Life, Inspired.

If patience is a virtue than I've always been more *vice*.

I feel like I have forever used impatience as one of my strongest driving forces. Forward momentum.

One of the biggest struggles of my working life has been trying to find a way to have patience with the process....without losing my drive.

The integration of calm, cool, composed and ambitious is an ongoing work in progress.

Becoming a mother added a new dimension to my concept of patience.
When Winnie was young my patience seemed unending. It was as though I had found an untapped source of serenity and poise.

But as she grew, older and more like me, I found myself struggling to keep my cool.
It's awful to say but I find it most challenging when others are around. We spent most of last week either visiting or hosting friends and I am acutely aware that my patience for her behaviour drops 100% when others are watching. It's great when you are at your worst in front of others, isn't it?!?

I talk about Winnie and not Pippa because I don't lose my cool with Pip.
Maybe because she's still so young?
Maybe because she's easier to deal with (not really)?
Mostly, I think, because Pippa is so different from me. I don't take her behaviour personally. I'm not wrapped up in the *meaning* behind her behaviour. It just it what it is.....she's tired or hungry or two.....I believe it's a surface issue and that it will pass.

With Winn, *staying patient* is so much more involved. More active.
She triggers me.
Despite my best intentions, my most zen mindset, I can find myself overreacting to the smallest provocation....or the sense that there might be a provocation.

I'm not saying that I freak out at her all day long. I don't. BUT, there is a very specific scenario that makes my head spin every time. It looks something like this:

1. There are people outside our immediate family circle watching or present.
2. She acts insolent, envious, competitive and selfish.

In a split second, usually when she is feeling socially uncomfortable, she acts out all of the most negative personality traits ever attributed to ME.
And it makes me crazy.

The idea of committing to stay patient with a trigger like that all day every day feels to me like committing to run a marathon every day.

I can't keep the pace. At some point, I'm going to fall apart.

So I have to approach things differently. Instead of thinking of patience as an endurance sport, I think of it like a sprint.

Patience happens in a second. In a breath. In a tiny moment where I acknowledge what is really happening for me and commit to helping her.

I am committed to the belief that she is a lovely, sane, predictable little girl.
I am committed to giving her unconditional love and not just getting social mileage out of her good behaviour.
I am committed to taking the time to ask myself:

"Why is my lovely, sane, predictable little girl acting like a rabid animal?"
"What does she need from me right now?" 
"How can I make the situation about  her well-being, growth and learning and not about being right or in control?"

The other night she was exhausted. We'd been outside all day and she was a mess. Arguing, yelling, hitting, spitting, refusing to cooperate. I wanted to lose it. We had had such a lovely day...why did it have to end like this??

But I remembered, this isn't about me, it's about her. What she needs is someone to help her to bed. To help her transition into the sleep she so desperately needs.......yelling is definitely not going to get us there.

So I scooped her up in a long, strong hug. I whispered in her ear while I brushed her teeth and I tickled her back while she settled in bed.

It took 5 minutes and she was asleep.
***

I think of patience less as a sign of moral excellence and more as a sign of deep inner understanding and compassion. 

What about you? What makes you lose your cool?