You may be familiar with the concept of investing to grow your money. However, it's equally important to invest in increasing your mental power. Your mental energy and power enable you to function in life with great clarity, and contribute to the health and well-being of your entire family.
The question is what to invest? Answer is to learn to practice simple qualities that prevent unnecessary drainage of energy and enable you to multiply and grow it. This accumulating mental power is an asset for your soul, ultimately bringing peace and clarity into life.
Patience and Acceptance are two vital skills for growth and mental well-being in our everyday, practical lives.
Let's take a closer look at these two qualities today:
Patience
What causes you to feel impatient?
It's important to remember that impatience occurs when we want something to happen but it isn't happening fast enough. It's the state of mind between now and the future when that "thing" happens. We need to ask ourselves if it's worth being impatient.
During training, we might start to feel impatient and think that we could be doing something else instead. It's important to practice patience during these times and not give in to restlessness.
Patience is a helpful attitude when facing anything unpleasant, such as physical pain, stress, anger, or sadness. Being patient means having the courage to stay with whatever arises. Instead of immediately trying to suppress or escape it, it's essential to confront the issue directly.
If you attempt to avoid it, you can expect to encounter the same obstacle again later. Unpleasant feelings can only be properly addressed within the mind. By finding the courage to face them directly and observing them neutrally, you can overcome them and better handle them in the future.
The key takeaway is that any unpleasant feeling can only be settled where it arises: within the mind. So find the courage to remain with it, face it directly, and accommodate it by observing it neutrally.
When practicing your daily mindfulness training, make sure to stay seated for the amount of time you've decided on and resist the urge to get up when restlessness sets in.
Patience involves having the courage to confront any discomfort, to stay with it, and to observe it without attempting to change it. Instead of following your initial impulse to escape when you experience restlessness, anger, boredom, or sadness, have the courage to stay with the feeling, and it will eventually fade away.
If you try to avoid the feeling, it will only come back. Courageously confronting it will cause it to dissolve. Remember, a problem can only be solved within the mind that experiences it.
Acceptance
When faced with a challenge, there are two possibilities: If you can solve it, there's no need to worry. If you can't, worrying won't help.
When you encounter difficulties, try to change the situation or move away from it. However, don't dwell on it or make it a burden. Just accept it as it is with a relaxed mindset.
Extend this acceptance to yourself and take it easy. It's okay. Acceptance means being able to face things as they are with clarity and peace of mind.
Acceptance doesn't mean putting up with everything. It doesn't mean being passive, apathetic, or indifferent to people or situations that you simply don't like.
We have the freedom to change many things in life for the better, and that is what we should strive for. However, there are some things that we cannot change. Acceptance means not making difficult situations even worse by adding resistance. We cannot always control the things that happen in our lives, but we can choose how we react to them.
If you'll change it, why worry? And if you can not change it, why worry?
When you find yourself in a very dissatisfactory situation, either try to change it or accept it as it is. Don't let the feeling of dissatisfaction make it worse. Avoid starting an inner fight about it. In difficult situations, acceptance is often the best strategy for dealing with stress.
When practicing mindfulness training, do it with acceptance. Whatever arises during your training, embrace it with acceptance. Extend this accepting attitude towards yourself.
So the key takeaway is, Suffering = Pain x Resistance.
Acceptance is that the ability to tolerate people, situations and circumstances as they are, instead of creating resistance and suffering for stuff you cannot change.
To sum it up, ‘Act’ on the items that are in your control, and ‘Accept’ that stuff you cannot change.
References and Further reading:
- https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_reasons_to_cultivate_patience
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28703602/
