Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about how to work with impatience. Now, I'm just going to say up front here that this has been something that I have had to work on since I was a very, very young infant. I was so impatient when I was young that my mother took me to the local priest for help. They got me to memorize this really funny song about patience and take deep breaths.

But I think my driven and determined nature still got the better of me for many, many years, much to my mother's dismay. But as time has gone on, I have come to see that the stress, tension and inner turmoil that impatience causes, especially in my meditation practice, is not worth it. And I've learned to let it go, most of the time. But what I've come to see is the impatience arises within us not because things are necessarily moving too slowly, but because of a series of thoughts arising in the mind. Thoughts about how we want life to be.

We want life to be a certain way. We want it to be different than it is right in that present moment. So we have this idea of how we think life should be, and then we just fixate on it. These thoughts then give rise to emotions such as boredom, frustration, irritation or even anger. And the more we buy into those thoughts, the greater and the stronger our experience of impatience will be.

So during a meditation, you might have a thought like, you might be listening to a guided meditation and thinking, Oh, for goodness sake, stop talking, get on with the meditation. Or you might think, Oh, this is going on too long. I've got all these important things to do today. Or you might just be looking at your watch and thinking, when is this going to be over? You might start to be impatient with yourself in not progressing in meditation the way you want to or expect to, or perhaps you get frustrated because your mind won't settle. Maybe you even have a sort of broader impatience with the way that your life is unfolding.

Whatever the impatience is, it all starts with a thought. A thought that has an underlying theme, this moment should be different than it is right now. Once you see that clearly, then you can simply make the choice to let go of what you think life should be. And instead, just relax into the present moment as it is. So we don't need to cultivate more patience per se.

What we're doing here is actually simply learning to let go of impatience so we can live our lives with more ease and happiness. So the next time you feel impatience arising, either in meditation or daily life, perhaps in slow traffic, in the checkout line or in a conversation, don't see the impatience as an obstacle, rather see it as a reminder to let go of the storyline that things need to be different and then simply be present with the moment as it is. As always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And now let's settle in for today's meditation.