Gaining Patience for Others Through Self-Love

In working with a lot of perfectionists and overachievers, the topic of impatience comes up a lot in our therapy sessions. It gets narrowed down to my clients feeling like someone else is lazy, isn’t working hard enough, doesn’t care, or that another person is taking advantage of them. Yet, when it becomes a pattern in my clients’ life, it really isn’t about the other people - it’s about the person in front of me. As said by German author Hermann Hesse, "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." My perfectionists hate their own feelings of unworthiness, and so they are disturbed seeing others not trying frantically to avoid similar judgements. My overachievers have often worried about appearing lazy, and so they go above and beyond; when they see others accepting their limits, it makes them resentful. In therapy together, I work with my clients to figure out where their own self-hatred lies, helping them turn their impatience with others into anger towards the lack of patience and understanding they didn’t receive when they needed it. That anger is good because it comes from a place of self-love. Once they’ve validated their own pain, it becomes easier to give that unconditional support to others.

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

~ Hermann Hesse