PFL 25: Patience And Kindness--Being Vulnerable, But Not A Doormat...

Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.

 

They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.

 

So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”

 

That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…

 

Welcome back to Balance reDefined, and I'm so excited that you're here to learn a little bit more about some life topics. The one that's really been on my mind the last few days. It has been this concept of patience and kindness.

 

How do you be vulnerable and be patient and be kind but not be a doormat, where sometimes you have to use your voice?

 

Or you just say, “No, not today because I need to have this thing happened, or I need you to be able to own your stuff, or whatever it might be.” And sometimes, especially for women, I think we can think patience and kindness, and we want to be tolerant, and we just kind of keep going and keep being tolerant and keep doing and keep doing it until we break - until we absolutely pop. And then that's not pretty.

 

So I want to talk today about what I learned with this...

 

On my recent trip to Europe, I actually went to go pick up my daughter who was Nanning in France. She had been doing that for about three months, and, being an intelligent and good mother, I went to go pick her up from that experience - to connect and make sure she was just great getting back, doing a side trip for about a week in various countries - because that's what good moms do.

 

Our job is just never done. So just got back from that...

 

And the interesting thing is that the last few days I had had this feeling/thought - when I talk about that, that's more like to my heart and in my mind together had this feeling/thought that came to me of practice patience and kindness. And I was like, “Where did that come from and why is it that I need that?”

 

I should have been clued in because every time there's anything to do with patience, you know what that means? It's sheer terror. You just know if you pray for patience, you want patience, then your life is just going to upheave, right? So I should have known this in a foreign country, should have just ignored it sufficiently. But I didn't.

 

And so I started looking around and just saying, “What is this about?” And I want to share it - two experiences, because one's a smaller one and one's a little bit bigger one, but they both have the same concept that I learned.

 

And so the first one was that when I was on one of the plane trips. It was a long trip, and so I was - you know, you get served all the different things. And you're drinking down a lot of water so you don't get puffy, and I really needed to use the restroom.

 

So I went to the back and there's two restrooms, and, you know, you have to stand and wait.

 

But there's this big block in the middle, so you can't really see which restroom is available first. So I kind of chose the one on the right, and no one was there. So I thought, “Okay, I'm good.” And after, you know, not to be too personal, but you know, once you've had seven kids, you really ... when you need to go you need to go.

 

So I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and I'm thinking, “Okay, people let's roll.” And then suddenly this little Asian sweet woman stands in front of me. Just walks back and just stands in front of me.

 

Like she's going to take my turn...

 

And you know, usually I'm like, “Hey, it's all good. We all have our things. Doesn't cost me anything.” This time it was going to be intense. It was going to be a problem if I did not go first.

 

So finally the person comes out, and this woman, I thought, “No way is she going to take my turn, like no way. This is just the blatant.” And she did. She started walking toward the restroom and I was like, What? So I just gently tapped her arm and I said, “Excuse me, so sorry. But I believe it's my turn.”

 

And she said, “Actually it's my turn.” And I went ... and she said, “I actually was standing in line, but I'm sitting here, and I just was getting the garbage off the floor and putting it in the garbage for my kids.”

 

And I looked and sure enough, adjacent there was an empty seat, and I went, “Oh.”

 

And you have this moment, this moment of decision - Am I going to stand on principle? Go, “Yeah, but you weren't here, and I really have to go.” Or are you going to say, “Okay, go right ahead.”

 

I said, “Okay, that's fine. Sorry. I'm just pretty desperate.” And she goes, “You know what? I'm pretty desperate too, but if you need to, you can go ahead.” And I said, “You know what, it's okay, go ahead.” And she kind of laughed, and I laughed, as sort of mothers-in-crime - knowing what this meant, the sacrifice, and we're both kind of willing to make it.

 

And so she just smiled…

 

She goes, “I'll be really quick.” And I said, “Okay, that's great.” So she comes out. She was really quick, and we laughed, and we shared a chuckle, and we just kind of squeezed each other's arms, and we just laughed and went on our merry way.

 

And I thought, “You know, moment achieved. It was all good.” So about an hour and a half later. Second downed water, same thing - same song, second verse - got to go to the back, and no one's there, and I'm thinking, “Awesome!”

 

Look to the left at that seat. It's empty, and about a minute later, this woman comes out, and we just busted up. We were laughing so hard, and we actually gave each other a hug, and I said, “Oh my gosh, we are in sync.”

 

And I said, “Tell you what, I'll be back here in about 30 minutes. Meet me here.” She laughed so hard. It was the sweetest thing. So anyway, another little moment, you know, choosing patience and kindness and saying, “Okay.” I just went back to my seat.

 

Well we get out to customs, and we're going through this huge maze of all these people going through these lines that just keep winding and winding, and guess who I end up across the little barrier from as she's going down a different line?

 

It's the same woman, and we both are looking at each other, and we laughed again, and I said, “I have to get a picture with you.”

 

So we took a picture. We started talking and chatting, and I told her (she was asking) what my daughter was doing. I told her she was going to go to BYU, and she got accepted to the one in Utah and Hawaii and was making her decision. She's like, “Oh, Hawaii. It’s the best. That's what I understand.” And I said, “Yeah.”

 

We were talking and connecting and I said, “You know, Utah's a great place.” She was going to Washington. Anyway. We had this great connection and I say, “Come visit us sometime. It was so sweet.”

 

And we went our merry way, knowing we probably wouldn't see each other again. It was a really sweet experience. I want you to hold that thought for just a minute of what you may have learned from that interchange. Those three interchanges that we had that were just these little touch points.

 

The second thing I want to share is the actual trip home. So we had had a very smooth trip, and it had been wonderful. I cannot even describe how wonderful it was. In fact, I'm going to share some things in other podcasts, the things that I've learned.

 

I shared on my social media about everyday life lessons that I was learning in real time and sharing them from the different sites that we were at, different places in Bath and in Scotland and London and Paris - all these different places and things that I was learning.

 

So this trip had been really smooth. So now it comes to Saturday. We had actually connected with old friends from the states, and we were zooming to get back to the train - had to take a train to get back to take a flight from Glasgow to London. So we're taking a train from Dundee.

 

We miss it by a minute. My friend is jamming to get us there because Google took us a different way, and I'm literally standing at the train, and I go to press the button to open the doors, and it won't. And then it just starts taking off. We literally missed it by like a minute, and I was going very “American” in front of the train.

 

So we had to wait, get another train, and we're hoping we make our flight. So we hurry to make the flight from Glasgow to London because this London flight that we're going to take the next morning is our flight home, and we cannot miss that.

 

We get to the airport to take this flight from Glasgow to London, and we finally make it. We get in at 10:30, and then we had to check our bags.

 

Just stay with me. We had to check our bags because we didn't want to travel. You travel with any big suitcases? So we just did carry-on. Well, by the end of a trip how does your carry-on look? It looks like it's a tick about to pop.

 

I mean it was just oozing out everywhere. And the lady looks at me, she's like, “Oh this is not going to make it love. No, not going to make it.” So we had to check them as suitcases.

 

So we get off the flight. We're ready to go to the hotel because our flight - we had to get up at six in the morning - so we're just basically going to hotel, sleeping, and getting up.

 

And they've lost one of my bags - just one - they were all together, but now just one. So then I had to talk to a bunch of different people, and they're all doing their walkie talkies, and I'm running through Heathrow, and I'm trying to find where they put this bag, and they don't know.

 

And this Indian lady was so nice. Went through a bunch of different people, had to go through luggage, security, all this stuff. She personally takes me down to luggage, finds out it's not where they thought it was. They closed it down.

 

So she writes me a report, gives me everything I need for the next morning and says, “Sorry, you're going to have to come back tomorrow.” Now, meanwhile, all of these things are standing in my way.

 

Like I came to go talk to her, and this man steps in front of me, and he's Indian, and he's talking about what happened to their luggage that's been missing for three days, and she had to literally tell him for 10 minutes over it and over, rinse and repeat, why it was lost. Why, they didn't know, it wasn't their deal, but it was lost, and it wasn't here even though they've been told that it was.

 

I finally get this woman, and I told her, I said, “Hey, really nice job on dealing with that gentlemen. You just were so patient.” And rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. And she kind of smiled at me. She said, “Yeah, I've been here 18 hours like that.”

 

She had been the picture of patience, and she had been there 18 hours, and she's supposed to go on holiday in two hours, and you can imagine she's got all kinds of things. She said, “I got all this stuff I need to do,” but she was personally walking me over to this area, writing up a report, making sure I had everything I needed for the next morning.

 

So we try to get to the hotel. They say, “Take a bus.” No good. “Take a shuttle.” No good. Finally we took a taxi, was completely overcharged, took a taxi, and we finally got to the hotel.

 

It's midnight. We climb into bed to get up at 6:00, and I'm freaked out that we're going to miss our flight. We finally get to the airport, and I tried to track down, even though I called ahead, try to track down this piece of luggage, blah, blah, blah…

 

Trying to make it through security. So we get my bag. Finally. Hooray! We're going through the regular security, and then there is an overhead announcement, and the entire airport - this is an emergency. Everybody proceed calmly to the exits. I'm like, “You have got to be joking.”

 

And seriously, they start rounding up all the personnel, and they're moving us. I was like, “You've got to be kidding.” Turns out it was a false activation, but by this time, you know, my nerves are just a little fried.

 

So we finally get through that, get rerouted, and then I am, we're running to make it...

 

They are boarding. They've already boarded our zone, and we're running, and this lady steps in front of me, and she says, “You have been selected by TSA for a special search.” Lucky me. And I'm trying to remember this patience and kindness, patience and kindness in this mantra in my head because I really want to rip somebody's eyeballs out.

 

So they do this full search, and I send my daughter on, but I want to be able to keep seeing her in case they don't let me on, and she can't be on the same flight. So we get to fly home together. Oh my word. You can imagine…

 

So I finally get done, and we run into the plane, and we finally board. I'm just like, “Oh, thank heavens.” So this whole process, I have opportunities to be rightly frustrated and to rightly exercise a little bit of impatience.

 

And I have to tell you how grateful I was for that little heads up of patience and kindness because had I not had that, I think I would've just taken each experience as it came and reacted instead of responded.

So the big thing that I learned from all of this is with patience and kindness, not only does it work, but the bottom line is that it's a choice.

 

It is a choice...

 

We can say, “Yeah, but this thing was just so frustrating that I just had to lose it.” Right? And there are so many situations that are justifiable. But as I went through each of these moments - try missing the train. It wasn't under my control because I wasn't driving.

 

And getting into Glasgow, and our, our luggage being lost wasn't under my control, wasn't my fault. And then - well, okay, maybe we packed it so we probably should have just carried it on. But it was in their charge, and it wasn't my fault. And then getting to the airport, the emergency thing - all of the things that happened - not under my control, not my fault.

 

And it's easy when there's a situation that's not your fault to immediately point a finger or blame somebody - even justifiably so, and the emotion can come behind it. The emotion can be there, and push a force almost beyond your control.

 

When you open that can of worms - when you open that door to that impatience and frustration.

 

But I really did see it was like this little microcosm experience that He was showing me that being patient may not be necessarily one of my virtues. It’s one of my issues. Because I've worked on it with seven kids, you have to get either patient or you just get numb, because you know, you just can't get - you can't rise emotionally to every one of those occasions.

 

So I have learned patience, thank goodness! But you know, you keep going deeper and deeper on those, those learning levels. And and I have found that especially when things are going well, I can tend to become entitled, like why didn’t that go quicker? Why didn't that go smoothly?

 

How come I had to wait for that? And it's something to consider in your own life, you know, first being able to be grateful for the conveniences that you have, for the people who are helping you, for the good things in your life - your health, your strength, your ability to organize, your ability to do.

 

Being grateful I think keeps you in a space that makes you more able to be patient and kind…

 

Because we really look around for people's backstory. We really look for what's going on. Once I heard that from that Indian woman that she'd been there 18 hours, you know, pretty much these nerves that were really fried and on the edge of exploding kind of, they really just went poof, just all the way down, because what do I have to complain about when really it was one little last bag and we were flying out the next day.

 

Anyway, here is the woman whose been there, dealing with customer complaints a lot less...kind than maybe some of us that were standing there for 18 hours. So this is a little mantra for me now. It's like, “Hmm, have I been at this 18 hours? This has been frustrating for 18 hours. If I had to deal with this, is this my 18 hours? I don't think so. Not yet.”

 

But I'm saying this, and I'm knocking on wood - literally, right there - because you know as soon as you say something like that. Exactly. Exactly.

 

So I hesitate to even share this learning, but I'm hoping that in my desire to do good that I'll be a little bit, you know, covered by that pavilion. Hopefully you can only hope so. My dear friends, what I want you to get out of this today is that when those opportunities come that are justifiable for you to really lose it and just say, “People this. I had this in line. This is not my fault.”

 

This is your deal. This is. This was supposed to be the headline. Whatever it might be that you exercise patience and kindness doesn't mean you don't set a boundary. Doesn't mean you don't have more clarity. Doesn't mean you don't seek for more understanding or have somebody be able to own their stuff.

 

It just means that it's a choice and that you can choose to be patient and kind. And as you do that, I saw once again that it reaps benefits.

 

I know had I been a nasty customer…

 

I don't think that good Indian woman would have given me all that information, would have personally walked me over, would have taken care of, and even gave me a little overnight little mini-bundle thing that had a t-shirt and toothpaste and deodorant and all of that, and it was wonderful.

 

That was such a big help...

 

I don't think I would've had my case that would have come back the next day so easily. I don't know that all of those things would have come in line, because I may have become an obstacle in my own right to my own happiness.

 

So today when you have an opportunity, and it seems like frustration is the right choice, I can ask you to reconsider and choose patience in kindness...

 

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