When you notice yourself being impatient say “it* is impatient, but I don’t have to be.”
*Sometimes it helps to refer to your lower self as “it”.
Since we have the ability to look ahead, we often find ourselves impatient with the present. This can happen when we are traveling, when we are trying to accomplish something, or when we are frustrated with something in the present.
The impatience does not usually help the situation. It just adds a negative quality to how we are experiencing the present moment. The opposite of being impatient, is being content with how things are now.
If you are impatient it means that you are not a good patient. The word “patience” comes from a Latin word referring to something that is acted on. The word “agent” refers to a person who is doing the action. Learning patience means learning to accept things that are beyond your control.
Imagine you are a passenger in a car, and you start feeling impatient. You want to go faster, but you cannot directly change your speed. You might poke the driver or give helpful instructions, but none of this actually puts you behind the wheel. The impatient feelings are not coming from a good place in you. This is a time to let go of the impatience and become passive. And that can be hard to do.
Often our feelings of impatience come from the lower parts of our mind. We might feel that we want to control the situation and make it move faster. When we see these impatient beasts tromping around in our basement we might find it useful to calm down and realize that we need to be passive.
Part of it is learning to let go of your opinions, thoughts and feelings. Perhaps it is your personality that is asserting itself and trying to be in control. If so it is time to let go and let God.
The first part of the task is to observe yourself and see if you can become aware of the part of you that is producing the impatience. The second step is to shift from impatience (which, in a way, is a desire to be in some other time or place), to allowing yourself to be present in the here and now.
Having taken those steps it might be possible to let go of the impatience, relax and remind yourself that your lower self is not in charge.