselves: ‘Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?'” The Stoics urge us to focus on the things that we can control, as does the Serenity Prayer.

To simplify the never-ending list of things we can become impatient with, I will address a few large buckets, including people, ourselves, situations, and objects. As we investigate these categories, we may choose different strategies when confronted with situations in our control vs. out of our control. Let’s attack the category where we have the least control—people!

Being patient with others can be incredibly challenging in early recovery as we are already overwhelmed managing ourselves. Unless we become a hermit living in a cave, we will have to deal with people of all sorts. Marcus Aurelius reminds us, “People exist for one another. You can instruct or endure them.” He also notes that if you choose the instruct route, “Convince them not to. If you can. And if not, remember: the capacity for patience was given us for a reason.”

A key to develop patience with others is practicing empathy and understanding. Most people we encounter have no idea of what is transpiring in their lives. They may be grieving the loss of a loved one, dealing with health issues, or any number of situations that are contributing to their actions. We, too, have times in our own lives where we act less than honorably. It is important to remember that we are all in this together.

Another critical area is expectation setting. Impatience often stems from unmet expectations of others. When we start feeling impatient, take a little time to assess whether our expectations are reasonable. Recognize that people may have limitations, make mistakes, or operate on different timelines than you do. Develop flexibility in our expectations and remind ourselves that others are on their own journey, just like you.

Lastly, mindfulness is especially helpful when dealing with impatience. Mindfulness is simply being present at the moment and paying attention to the emotions we are experiencing. When conscious, we can recognize when impatience arises and choose a calmer response instead of reacting impulsively. Being mindful and pausing before responding also allows us to ask ourselves, “Why am I being impatient?” Once we understand the source, we can sometimes adjust our mindset or expectations to minimize our frustration.

As noted, practicing patience extends beyond dealing with other people. We must be patient with ourselves as well. The old French proverb sums it up best – Rome was not built in a day. We have spent immeasurable time and energy in active addiction, and we will have to work equally hard to recover. If we wish to experience the 12 Promises of AA, practicing patience in our lives is critical as we work the program.

If you are still getting familiar with the promises, I will include them here.

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity.
We will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.
Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Impatience with ourselves typically manifests as negative “self-talk.” We may call ourselves names, berate ourselves in any number of ways, or judge ourselves as failing by comparing our progress to others. Here are a few things that might help lessen this negative self-talk.

Mindfulness is particularly helpful for assessing and challenging negative self-talk. With awareness of our thoughts, we can identify and label them as negative thoughts. Our thoughts are often irrational or exaggerated, so the effort is to reframe them into a more positive and accurate form. We can start this reframing by challenging the negative thoughts.

Challenging thoughts can be accomplished by asking ourselves questions about them. For example, we can ask, “Is this thought true?” or “How would I advise a friend who is having this same thought?” Once we have determined that the thoughts are not accurate, we can move on to making them more useful to us.

Reframing a thought can be as simple as replacing the thoughts by telling ourselves that we are a work in progress and are doing our best at this moment. We can also find a positive affirmation as a mantra whenever negative thoughts arise.

For example, “I trust the recovery process and know I am on the right path.” It is also important to remind ourselves that we are all on unique paths to healing, so comparison to others is a poor measure of progress. Lastly, we tend to treat others with more compassion than ourselves, so asking and answering the last question helps us identify a more positive approach to reframing our thoughts.

The last two categories, objects, and situations, are more straightforward to deal with. The Stoics remind us that things are either within our control or not. Often, objects and situations are out of our control, so becoming impatient with them only wreaks havoc on our own well-being.

Objects we may become impatient with include:

Assembling furniture with missing parts
Having a flat tire
Something at your home breaking down

These things and many others happen; our only control is how we react to frustrations or inconveniences. My favorite thing to do when these occur is to thank the universe for another opportunity to practice patience and then do the next right thing to remedy the situation. Impatience is not helpful in these sometimes-laughable situations.

I treat situations similarly. Some situations might include traffic jams, long lines at a government agency, or the person in front of us at the grocery paying for their purchase with loose change. We are often in situations where we must get something accomplished. Yet, it must be completed on time for any number of reasons. Suppose the gratitude for an opportunity to practice patience does not help. In that case, this is an excellent opportunity to repeatedly say the serenity prayer.

Final Thoughts on Patience

In conclusion, losing our patience is rarely helpful, and we are typically the only ones who suffer when we do. Keeping our thoughts positive, or at least neutral, will keep us from becoming agitated, which may lead to actions that can have negative consequences. Unfortunately, untreated impatience can trigger a relapse . By practicing patience, we ultimately protect our sobriety and improve our quality of life significantly. Being patient is within our control, so let’s muster the courage to make positive changes.