If you know the secret to patience, I’d love you to share it with me. Patience is a virtue I certainly do not have.

I’ve been waiting for things all week, and it’s left me somewhere between frazzled – and totally burned out. I like things straight away, please, before they might run out or run away…And yes, I know that I am a grown woman.

I also like to know exactly what’s coming and when it will arrive; so there’s some control and anxiety bubbling around in there as well, just to heighten the experience.

This is nothing new – I just haven’t sat with it before. It was one of the key feelings I tried to get rid of during my illness; either by not wanting (so not waiting), or by changing the direction with the violence of a purge. If you want things, you might be disappointed. If you’re excited about something, bingeing offers an alternative high and one that resets the equilibrium…in a very flawed way.

So, excitement – and the need for patience – and managing unpredictability – are all things that are quite new to me; and good, because it means there’s lots to look forward to – but bad, because they kind of mess around with my head and mean that I’m always trying to catapult myself ahead…

A lovely quote from Eckhart Tolle kind of summed up what I think is happening: “Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there.” This is what impatience is all about, for me. The next step, the next thing, the next certainty.

Now.

Of course, life doesn’t really work on these terms. You have to wait for things and you have to appreciate that some things happen – and others don’t…. But it would be good to have a few strategies or approaches to dealing with the interim period, so to speak. To help me learn how to be patient – or, at least, how not to burn myself out.

Any ideas?