It’s getting hot. My patience is wearing thin. When I am asked these days how I am doing, my thought is “Okay, until I am not okay.” Okay until I drop a pen or a car chooses to travel in my lane. Okay, until someone annoys me.
I am not always this on edge, but lately I have been. The last couple of days I picked back up a book I had been reading. It is called “Buddha is as Buddha Does”. I had left off at the Third Paramita - Patience. When I open myself up, the Universe provides just what I need. I am reading and re-reading. I have been trying to put into use some of the techniques the book suggests.
The first kind of patience the book suggests is what we in the program call “restraint of tongue and pen”. This author calls it the “Sacred Pause”. But, like line in recovery, the book says we must do more. He talks about what we call finding our part in the situation, specifically he suggests we accept that our lack of patience is the problem, not the situation at hand. He suggests that I then ask myself “Who is this person?”, “How can I identify with him or her?” and last of all “Why is he or she deserving of my patience?”
Oh, one last thing - the action part. I always hate this part. “Decide on - and commit to - at least one specific step I can take toward this person to demonstrate my active patience.” This sounds suspiciously like “amending” my behavior. Sometimes I really hate being a grown up.
Hold that thought...
James
"He suggests that I then ask myself “Who is this person?”, “How can I identify with him or her?” and last of all “How can I identify with him or her?”"
ReplyDeleteIs that a typo, or is “How can I identify with him or her?” repeated for emphasis?
In any case, I always try to remember what my sponsor says - "If I am disturbed, there is something wrong with *me*." My lack of patience may very well be the problem, but I always try and identify *why* I lack patience - what am I afraid of?
A lot of people piss me off. But unless I've harmed them, I don't owe them amends - do I? I just try to identify my part, my character defects, ask God to remove them, and then move on and try to be of service to God and others.
Or maybe I'm just trying to sidestep the whole patience thing because I don't have any, and some of us "really like our character defects." ;)
thanks for the heads up on the typo Jeremy. Fixed. Also...thanks for your comments. I always like what you have to say!
ReplyDeleteAnd, Jeremy...when I think of amends, I think of changing - as in amending a document. I need to amend my behavior when it leads to a disturbance in myself as much as I do when it leads to a disturbance in others. This impatience thing is disturbing me.
ReplyDeleteDiego: Sounds like amends to yourself. Which is a great idea.
ReplyDeleteIn my fellowships we're instructed to put ourselves first on the amends list because we were the only person who could never hope to escape our (self-imposed) misery. Is that the same in AA?
apel,
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, we "make amends to ourselves" by working the rest of the steps (after Step 3, where we made our decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood Him). I wouldn't say I put myself first - but, I do, and I must, put my recovery first.