Today’s blog has been written by Phoebe Crook, Assistant Psychologist at Headspace Guildford. It’s about Patience during lockdown but will be just as relevant in the times beyond lockdown too.
Stuck at home with your children and feeling frustrated? Is
lockdown making you lose patience? This week we will focus on patience and how
you can find ways to encourage patience during this difficult time.
You might be annoyed that lockdown is still happening, you might be fed up with
your children being at home instead of school, you might crave some alone time
and you might be frustrated that you cannot find all the groceries you want in
the supermarket. People’s patience is being tested during lockdown. These are
highly stressful times and with this much uncertainty it is easy to lose your
cool. You might be arguing more with your family and getting angry at simple
little things. However, patience is a key skill that will help you during
lockdown.
But how do you tolerate the annoyance and difficulties of lockdown?
Here are some simple ways to improve patience:
- Recognise when you feeling your patience is being tested.
- Are your expectations for the situation reasonable and realistic?
- Be compassionate. When you are in a situation that is testing your patience, remind yourself to be compassionate to yourself and others. If you are struggling with the current situation then your children may be as well. They probably are struggling being at home as well.
- Practice being grateful. When you are losing patience with lockdown remind yourself of positive things in your life and remind yourself that it will be over soon.
- Remove yourself from the situation if possible, for example, if take some time away from your children and go to another room
- Try and do a mindful based practice
- Acknowledge what you do have control over at the moment. You might feel impatience about lockdown but what can you do to change things?
- After the situation, reflect what you could have done differently. Was raising your voice during that conversation helpful? Was there something else you could have done instead?
This virus is frustrating, it is testing people’s patience, but it is important to recognise that you can take steps to improve your patience and change the way you might be dealing with it. Everyone needs to be compassionate at the moment. Everyone is facing difficulties so by trying to be more patient you are not only being kind to yourself but you are being kind to others.
This website has a nice summary of some more tips on how to develop patience: https://www.essentiallifeskills.net/patience.html