The Mindful Attitude of Patience by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Mindful Attitude of Patience 2
Jon Kabat-Zinn
What is the Mindful Attitude of Patience?
The Mindful attitude of patience demonstrates that we understand and accept. That sometimes things must unfold in their own time. A child may try to help a butterfly to emerge by breaking open its chrysalis. Usually, the butterfly doesn’t benefit from this. Any adult knows that the butterfly can only emerge in its own time. The process cannot be hurried.
In the same way, we cultivate a mindful attitude of patience toward our own minds and bodies. When practicing mindfulness attitudes. We intentionally remind ourselves that there is no need to be impatient with ourselves. Because we find the mind judging all the time. Or because we are tense or agitated or frightened. Or because we have been practicing for some time and nothing positive seems to have happened.
We give ourselves room to have these experiences. Why? Because we are having them anyway! When they come up, they are our reality, they are part of our life unfolding at this moment. So we treat ourselves as well as we would treat the butterfly. Why rush through some moments to get to other, “better” ones? After all, each one is your life at that moment.
Practicing Patience
When you practice the mindful attitude of patience in MBSR training. You are being with yourself in this patient way. You are bound to find that your mind has “a mind of its own.” We notice that one of the mind’s favorite activities is to wander into the past and into the future and lose itself in thinking. Some of its thoughts are pleasant. Others are painful and anxiety-producing. In either case, thinking itself exerts a strong pull on our awareness. Much of the time our thoughts overwhelm our perception of the present moment. They cause us to lose our connection to the present.
The attitude of patience can be a particularly helpful quality to invoke when the mind is agitated. It can help us to accept this wandering tendency of the mind. While reminding us that we don’t have to get caught up in its travels.
Practicing a mindful attitude of patience reminds us. That we don’t have to fill up our moments with activity. With more thinking in order for them to be rich. In fact, it helps us to remember that quite the opposite is true. To be patient is simply to be completely open to each moment, accepting it in its fullness, knowing that, like the butterfly, things can only unfold in their own time.
The Mindful Attitude of Patience and Wisdom
The mindful attitude of patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time. A child may try to help a butterfly to emerge by breaking open its chrysalis. Usually, the butterfly doesn’t benefit from this. As adults, we know that the butterfly can only emerge in its own time, that the process cannot be hurried.
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Respectfully,
Heidi & Ross
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G Ross Clark C.C.P.,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada,
Email- TheMindfulCoach@gmail.com,
Training- MBSRtraining.com