Big word, big skill and most definitely not something I have yet mastered. To be quite frank I am fairly certain it will remain unmastered throughout my life. Patience does not come naturally for me. I consider myself a pretty self aware individual and know that forbearance is an area I consistently have to work on and keep in check when it starts to run away from me.

From as early as I can remember I have battled with the process of patience. My character loves to be in control (no surprise to those closest to me lol), I love to be in control of the timings of situations within my life. So persevering in the face of unwanted delay is most certainly not my strength.

My everyday life requires much patience regardless of how good I am at it. Patience does not care whether I like it or have it, I feel it continuously forces its presence upon me on a daily basis without a care in the world. From the insane Toronto 401 traffic, cruising past my due dates and waiting for my babies to make an appearance, getting babies to sleep repeatedly at work for my newborn photo shoots to saving up for a home and immigrating countries, I have and do encounter the challenge of patience frequently. It hits me in varying degrees of severity, and surprises me in how more often than I want to admit, handle very low levels poorly. I can literally enjoy spending an hour getting a sweet newborn to sleep at work and genuinely not feel impatience hit me once, but then I get home and my toddler take 40 minutes to eat half a sandwich and I find myself losing my patience in 2 seconds. It is funny how it attacks differently.

Don't you just wish you could flip a switch and miraculously receive an abundance of patience? I do! But we don't live in the world of magic, we live in reality and that means that in order to gain and improve your patience threshold you have to be placed repeatedly in circumstances that test it. Sucky right?! But effective.

How does being impatient affect you? For me impatience literally causes me anxiety. It manifests as unrest in my heart and a whole bunch of unpleasant reactions like anger, frustration and a lack of faith. The feeling of anxiety and unrest churns my stomach and it is far from enjoyable. I actually detest that I allow impatience to create such turmoil, it often is quite ridiculous when I reflect.

When impatience attacks my spirit I have developed tools to manage it. I run a dialog in my mind asking myself questions like 'On the scale of life's issues is this really that important?', 'Is it really worth the risk?', 'Do you trust God has this situation?'. Or I tell myself these types of statements 'God is building this area of your character', 'You asked for more patience so handle the work that comes to bring it about', 'You are patient at work so reflect that now at home', 'Just let it go'. Internal dialog has over time proved to be a successful method for me against my battle with impatience. When I manage to calm myself long enough to start the internal conversation the outcome is highly likely to be a positive one. With more and more practice I manage to start the dialog earlier and decrease my negative reactions.

Although I am a marathon distance away from characterizing myself as a patient person, I am far better at managing the way I allow it to affect me than I once was. My methodology has worked and helped me increase my patience across a plethora of areas. Due to this I experience less anxiety, I find myself able to enjoy situations even when they are not going according to plan. I have, at times, been able to release the lack of control and just make the most of whatever frustrating circumstance I find myself in. It is a wonderful feeling on those occasions when you get yourself there. Being ate up by frustration due to impatience is always guaranteed to be no fun for everyone.

On that note you may consider patience to be an individual emotion and not something that really affects those around you, but it does. From my experiences I have actually embarrassingly ruined family situations because of my reaction to the need for some patience. My husband has the 'patience of a saint' as they say. I swear nothing really phases him with regards to being patient. He is fully okay with waiting for almost anything without feeling anxious or frustrated. So when I get wound up it affects his enjoyment and peace as well as my own. It goes the same for my kids, once mummy begins to loose the plot they do too. Your patience has the power to calm and control an outcome or turn the entire experience upside down for everyone there. Seeing this play out over and over in my life pushes me to work hard on it. Quite honestly what is more important, that the waitress delivers the food fast or that we have a lovely time as a family? That I get to where I am going super fast or that I get there super safe? That we purchase a house asap or that we buy the right house and maintain a great financial situation?

So would I like more patience? 100%! When I manage to have patience I also have peace and who wouldn't want more and more of that?

Life Behind My Lens || Day 2 - PATIENCE || CopperRed Photography