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A Mini-Guide to Not Being
Frustrated All the Time
Pretty much all of us experience frustration on a daily (or even hourly) basis. We get frustrated by other people, by ourselves, by technology, by work situations, by small crises that come up all the time.
You know you’re frustrated when you find
yourself sighing, or complaining about people, or fuming about something that
happened, or going over why you’re right and they’re wrong.
Frustration is normal, but holding on to
frustration is not so fun. It’s not even helpful: if the situation isn’t great,
adding frustration on top of it just makes it worse. Often frustration will
make us not happy with someone else, and worsen our relationship with them. Or
it will cause us to be less calm, and handle a situation less than ideally.
How can we calm ourselves and let go of
our frustrations, so we’re not so irritated and angry throughout the day?
Let’s talk about why we get frustrated,
and how to address this problem.
The Origins of Frustration
Where does our frustration come from?
It’s from not wanting things to be a
certain way. Not wanting other people to behave a certain way. Not wanting
ourselves to be a certain way.
It’s a rejection of how things are.
From this, we start to tell ourselves a
story: she shouldn’t act that way, she should do this. And she always does
this! Why can’t she just see that she’s wrong? She’s so irritating!
We tell ourselves stories all day long,
and we get caught up in them, and this is where we dwell in our frustration.
A Guide to Overcoming
Frustration
You can’t help frustration coming up, no
matter how Zen you’d like to be. It’s natural, and so are the stories we tell
ourselves.
However, you can develop an awareness of it.
Are you mad or irritated with someone right now? Do you find yourself clenching
your jaw because of a situation? Sighing? Complaining to someone, wanting to
vent? Are you fuming? Arguing your case in your mind?
When you notice yourself experiencing
frustration, pause.
Just sit still for a moment, even just a few seconds, and notice your
frustration. Notice how it feels in your body.
Then start to notice the story you’re telling yourself.
What are you telling yourself is wrong with the situation? What are you saying
the other person should or shouldn’t do? How are you characterizing the other
person or situation?
Now ask this: is this story helping me?
Is it making the situation better or worse? Is it helping your relationship
with the other person? Is it making you happy? If it’s not helpful, maybe
you’re creating your own
unhappiness, entirely in your mind.
Instead, perhaps you can see this frustrating situation as a
lesson in mindfulness, in letting go, in acceptance, in finding
happiness no matter how other people act, no matter what situation you’re in.
Every moment has a lesson, if we’re willing to look. If we open up ourselves to
this situation, we can learn a lot about how to see other people not as we want
them to be, but in the glorious messy beauty of how they actually are, without
needing them to change.
If you’re learning from this situation,
you can also see that the
other person is suffering. Not in the sense of “life is simply
miserable and I’m suffering in agony,” but in the sense of “something is making
me unhappy.” Something is causing the other person to act “imperfectly,”
because they’re conflicted about something, they’re frustrated themselves (as
you are). In this way, you are both experiencing the same thing. You are
connected, and you can understand how they feel because you’re feeling it too.
They are behaving imperfectly, yes, but we all do that. That doesn’t make it
right, but perhaps you can empathize with them, maybe even try to understand
their story, where they’re coming from. Try to see how the way they’re behaving makes sense to them
from their perspective. It does, you just can’t see it.
Now perhaps you can let go of your way. You
want things to go your way, want people to behave the way you want them to. But
you don’t and can’t control the universe. You aren’t entitled to getting
everything your way. Other people get to act imperfectly, behave their own way,
and it’s true that you don’t have to agree with them or love the way they’re
acting, but insisting in your own mind that things go your way or people act
the way you want them to won’t work, and will only make you frustrated. So let
go! So “c’est la vie” and loosen your grip on the way you want things to be.
Finally, say “yes” to this experience. It’s perhaps
not ideal, but what is? Say “yes” and embrace the way this moment is. Practice
this saying “yes” on a regular basis, and you’ll loosen up on your clinging to
things, you’ll start to appreciate what is beautiful about the present moment,
and start to be frustrated less often.
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