When I received last month’s Power of Moms e-mail call-out for articles, I sighed and clicked the computer shut with a snap. What could I possibly have to say about patience? Next to nothing. Anyone who comes in our home will watch me lose it at least five times a day. They might shudder as I slide into sharp retorts with my preschooler’s zillionth request for “just one more” whatever. They might watch me explode in five seconds flat when my toddler wails and hurls his spoon across the floor, flinging food as it flies.
Patience has never been my virtue. Sometimes I blame my Irish temper. Other times, it is a lack of sleep. More often than not, it is the crazy juggle of work, kids, home and career. I pray every day to practice patience better, to mother more mindfully, to breathe more deeply and live more calmly. But I am still a painfully slow “work-in-process” in the patience department.
When The Power of Moms came asking for reflections on the power of patience, I figured I had absolutely nothing to say on the subject. The perfectly patient mothers who haunt my mind’s eye with their ever-calm responses to their kids’ endless questions would have to be the ones to write this month.
Then, one wintry afternoon as snow drifted down, I read another mother’s words, about patience being a willingness to suffer. Familiar tears pricked the corners of my eyes as they often do whenever someone else’s wisdom shoots straight to the center of a truth I have not yet named. Which is, that this must be precisely my problem with patience: I hate to suffer.
When my kids’ whining is grating on my last nerve, the pasta pot is about to bubble over, the phone is ringing off the hook and the dog is dancing in circles underfoot begging to go outside, I do not want to suffer in the moment one second longer. I want to scream and stomp my feet and make it stop. But what would happen if I were willing to rest in the discomfort for a minute? What if I were to acknowledge the aggravating annoyances and live in the suffering of imperfection? What if I could try giving into a willingness to suffer?
I thought back on times when I have lived with suffering. The agonizing wait of infertility. The darkness of depression during pregnancy. The aching loss of people I love. I have known something about suffering, and I have made it through. Could I do the same with the small sufferings of my everyday?
I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I gave it a whirl.
That very day, the witching hour crept in devilishly early. Both boys were tired and hungry, dinner loomed unplanned, urgent work e-mails kept flying in after I was supposed to be finished for the day. I could feel the tightening in my pulse, the rising rush of impatience ready to blast out of my mouth with angry words.
As quickly as I could, I tried to think about what it meant to be willing to suffer. I took a deep breath and realized I had the power to decide whether I was willing to stay in the moment I was so desperate to escape, whether I was willing to suffer these small annoyances out of love.
I turned to my whining boys, crying as they knocked into each other around the kitchen counter. I saw how small, tired and hungry they were. I dropped down in front of their scrunched-up faces and whispered, “Should we all take a deep breath? We’re all in this together.”
“No, Mama,” declared my oldest, suddenly straightening up to assert himself quite seriously. “We should take FIVE deep breaths.” I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing. Of course. He always gets it quicker than I do.
Since then I’ve been trying a little more each day. I have been trying to sit in the squirmy uncomfortableness of suffering. I’ve been trying to pause and remember that patience might not be something I say, but something I stay and do.
Perhaps, contrary to what I’ve believed all these years, patience isn’t about attaining a perfectly Zen attitude towards life’s troubles. Patience isn’t the ability to breeze right over the bothersome bumps that arise. Quite the opposite. Patience, it turns out, might be about sitting right in the middle of the suffering and refusing to escape it for something easier. Because, the suffering might be where the best part of love is, too.
QUESTION: Where in your life might you be able to start practicing patience in small ways this week?
CHALLENGE: The next time you ask your kids to wait or be patient, stop and ask yourself if you are doing the same.
Photo courtesy of Laura Fanucci
emmymom says
Thank you thank you thank you! Thank you for your honesty, thank you for you what for me is a new perspective and totally new idea about patience, Wow– patience too is my biggest weakness and this, this is perfect.
Thank you
Laura Fanucci says
Thanks, Emmymom! Isn’t it amazing to look at the things that frustrate us most from a different perspective? I hate how quickly I get into ruts with things like impatience!
Sarah says
I second Emmymom…thank you and “wow.” This is profound.
Laura Fanucci says
Thank you, Sarah – I appreciate your kind words!
Saren Eyre Loosli says
Such a great new perspective! Patience IS about willingness to suffer. It’s about accepting that there are going to be crazy moments and then, when they come, taking a deep breath and moving forward without dwelling on how frustrating the moment is. We’re all willing to suffer for our kids – that’s part of motherhood. But are we willing to suffer for a few little seconds in a moment of crisis? Simply deciding that we’re willing to suffer through those hard moments can go a long way towards helping us be more patient. Thanks so much for this excellent post!
Laura Fanucci says
I love how you put this, Sarn – that we’re all willing to suffer for our kids as moms, but are we as willing to suffer WITH or BECAUSE OF our kids? That is a really challenging thought for me to consider. And accepting that there are inevitably going to be crazy frustrating moments, and that my only choice/control is how I will deal with them, is such an important 1st step. Thank you for this perspective.
milisa says
Very helpful. Thank you!
Beth says
Beautiful written, and a beautiful idea! Thank-you; I am going to be chewing on this these next few days!
JaNae Messick says
Lightbulb moment! So true. So true! I am excited to experiment with this perspective–thanks! I will be processing and adding this to my tool bucket as I seek patience! Perhaps we know we have attained that patient attitude when we begin to feel more comfortable in those uncomfortable imperfect moments?
Marinda says
You got it! Thank you for voicing that bit of wisdom that the rest of us have been grasping around trying to fine. Your words hit true!
Laura says
Reading through the archives- this is wonderful! Thank you a few years late! 🙂