Dr. Sarah Schnitker

So you need, first of all, with that why, why do I care about this?

What's worthwhile here that can motivate me through the impatience?

potential situations through the suffering, through the waiting.

And once you know your big picture why, it's about the how.

What are specific strategies that I can adapt?

Can I learn to think about things differently and reappraise and reimagine a scenario, maybe engage in benefit findings?

Like during COVID, like, well, this is a great opportunity to spend more time with my child.

This is high quality time, perhaps.

It also might be low quality, but we do have that time.

So benefit finding, thinking about it differently.

But what research shows is that other strategies, which we might not want to use too much, like sometimes just masking your expression with a person or suppressing it or distracting yourself, might actually be helpful in particular situations.

So part of building patience is having a variety of strategies that you can use to

depending on what the situation requires.

Well, I think that's a great thought exercise for a person to go through, right?

Sometimes we are reappraising in a way that is trying to blunt the impact of a scenario.

So I know sometimes my husband runs a nursing home where people are dying very regularly.

My job, that is not what's happening at work with all these college students.

And so sometimes I will say to myself, well, no one died today.

This could be worse.

But also that can feel as if I'm not actually allowing myself the space to have this emotion.