Permission to feel: Frustration

Transforming Frustration into Self-Discovery. Blamer, self-shamer or up your gamer - which one are you?

Ever feel like something is out of your control, preventing you from achieving what you desire?

Yup, welcome to frustration my friend.

All that pent up energy, the foot is on the accelerator, but the wheels are just spinning and you’re just stuck in the mud.

How do you deal with frustration? Are you a:

Must up my gamer.

Your mantra is: ‘If I just try harder, I can push on through and things will change.’

You push harder to try and solve your frustration as quickly as possible.

Cue faster spinning wheels and more mud flinging around the place.

Self blamer

Your mantra is: ‘I knew I shouldn’t have… ’. You doubt your judgment, your ability to move towards your goals.

Blamer

Your mantra is: ‘If they hadn’t…’

You fantasise about what could-a, should-a, would-a been if only the world had tilted its axis to suit you.

This is a LOT of energy put into trying to control the things we cannot change. If you are particularly talented, you manage to do all three of those things simultaneously. Congratulations, that is a talent to be recognised.

So how do you stop being such a stuck in the mud when it comes to frustration?

It is perhaps human nature to steer towards trying to control what feels out of control. Feeling out of control is scary isn’t it?

So what can be done instead?

Step 1: Pause

The first thing to do when we feel frustrated is to pause and look at what is within our control and what isn’t. If we don’t do this then we may be in our own way, without even realising it.

Step 2: Get out of your own way

No amount of extra drive, inner critic or blame is going to change the situation and until we drop those defences, we may not be able to make a full assessment of what is within our control.

Step 3: Focus on the desired outcome

What would happen if you put your energy into accepting what you cannot control and focused on your desired outcome instead?

How often do you feel frustrated in a relationship, but you use the strategies above to try and sort it out? Doesn’t that just end up in a lot of mud slinging?

What happens when you pause and instead ask yourself, ‘What do you want the desired outcome to be?’

How often does it start with, ‘For them to…’?

Sorry, that’s more freewheeling. Except it costs you your serenity.

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If this is you, hello friend, I am familiar with (y)our work. So, how did I dig myself out of the mud, and how can you, too?

Let’s start with the ‘For them to…’

For example: ‘My desired outcome is for them to take accountability for their actions and to take my feelings into account’.

Okaaaaaaay, so that what?

You might say, ‘So that I can trust that they will do what they say they are going to do and they understand the impact that their behaviour has had on me’

Okaaaaaay, so that what?

You might say, ‘So that they don’t do it again’

Ooops, sorry, you’re back freewheeling…

You might say, ‘So that I can feel safe and valued in my relationship with them’.

AHA!

So your desired outcome is to you feel safe and valued in your relationship with them.

Then you can ask yourself:

What does a relationship in which I feel safe and valued look like?

Is it reasonable to ask this other person to provide all of these things that help me feel safe and valued?

Is some of what I need to feel safe and valued down to my own behaviour?

Is some of what I need to feel safe and valued an echo from past wounds which need to be healed?

How well can I trust myself to protect myself when I don’t feel safe and valued?

This leads me on to boundaries. When we are looking to improve our relationships, boundaries are the bedrock. Ah look, I have a video for you on boundaries starting with my ‘Positively Negative’ poem. Urm, excuse the subtitles, a few typos in there 🤪.

Knowing our desired outcome for us does not mean that it will be an easy path. As I say in the video, people may not like your boundaries and outcomes may not live up to the ideal we’d like, but by God, you will end up connecting in one relationship like you have never before.

That relationship is the one that you have with yourself.

That is the lotus flower to be found in all that mud, mud, glorious mud.

That’s it for now!

‘Til next time.

Jacky x