I seem to have these quite often although I call them by another name- note to self. And I don’t always remember what they are but this time I thought I’d write about it to help me remember. But first let me preface this: In certain situations, I am known to be somewhat impatient i.e. standing in lines, driving, waiting for a result or phone call. Up until now, I’ve struggled with impatience and was never really sure how to deal with it. Sometimes my impatience could be quite embarrassing. Saying all of this, I prided myself on not being a worrier. I knew and read that worrying never helped any situation, in fact, it could harm or hinder it. So here I find myself, confined to a room until a test can be done. In my head, the sooner I get the test, the sooner I can leave. I start to get impatient. Calling the people, asking when they will come. I spaced out my calls every hour. They promised to be here during a certain time period but failed to show. That’s when I became impatient. So here is my epiphany: I now realise my impatience is a type of worry! Wow! Hard blow to the ego. All these years I thought I was making progress by not worrying about things and it was one less thing to work on.
Let me explain my reasoning on how I came to impatience = worry. When something isn’t happening i.e. the people coming to test me, I get in an agitated state. Why? I asked myself. Taking this thought a bit deeper, I had to admit that I was worried or even afraid that their lateness would hinder my release. I have all these tools to help me when “big” things happen in my life but couldn’t seem to apply them to the little things. I think it was because I put them in a different category- impatience and that was just my personality. Yet my fear or worry about the outcome of this told me that I was not trusting. Did I really believe the Universe was for me? That goodness lies ahead? Or did that only apply to major circumstances? Here is a reminder of what I read recently by Dr. Joseph Murphy on the subject of worry.
“When you worry, you are focusing your mental energies and directing your mind toward what you don’t want. In this way, you create conditions, experiences and events that disturb you. Worry means that you are using your mind negatively and destructively,.”
“When you worry, you are anxious not about what has happened, but about what might happen. Change your present mode of thought and you will change your future. Your future is your present thought made manifest.”
So with these words of wisdom accompanying my epiphany, I have some work to do. Awareness is the beginning of change. As I equate my impatience with worry, and see the damage it can do, the next time I get impatient, I will practise asking myself “Why am I impatient? What is my fear or worry?” And with enough soul-searching and reminding, the impatience will recede.
