by M J Ryan
Praise for
The Power of Patience
“This book is a true gift to the world. It's insightful and full of calm, helpful wisdom.”
—Richard Carlson, author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
“Many good people, myself included, have problems with impatience and will benefit, as I did, from this lively, insightful book.”
—Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
“I have been a long-time fan of M.J. Ryan's books and she continues to outdo herself with her new book, The Power of Patience. The book is filled with practical, heart-centered nuggets that open the door to experiencing what we all seek, infinite patience.”
—Gerald G. Jampolsky, MD, author of Shortcuts to God
“When it comes to patience, we don't have to change old habits; we can build better ones. M.J. Ryan shows us how.”
—Sue Bender, author of Plain and Simple and Stretching Lessons: The Daring that Starts from Within
Praise for M.J. Ryan's other work
Attitudes of Gratitude
“. . . an elixir for the soul. M.J. Ryan's words on gratitude heal the heart and inspire breakthroughs. She helps us to know just how powerful a shift in consciousness can be; we can change our lives by changing our thoughts—what a miracle!”
—Kathy Freston, author of Quantum Wellness and The One: Finding Soul Mate Love and Making it Last
“Opened to any page, this book rescues the mind that has forgotten that thanksgiving, independent of circumstances, is the highest wisdom, the most profound liberation, the greatest source of joy
—Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job
“The practice of gratitude empowers, heals, inspires, and fosters heartfelt well-being.”
—Angeles Arrien, PhD, cultural anthropologist and author of The Second Half of Life and The Four-Fold Way
“Thank you for this powerful, simple healing. It is a path of joy and clarity.”
—Stephen and Ondrea Levine, authors of Embracing the Beloved and A Year to Live
Trusting Yourself
“M.J.'s book has softened and yet empowered me with insights, information, and inspiration on the life-enhancing benefits of self-trust. I wish she had written this while I was raising Wynonna and Ashley. If you'll take her wisdom to heart you'll find greater happiness in your relationships and in your mind.”
—Naomi Judd, author of Naomi's Breakthrough Guide
“M.J. Ryan is right: many of our individual problems and collective unhappiness stem from our lack of self-trust. Trusting Yourself reminds us of this essential aspect of living a full life and offers us stories and practical suggestions for re-establishing self-trust even as we face our human foibles and flaws with honesty and humor. A valuable book for living today to the fullest.”
—Oriah Mountain Dreamer, author of The Invitation and The Call
“With clarity and compassion, M.J. Ryan provided priceless guidance for filling in my self-trust blanks and, better yet, convinced me that I had the ability and wisdom to do so. Trusting Yourself has shot to the top of my gift-giving list!”
—Sue Patton Thoele, author of The Woman's Book of Courage
“Cultivating genuine self-trust is at the heart of living and loving fully. In Trusting Yourself, M.J. Ryan not only shows us how, she gives us the confidence to take the necessary steps. Through heart-warming stories and insightful guidance, M.J. reminds us of our inherent value, wisdom and wholeness.”
—Tara Brach, author of Radical Self-Acceptance
“M.J. Ryan has identified the great Teacher within us all, that gentle presence, whole and certain, that is always here to guide us. It is no less than the essence of our self. But how do we access it? In engaging personal narrative and precise precept, Ryan takes us by the hand and gently leads us back to ourselves. Perhaps more than any other book, Trusting Yourself is an invitation to come home.”
—Hugh Prather, author of The Little Book of Letting Go and Notes to Myself
365 Health and Happiness Boosters
“Reading 365 Health and Happiness Boosters is like lifting my face to the sun each morning. Every little ray of M.J. Ryan's wisdom warms the heart.”
—Sue Patton Thoele, author of eight books, including The Woman's Book of Courage
“Antidotes to the blues.”
—Judy Ford, author of Wonderful Ways to Love a Child and Between Mother and Daughter
“Happiness is the inherent nature of being human. If you have forgotten the simple truth, this book serves as a wonderful reminder to ‘stop and smell the roses.’”
—Brian Luke Seaward, PhD, author of Stressed is Desserts Spelled Backward
The Giving Heart
“M.J. Ryan is a wizard at giving. Practical and inspiring, her book offers generosity on every page. The Giving Heart shows us how we can ‘feel the gift in motion’ toward ourselves and others.”
—Sue Bender, author of Plain and Simple and Stretching Lessons: The Daring that Starts from Within
“This is a wonderful book about the joy, the fulfillment, and, yes, the majesty of giving. Read it and be transformed
—Daphne Rose Kingma, author of Coming Apart, Finding True Love, and The 9 Types of Lovers
“M.J. Ryan gives us the ultimate gift—the key to experience the sweetness life offers—in The Giving Heart. This is a book you'll cherish. You'll read a little bit, take a deep breath, and feel complete.”
—Jackie Waldman, author of The Courage to Give and Teens with the Courage to Give
This edition first published in 2013 by Conari Press,
an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
With offices at:
665 Third Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94107
www.redwheelweiser.com
Sign up for our newsletter and special offers
by going to www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter.
Copyright © 2003, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Originally published in 2003 by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. ISBN: 0-7679-1486-4.
ISBN: 978-1-57324-599-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request
Cover design: Jim Warner
Typeset in Cochin
Cover photograph © Clover/SuperStock
Printed in the United States of America
WOR
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
www.redwheelweiser.com
www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter
The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.
ARNOLD H. GLASGOW
CONTENTS
1
HOW THIS OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUE CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFE
Stick-to-It-Ness: The Power of Persistence
No Reason to Stress: The Power of Serenity
That's OK: The Power of Acceptance
2
PATIENCE'S GIFTS
Patience Creates Excellence
Patience Brings Us into Harmony with the Cycles of Nature
Patience Helps Us Make Better Decisions
Patience Connects Us to Hope
Patience Helps Us Live Longer and More Stress-Free
Pat
ience Helps Us Waste Less Time, Energy, and Money
Patience Gets Us More of What We Want
Patience Guards the Door to Anger
Patience Gives Us Greater Tolerance and Empathy
Patience Helps Us Have Happier Love Relationships
Patience Makes Us Better Parents
Patience Teaches the Power of Receptivity
Patience Is the Heart of Civility
Patience Grows Our Souls
3
THE ATTITUDES OF PATIENCE
I'm Still Learning
Patience Is a Decision
This Too Shall Pass
The Screws Are Just as Important as the Wings
Waiting Is Part of Being Alive
It's Better to Work At It Than to Buy Your Way Out of It
Where Are You Hurrying To?
Boredom Is All in Our Heads
Remember Rule Number Six
Tuning Out Is as Important as Tuning In
What Does This Matter in the Larger Scheme of Things?
People Are Only Human
Some Things Are Worth Waiting For
It Will Work Out
It Takes as Long as It Takes
There's More Than One Right Way
Welcome, Teachers of Patience
Enough Is Enough
Be Here Now
4
THE PRACTICES OF PATIENCE
Tell Yourself the Truth About Where You Are Right Now
Tune In to Yourself in the Morning
When Am I Patient? Let Me Count the Ways
Know Your Impatience Triggers
Learn Your Early-Warning Signs
Take a Breather
Climb Down to the Base of the Tree
Road Sage, Not Road Rage
Issue a Storm Warning to Children
Tap Into Your Inner Wisdom
Keep Your Blood Sugar Level Up
Reframe the Situation
Find Something Else to Do
Practice with Aging Parents and Other Elders
Respond from Your Heart
Tell Yourself You Have All the Time You Need
Do a Risk Analysis
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
Underwhelm Yourself
Ask Yourself: Is This Thing Still Flying?
5
TWENTY SIMPLE PATIENCE BOOSTERS
6
ABOVE ALL, BE MERCIFUL WITH YOURSELF
My Thanks
Bibliography
1
HOW THIS OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUE CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFE
Dear God,
I pray for patience.
And I want it RIGHT NOW!
OREN ARNOLD
CONSIDER THIS:
Some McDonald's are promising lunch in ninety seconds or it's free.
The average doctor visit now lasts eight minutes.
An over-the-counter drug is marketed for women who “don't have time for a yeast infection.”
Politicians currently take a mere 8.2 seconds to answer a question, regardless of the complexity of the topic.
A popular all-you-can-eat buffet in Tokyo charges by the minute—the faster you eat, the cheaper it is.
The head of Hitachi's portable computer division motivates his workers with the slogan: “Speed is God, and time is the devil.”
Developers of high rises have discovered an upward limit to the number of floors—the amount of time people are willing to wait for elevators. Fifteen seconds is what feels best; if it stretches to forty, we freak out.
All of us these days, it seems, spend our lives rushing around. We're in constant motion, and we expect everything and everyone around us to go faster as well. As technology watcher David Shenk notes, between our smartphones and our speed dials, email and FedEx, “quickness has disappeared from our culture. We now only experience degrees of slowness.” Writer James Gleick says it more bluntly—we're all suffering from “hurry sickness,” a term first coined by Meyer Friedman, the identifier of the Type A personality.
I know I have it. I can't stand how slowly my computer boots up. I actually timed it recently; it took one minute and I was fidgeting the whole time. I'm the person pushing the elevator button more than once to make it come faster. I hit the pound key to bypass the message on other people's voice mail. And I use the one-minute button on the microwave because it's quicker than punching in the time myself.
This is how bad I've got it. Yesterday, I went to my local copy shop. I made my copies and was standing in line, waiting to pay. The young man behind the counter was struggling to help a very old lady figure out how to send a package to her grandchild. There's one other person in line in front of me. My inner monologue goes like this: Lines, I hate lines. Why can't they get enough help in here? (Fume.) Why can't they at least post how much they charge for copies so I could pay without waiting? (A minute passes. More fuming.) I don't have time for this. I've got more important things to do. I can't just stand here. I have to get home and write this book on patience.
I can't take it anymore. I blurt out from my place in line, “How much for a copy?” “Ten cents,” replies the flustered young man. Flinging down a dollar for my forty-cent purchase, I storm out of the store, the irony of the situation not occurring to me until I am driving away.
Another word for hurry sickness is impatience, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one suffering from it. Road rage, violence of all sorts, blowups at the office, divorce, yelling at our kids . . . all of these and many other of the world's ills can be traced at least in part to a lack of patience.
A while ago the state of California ran public service announcements to “slow for the cone zone.” It was a campaign to get drivers to slow from sixty-five to fifty-five miles per hour in construction areas because so many workers have been killed. The ads informed listeners that the time difference between going fifty-five and sixty-five in a one-mile construction area is ten seconds. People are getting killed because we're not willing to get somewhere ten-seconds-a-mile later!
Indeed it appears that the faster things go, the less patience we are able to muster. This is a problem because life inevitably has a certain degree of delay in the form of lines, traffic jams, and automated message systems. More important, our lack of patience creates difficulties because the more complex of life's challenges—illness, disability, relationship conflicts, job crises, parenting issues, to name a few—require that we practice patience in order not merely to cope, but to grow in love and wisdom.
Without patience, we can't truly learn from the lessons life throws at us; we're unable to mature. We remain at the stage of irritable babies, unable to delay gratification more than momentarily, unable to work toward what we truly want in any dedicated way. If we want to live wider and deeper lives, not just faster ones, we have to practice patience—patience with ourselves, with other people, and with the big and small circumstances of life itself.
I know we're longing to put more patience in our lives because I've published more than two hundred books and written twenty-two. Never before had people said to me so emphatically, “I need that!” when I told them what I was working on. But with this book, every person who heard of it said something to that effect. The world is going faster and faster and we are all trying to keep up. Never before has patience been more needed—and never has it been in such short supply.
But we can change that. With the right attitudes and a bit of practice, we can learn to harness the power of patience in our lives. If I, a speeded-up, Type A, overachieving middle-aged woman can do it, so can you. It's a combination of motivation (wanting to), awareness (paying attention to our inner landscape), and cultivation (practicing).
We can do it because patience is a human quality that can be strengthened. We have what we need. We're patient already—how else did we get through school, learn to love, find a job? We're just not always aware of what helps us be patient, what triggers our impatience, or what to do when our patience wears thin.
The most
important thing to know is that patience is something you do, not something you have or don't have. It's like a muscle. We all have muscles, but some people are stronger than others because they work out.
The same is true with patience. Some of us may be better at it right now, but each of us can develop more with practice. That's what this book is all about.
The Power of Patience looks at the importance of patience—what it can do for us, why it's so crucial now, and how to become more patient. It does this from a broad spiritual and inspirational point of view, using my own stories as well as ideas from centuries of wisdom on the topic from around the world. It springs from my quest to live a happy and meaningful life, and my passion to help others do the same.
This has been a lifelong search for me, but it began to take shape about twenty years ago, when I, as the executive editor of Conari Press, put together a little book with some friends called Random Acts of Kindness. It seemed like a good idea at the time—let's do nice little things for strangers—but when I began to see and hear about the effects it was having, I began to sense I had stumbled onto something very important. Suddenly I was inundated with letters from people telling me of the joy they had experienced as either a doer or a receiver of these acts. The letter I will never forget was from a high school student who said he was going to kill himself, until he read our book and decided that maybe life was worth living.
I became fascinated with the power of kindness to create happiness, and went on to help write a series of books on the topic. And I began to try to become more kind, both to strangers and those I am close to. And lo and behold, just like the boy who didn't kill himself, I got happier.
Then I began to wonder, If kindness can have such a positive effect, what other qualities right under our noses could have similar results? I turned my attention to gratitude, and discovered that the more I cultivated a sense of appreciation for all that I had, the happier and less fearful I was. Again, I wrote about my experiences, this time in Attitudes of Gratitude, which also seemed to strike a chord. And once again, I received many letters, this time about the power of gratitude.