A Pep Talk for Patience!

Oh my goodness, thank you for your patience! Settling Is Bullshit is back! Season two of the podcast is officially here, and we have a glorious new logo to celebrate. I couldn’t be more delighted.

I also was definitely on the struggle bus for a while – waiting to get this train rolling again. I had hoped to be back in everyone’s inbox or audio feed a few weeks ago, and the universe had a different timeline. Which was frustrating and exasperating, but also a totally normal human experience. Thus, I had plenty of inspiration to record an episode about patience and what to do when we don’t have any on hand! 

So I present the first episode of season two – a 20ish minute pep talk, mini-meditation, and practical exercise all rolled into one that applies universally to any topic that we’re feeling impatient about.

Takeaways:

• Waiting can be frustrating, and your feelings are valid!
• Empowerment comes from making conscious choices and we need to get chill before we can get to a place of choice.
• Creating a to-do list can help redirect focus during impatience.
• Engaging in self-care activities can alleviate feelings of powerlessness.
• Trusting the process is key to navigating life’s uncertainties.

Transcript

Hello my darling, my dear, my little chipmunk. I have missed you. I’m really glad to be here with you – back in action for season two of Settling is Bullshit! How exciting. 

And I’m really sorry that it took me so long to get back to you. That is not really how I wanted things to go down. Things took longer than I had hoped or wanted or anticipated for lots of reasons. 

And so we are starting season two with a pep talk for patience. So here we are together, impatient about a thing, whatever the thing is. It might be a project. It might be a relationship that has not magically appeared. It might be just something daily that’s like… you’re waiting for that fucking person to get back to you, and you need someone to remind you that it’s gonna be okay.

So here I am reminding you that it’s gonna be okay. And it might also be waiting for answers. 

You know, there are a lot of things in life that we have to fucking wait for. And that’s really annoying. 

So I just wanna like pause and start this episode by validating your fucking feelings. Waiting is hard. Not getting what we want when we want it is hard. Sometimes it’s unfair. Sometimes it’s incredibly frustrating. Sometimes it’s incredibly anxiety inducing. And there are just so many ways that like waiting is hard. 

And so you’re not alone. You are not unique in this experience of anxiety or sadness or frustration or anger, whatever is up for you around patience. It’s normal and hard. 

So here’s your warm hug of empathy and recognition and witnessing that, yeah, this thing that you are waiting on, doing the waiting is fucking hard. Especially because there’s probably not a whole lot you can do about it. 

That’s one of the things we’re gonna play with here is really getting in tune with our impatience. Looking at like where it shows up for us in our bodies, how we feel the impatience, what is our visceral experience of impatience. And then soothing ourselves and then asking ourselves what we can actually do.

So if you’re listening to this while you’re driving, please drive safely. And maybe this next few minutes isn’t totally for you, but you can come back to this later. 

But for those of you who are listening where you’re in a space where you can pause, that’s what I want us all to do. Like, let’s just take a seat, have a little pause. We’re going to do not quite a meditation, but kind of a meditation and just check in. 

So let’s start by taking a couple of deep breaths.

[sound of two deep breaths]

And what that does is it calms our nervous system. Because when we’re feeling impatient, there’s something in our bodies that is activated, that is unhappy. It is jittery. It might be clenched. I don’t know. 

So get a feel for what impatience feels like for you in this moment. Where does it live in your body, in your being?

Does it feel buzzy? Does it feel tight?

Is impatience something that’s frenetic, that’s active, that’s energy, that’s like having something that doesn’t have anywhere to go? 

Or is it shutdown? Is it clenching? Is it a straight jacket? 

Just touching into like what it feels like. Maybe it has a texture. Maybe it has a sensation. Is it in your chest? Is it in your stomach? Where does impatience live right now?

And when you have a feel for it, just send it a little bit of love. We’re not here to make it wrong or to fix it, per se. We’re just here to cultivate some awareness around it. To say, hey buddy, I see you. It makes sense that you’re fucking frustrated or anxious or sad or whatever feeling is there. 

And to like pull up a little lawn chair for our impatience, and hand it a cold or a warm beverage of our choosing, whatever sort of soothing or relaxing thing it needs so that it can like chill out a little bit and we can make slightly more informed decisions. 

Because that’s the thing with all of the things, with meditation, with mindfulness, like what it’s all about is that we have to get to a place of groundedness and calm in order to make healthy, informed decisions. 

So once you have kind of a taste, or a flavor of what impatience is for you today. The next thing to do is to soothe yourself. Because when we’re activated, when our sympathetic nervous system is activated, it’s really hard to get to a place of empowerment. To get to a place of looking at what there is to do, what I can do, what I want to do. 

So while we may have metaphorically given our impatience a beverage of its choice, give yourself a beverage of your choice. Grab a cozy blanket. Light a nice smelling candle and take a couple of deep breaths. 

What can I do to down-regulate my nervous system so that I can chill for a second and assess what actually is there for me to do? Because here’s the thing: when it comes to anything that happens in our brain, our brains are actually really terrible at not doing things. That’s not actually a cognitive function.

When we’re impatient or when we’re freaked out or any situation, like we have to give our brains something TO do. That’s why it doesn’t work to say like, “I’m just gonna stop thinking about this thing” or “I’m going to remember to not do that thing.” Like that doesn’t actually work. 

It comes up with my clients with some frequency and I usually send them a big energetic hug because neurologically speaking, our brains are always active. They always need something to do. That’s why, like, if you’ve ever tried meditating and you’re like, “stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking,” like, that doesn’t actually tend to work. 

And so telling our sweet little brains not to do something is just like building a fucking wall for us to smash our faces into. Like, that’s what it is. It’s like, here’s a wall, smash your face into it a bunch. Because our brains need movement, need to go somewhere. And so what there is to do is to build a door in that wall and to open the door and be like, “here, go this direction, go through here.” 

That’s why in meditation, we’re invited to focus on our breath, right? Like focus on your breathing. Like you have to give your brain something to do. And then the more that you cultivate that muscle, you’re able to just kind of relax into the breathing. 

And so part of what we’re working on in this adventure of letting go of impatience, in cultivating our patience muscle is giving ourselves the opportunity to downshift, to like get a little bit calm, get a little bit soothed, get a little bit cozy, and then ask ourselves, like, what is there actually to do?

And sometimes there might be things that we can do about the thing that we’re freaking out about. Like in this example, I can record an episode, like I might not release it for a while, but this is something I can actively do in the waiting that is related to the thing that I’m waiting on. 

But oftentimes when it comes to waiting, there isn’t anything I can do about it. And that’s the fucking annoying thing, right? Like that’s the powerlessness piece. That’s the frustrating piece. That’s where helplessness and despair can creep in. It’s because sometimes there’s genuinely nothing for us to do. 

Speaking from personal experience, when I was getting my ADHD diagnosis and had to wait fucking three months to get in with a psychiatrist, there was nothing I could do about that. I just had this vast stretch of time in front of me and fucking nothing I could do about it. And that’s so hard. It’s so hard. It is so hard to feel powerless. And it can be really easy to get like spun out in the like frustration to let the anxiety around what am I, what are they going to tell me or the, why can’t this happen yet?

But that is a choice. It is a choice. And so part of this pep talk is to remind you that it’s a choice and that you have different choices. Because we always have a lot of choices in our lives. That’s what it means to be human and to be empowered and to have free will. 

It just doesn’t always feel like it, especially when our feelings and the anxiety or the anger or the frustration are really loud. And so that’s why it’s important to take the deep breaths, to downregulate, to like notice what’s going on and pause. 

Pause when agitated, and touch into whatever part of you it is that knows. For some of us, that might be a higher power. For some of us, it might just be our inner wisdom. Equal opportunity here. It doesn’t really matter to me whether you believe in God or not. I know that there is part of you in there that has the answer. You just gotta get quiet to be able to hear it. 

So… Get your cozy blanket, metaphorically or literally, and take a couple of deep breaths and ask yourself, what is there for me to do about this thing? And if the answer is nothing, cool! Let’s find something else for you to do. Because you need something else to do, right? 

What there is to do is to set it down and be like, okay, cool. I can’t change that appointment date. And doing a bunch of research or keeping myself spun out about it isn’t going to help matters. 

Similar life example – like when I was not in a great place around online dating, maybe eight or 10 years ago, you know, and I would start talking to somebody and then would be waiting for them to respond and getting all fucking spun out about it and obsessively checking my phone because my anxious attachment stuff was coming up… My sponsor at the time offered me the tool of when I notice that happening, text someone I know and ask them how they’re doing, or even better yet, give them a call. 

When we are in our powerlessness, if there is genuinely nothing to do about the thing that I am impatient about, what there is to do is to find something else to do. And great tool, here you go. Reach out to somebody you know and like who is in your life and ask how they’re doing. Divert your attention. 

Or, if you’re like me and often impatience shows up as anxiety and a lot of energy in your body, do a five minute dance party in your living room. Like pick a song that gets you jazzed up and go wiggle and shake. And I promise something’s going to get kicked out and stirred up and like moved around and the energy will shift. 

But regardless of whether there is something to do about the thing or nothing to do about the thing, doing something, doing anything is going to help. 

And something else that can be really helpful, whether it’s right now in this moment, if you’re feeling kind of grounded, or if you just sort of like put a pin in this in your little brain and pick it up later – is to make an actual fucking list of things you can do. 

If the impatience is around a project – so for example, for me, and like not getting this podcast out when I wanted to get it out, there were a lot of reasons for that. Like part of it was fucking Mercury retrograde and like August was just so crunchy for me, and I didn’t have the energy to work on things when I thought I was gonna have the energy to work on them.

And I also really wanted to wait until I could release season two with my glorious new fucking logo, which I’m so goddamn happy about. Like, yay, it’s amazing! But I was working with a designer for that, and I had life, she had life, things just didn’t move as quickly as I wanted them to. I also wanted to overhaul my website, and that took longer than, you know, in my ideal vision it would. And part of that was because I like got distracted with other things and dragged my feet.

And so I say all that not to like get hard on myself, but I also didn’t have a fucking to do list. Like I hadn’t mapped it all out. And so it was a big, big thing that I wanted to make happen, but I didn’t have the like clear steps because ADHD brain and just keeping things in my brain doesn’t work. 

So if it’s a project or a big thing that we’re working towards, one of the things to do is to like write down the shit that needs doing and then just pick one, pick the next right thing. Tap into that inner knowing and ask, like, “okay, what is the thing in front of me that there is to do?” 

And then if the thing that we’re impatient about isn’t within our control, right, if it’s some fucking person not texting us back, then it’s a matter of like, how can I turn my attention to other things? 

And I also similarly find it really helpful to like have an actual physical list of things I can do, whether it’s a goddamn to-do list or a list of like ways I can self soothe – ways I can take care of myself when my anxious attachment is activated. What do I need to do? Is it take a bath? Is it call a person? Is it meditate? Is it listen to a guided meditation? (Because that’s a lot easier when I’m all amped up.) 

And having that physical list somewhere that I can look at is incredibly helpful. Because when I’m in the spin, my little brain doesn’t have access to the calm part that knows sort of better coping strategies and tools.

That’s at least not how my brain works. If your brain is like all spun out and can be like, here’s a list of things that I should do for myself, like great? Kudos! Good job. Gold star, your brain. But for me, and for many people I know, like actually having the list outside of our brain can be really helpful. 

And so fundamentally, no matter what we’re impatient about, there is always something for us to do. It just might not have anything to fucking do with the actual thing that we’re impatient about. But giving ourselves something to do is the way forward. 

Yes, getting centered, getting grounded, getting back in our bodies is super important. And then from that place, we can take the next right action, the next right step, the next exact thing in front of us.

Because the truth is, right now, in this very moment of not having what I want when I want it, I’m okay. Like, I’m actually okay. You are actually okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Like, if we broaden our definition of okayness, generally speaking, impatience is not gonna fucking kill us.

The discomfort of impatience, the discomfort of not getting what we want when we want it, isn’t going to kill us. Nobody’s gonna die. 

I had to keep reminding myself that when I was frustrated, when my little inner perfectionist and people pleaser and doing things when I say I’m gonna do them part wasn’t getting the podcast out on the schedule that I had planned on, I had to remind her that nobody’s gonna die. It’s not gonna radically impact the trajectory of my future and my business if takes me an extra couple of weeks to get this shit back out on the road. 

She doesn’t think that sometimes. And so I have to, me, the calm, centered version of me has to remind her of that. And so here’s the calm, centered version of me reminding you of that. 

You are gonna be okay. That whether or not you get the specific thing that you want, you’re gonna be okay. It’s all gonna be okay. And in fact, in this moment, right now it is actually okay.

Might not be great, might not be unicorns or rainbows, but it is okay. And when you can access that place, that is the place of empowerment, that is the place of conscious choice-making, that is the place of knowing what the next right action is. 

And so as I wind down this episode of pep talk for patience, I wish I could wave a magic wand and give you the thing, but that’s not how it works. Both because I don’t have those magical capabilities and because also the universe has something in store for you that is bigger than I can imagine and that is bigger than you can imagine. 

Whether you’re woo-woo or not, I’m pretty woo. And I have decided to believe not only that the universe isn’t fucking with me and that the universe isn’t fucking with you. The universe is not out to get us.

But what I actually believe is that the universe is ultimately working for our good. It is helping us to move from fear to love. And impatience is rooted in fear. It’s rooted in fear that we’re not gonna get what we want. And the truth is that sometimes not getting what we want is actually good for us. 

And that’s some bullshit that I hate that we can talk about another time, but that like, you know, there’s so much in the universe that we don’t have control of. But what we can control is how we’re showing up in this moment. 

And I trust that whatever’s going on for me, for future me, for you, for future you, that the universe is on our side. And so my invitation is for both of us to take some deep breaths, to take care of ourselves in the way that we need to take care of ourselves, and to ask the part of us that knows what there actually is to do today. Just today. 

Like, what is there to do today? Either about the thing or instead of obsessing about the thing. Because obsessing about the thing doesn’t actually help matters. It really doesn’t. I think we all need that reminder sometimes. So know that I am holding you in so much love and light, that your feelings are valid, and that there’s probably like something you can do for yourself today that will feel empowering. 

So here’s my magic wand wave and fairy dust sprinkle to go do the thing that you can actually do today that is gonna feel empowering.