64 | Patience
64 | Patience
Patience—quiet, unassuming, and steadfast—may not be the most celebrated quality in our instant-gratification world, but it's a cornerstone of an organized life.
If you find yourself constantly battling with your to-do list, feeling overwhelmed by the chaos of everyday life, or simply curious about how to foster a more organized and intentional existence, this episode is for you.
Tune in to learn how this often-overlooked virtue can be the key to home organization, managing life transitions, and building resilience. From the simple act of organizing a home to the complex challenges of life transitions like moving or caring for a loved one, patience is the unsung hero that can transform our experiences from frantic to fulfilling.
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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing An Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast will go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 64, “Patience.” Hey y’all. A little irony for you. The title of the episode is “Patience,” yet I feel like diving right in. I mean, let’s be real. From all that we’re reading and seeing in the last few years, your attention span is getting shorter. You’re facing information overload. You’re at capacity and looking at that never-ending to-do list like, “Enough already! Is it done yet???” If you’re like a few of my listeners, you’ve probably already turned the speed of the episode to 1.5x or greater, because – y’all, I’m aware. I’m a slow talker, and that’s purposeful. Our brains actually need a moment to hear what is being said, interpret it, process it, and then decide whether to retain what is being shared or move past it.
Patience is stillness. It’s the opposite of dynamic. If patience was a character, a person, I’d think of her as the quiet, levelheaded sidekick to uncertainty and unpredictability. She’s not popular, and she’s okay with that status. Because deep down, she’s secure in who she is because she knows she’s essential. She’s tough, and she’s kind. Patience is (and has) the ability to wait.
So, what does patience have to do with care tasks, home organization and management? Oh… so much. It wasn’t until I sat down to plan this episode that I considered how it’s a core element of embracing an organized life. Honestly, it’s a quality that is woven through the fabric of life in general. There’s patience with yourself, there’s patience with others. There’s patience with the big picture circumstances of life. In today’s episode I’m going to share examples where patience acts as the guide to the best possible outcomes of a situation. I get it. It’s easy to be in a hurry - to want a quick fix. To indulge in action and processes and next steps. Yet, as uncomfortable as it may be, patience often offers us nuggets of wisdom and awareness as a reward for the seemingly endless minutes of suffering we endure.
Let’s start with a classic example centered around the desire to get organized, be organized, and stay organized. Lots of folks that I talk to – friends, acquaintances, folks I’ve just met for the first time – they say to me, “I just want it done. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to do the work. I wish I could just clear it all out and start with a clean slate.” Patience is the last thing they want in this scenario. It makes sense. Why wait when you can have it done for you in a shorter amount of time? If that’s you, I encourage you to invest in a home organizer now. It’s worth the dollars. It will save you time. Yet, please understand that to maintain the organized space, you’ll need to understand how to declutter and maintain those spaces as time moves forward and you’ll need to believe that you can. For other folks, that’s where patience comes in.
My solution – getting to the root cause of the clutter in your life and home – takes time. Patience LOVES time. I typically work with clients for months at a time, and some continue having conversations with me beyond a year. You’re seeing results along the way, and you’re willing to be patient in order to discover and work on more areas. You’re learning skills, and you’re deepening belief in yourself. You’re willing to put patience to work during the journey. Coaching is a tool to understand yourself better, to get to know yourself on a deeper level so that you’re more solid and secure in your day-to-day decision making.
So, the first question I want you to ask yourself is, “What is your relationship to patience?” Let me clarify. First, think for a moment about your ability to be patient. Being patient, in my mind, is when you’re waiting. It’s patience in progress, specifically for one day or one relatively brief moment in time. You’re uncomfortable or irritated because things have gotten temporarily complicated or have not gone as planned.
For example, my mother, who’s living with dementia, visits the podiatrist every two months to have her toenails trimmed. The office I take her to is directly next door to her assisted living building. I take her there because it’s close, yet the irony of it all is that instead of spending time traveling to the appointment, we spend time waiting. We’ve waited an hour. We’ve waited nearly two hours. It’s brutal, and it’s the way this office operates. Of course, I know I could complain. I know I could take her elsewhere. AND I see it as a regular exercise in being patient. Stick with me. My mother doesn’t experience time in the stereotypical way. Her brain can loop and reset every few minutes meaning that her body feels us waiting – deep down she knows it’s been a long time – yet her brain doesn’t register that it’s been an hour of waiting. It’s only me that’s having to be patient. As a coach, I can self-regulate and be patient. Earlier I mentioned that patience offers us nuggets of wisdom for our suffering. In this case, I’m spending time with my mother. We’re laughing. We’re reading magazines. We’re looking at pictures of the kids. We’re occasionally – when it comes up – being irritated together. This is as good as it gets. The dementia journey, as a whole concept, is an exercise and lesson in patience. There’s nothing she and I can control. There’s only what is, here and now.
So, consider how tolerant you are in the moment when your patience is being tested. This is about awareness and giving yourself a baseline grade. I’m not implying that you or anyone should strive to be more patient. That’s only for you to decide. I’m wholly against beating ourselves up because we’re judging ourselves as not where we want to be. That’s counterproductive. Becoming a more patient person doesn’t always translate to a more effective way of being. I also don’t want you to confuse patience with passiveness either.
Now, let’s switch to talking about patience when it comes to bigger, longer term life transition moments. This is an area that’s even more interesting to me because it is my daily lived experience, and because it’s where the tools of coaching can truly make an impact. As with dementia, any health diagnosis – especially those that involve inconclusive tests or conversations – qualifies. Think about moving or a home renovation. Supporting a child or an adult with developmental delays. Applying for a job, an opportunity, or college and not hearing back for months, or writing a book or a Ph.D. dissertation is another example. In these instances (and many more) it seems like patience has become a new roommate in your home.
I get that a few of these examples seem to have more choice than others. A health diagnosis, perhaps, seems to have less choice for you than a home renovation or writing a book. Yet, when you’re in the thick of it, no matter what “it” is, patience is being called upon for what can seem like an eternity.
So, let’s dial in to the most universally familiar example of a life transition involving patience: moving. There’s a reason folks avoid it. For most, moving is like uncertainty and unpredictability are having a party in your head, and eagerness is there causing a ruckus trying to make the party even more fun. Eagerness says things like, “Let’s declutter the whole house so that we only take what we need and value. Wait no, that’s hard. Let’s skip that and hang out with our bestie procrastination for a while. Ugh. Packing takes too long. Let’s just throw stuff out and buy it later. Great! We’re moved. Why aren’t we settled yet? Let’s just buy some stuff to fill this space, and later we’ll worry about getting the stuff we’ll truly love.”
In any of these longer-term life transitions it can either seem like your brain and inner dialogue are on fire, or it can manifest as a heavy, low-lying weight that you feel forced to carry around with no option to put it down. Employing patience isn’t what you want to do because it doesn’t feel easy. And just a side note: I struggle with identifying whether patience itself is the source of discomfort or whether patience is the solution when discomfort is surrounding us. Perhaps it’s both, and that’s what I want you to hear. In these big, sustained moments of discomfort, you may blame the need for patience. This, however, can put you in the role of victim.
For example, I’ve coached a number of clients through moving. Some were moving by choice; some were moving as a result of a divorce or change in financial circumstances. I help clients accept that the move is happening. I help clients plan their time, plan their resources, and navigate the party that uncertainty and unpredictability are throwing in their head. I also help them see that when they make choices from the mindset of “I shouldn’t have to go through this,” or “I shouldn’t have to be patient,” their emotional experience is more fraught than it could be otherwise.
Patience, whether she’s a welcome friend or not, shifts your perspective. She empowers you if you so choose, to think, “Well, this is happening, so now what?” And, truth be told, she may invite you to think that same thing repeatedly, multiple times a day, for months. So, again, check in with yourself to consider your relationship to patience in these instances. Mindfulness tools like deep breathing, noticing your five senses – something you can see, feel, taste, touch, and smell, and intentional reminders that you are safe bring your nervous system back into the present. Thinking about your zone of influence, or what’s in your control versus outside of your control, can be supportive. Encouraging yourself to actively identify and expand where your choices exist – whether or not you choose to act upon them – brings your sense of power back front and center.
Patience is an ever-present quality in my life these last handful of years. It’s why I reiterate the idea of embracing an organized life. Or, using the tools of mindset, alignment, and organization in a supportive and compassionate way to create a lifestyle that’s sustainable. Just like so many families, ours has endured the pandemic, loss, and cancer. I have one child who’s on the college application path and another who’s bump, bump, bumping her way through middle school. My son, who’s an elite soccer player, embodies patience in every way. He’s being patient with his body as he grows, matures, and increases in speed and strength. Each week he’s either on the roster to play or he's not. Each season he has no idea whether he’ll be invited back or not. That’s the heavier, low-lying weight of not knowing that you may be familiar with.
So, lastly, I invite you to get curious about those moments when patience is an option. If it’s taken decades to accumulate the belongings in your home, why shouldn’t it take time to let them go? Perhaps patience with yourself and with others can be a friend and support. If you’re in the middle of a home renovation and the budget suddenly balloons, patience may offer ways to slow down and consider your options even when eagerness is shouting to just “hurry up and get it done already!” If you’re thinking of implementing the Fair Play Method and know it won’t be an instant fix, patience may say the short-term discomfort will lead to the long-term gain of a more stable, explicit, less resentful partnership where you’ll ultimately have less in your mental load.
Again, patience is tough, and she is kind. If you engage with her, she’ll show you how to shift those moments of suffering into a more tolerable place. She’ll show you how you’re able to feel uncomfortable for longer periods of time so that you can make intentional decisions about the life you want. She helps you build the inner resilience you can use across all areas of home life, and it’s this fortitude you’ll be able to rely on time and time again. And finally, patience, will be there to remind you: you’re more organized than you think. Talk to y’all soon.
Outro: Hey y'all, share the love. Remember, if you've had at least one valuable takeaway from this episode, someone else will too. I'd encourage you to share it with like-minded folks and suggest they follow the podcast too. I truly appreciate your time and I don't take it for granted.
