Homework

Patient- 1. bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint. 2. not hasty or impetuous. 3. steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity. 4. able or willing to bear (unresistant to some stimulus).

*Feel peace, contentment, and satisfaction that you are on the path to recovery and personal growth.
*See that overnight reformations are rarely long lasting; gradual change and growth have a greater durability.
*Believe that your day to day efforts, sacrifices, and changes are building a new edifice of a whole person with healthy self-esteem.

I. Beliefs of people who lack patience:

~Every time I have a setback or a relapse I get mad at myself for taking so long to grow and change.
~I can't stand things being out of order. It makes me nervous and upset with such disarray.
~I must be perfect so you must be perfect; if we are not, it must be because we don't want it to work out.
~There I go again, falling back into my old habits just when I thought I had them licked. This isn't the way it is supposed to be.

II. To increase your level of patience you need to:

-Develop a consistent philosophy of life. Take life one day at a time. Consider each day a gift of life that will allow you to get one step closer to your goal of growth and change.
-Accept the reality of your humanity in that you are going to need time, effort, and energy to change and grow. You will experience some resistance to altering long standing, habitual ways of acting, reacting, and believing.
-Reframe your perspective on the past, present, and future. Do not dwell on your past mistakes and failings. Do not worry about what you will become or how you will act in the future. Begin to live each new day as a fresh start.
-Wake up to the realities of life around you. Everyone with whom you come in contact is busy working through their own struggles, weaknesses, setbacks, relapses, crises, and obstacles to their personal growth and recovery. All of us are on the path to personal growth. There is no one exempt from this journey. It takes a lifetime to complete.
-Hand over and let go of the worries, concerns, anxieties, and doubts about attaining your goal.
-Confront your fears about attaining your goal. Remember, the world was not created in a day. Beautiful symphonies, works of art, and literary masterpieces were not created in a day. A lifetime is not lived in a day.
-Modify your spiritual perspective to include your God as a guide on this journey. Be ready and willing to face challenges as you strive for personal growth.