Introduction
According to Bharat Bhise, recovering from a traumatic event or drug addiction is never easy and the victim needs to struggle a lot, both mentally and physically, to regain a sense of normalcy. When dealing with family members and friends who are on the road to recovery, you can experience a complex mix of relief, anger, stress, and doubt. However, you should not lose faith and patience, even when times are difficult.
Tips & Tricks
Here are a few tips you can follow to develop patience when dealing with addicts and patients in recovery:
- Practice mindfulness – Practicing mindfulness can allow you to improve your life in various ways and help you to develop boundless patience. It is simply the act of focusing on the present moment, ignoring the thoughts of the past and the future.
Practicing mindfulness requires deliberate effort to prevent acting on autopilot which allows you to experience greater freedom. There are several ways to make your mindfulness practice stronger such as by incorporating deep breath work, yoga, and meditation into your practice.
Being mindful of your surroundings, actions, thoughts, and emotions will allow you to experience a greater degree of insight into how you respond to the situations in your daily life and control your response to them with your will.
- Keep a journal – The act of journaling has been known to provide mental relief and exercise greater self-control when under duress. The habit of journaling allows you to cultivate patience, but it can do so much more. Journaling your daily thoughts, feelings, and experiences helps to relieve the mental pressure which can otherwise linger in your system and explode during uncertain times.
Plus, looking through your previous journal entries can allow you to notice patterns of thoughts, behavior, and actions that serve no purpose in your life. Once you realize how futile being impatient, frustrated, or angry at a situation or person can be, you can naturally learn to become more patient.
- Set realistic goals and expectations – Setting unrealistic goals or expectations is the fastest route to getting disappointed and it can make you very impatient when things don’t go according to how you expect them to go. You cannot expect someone who has been haunted by traumatic events or addiction for years to recover within a week or even months.
The road to recovery is a long process and can take years before the individual can find some semblance of sanity.
- Understand that developing patience is a skill – Developing patience is like practicing a skill. You start by practicing being patient with minor stuff such as holding the grocery store line. Once you do it a few times, you will realize it is not so difficult to be patient and there is no reason to hurry all the time.
Conclusion
Bharat Bhise suggests you not lose hope or get frustrated when interacting with loved ones who are in recovery. Oftentimes, it can be difficult to witness their pain when they are suffering or experience frustration and anger due to their negative mindset. Still, it is important to stay strong, be patient with them, and guide them toward their journey to a fresh, new start in life.
