Frustration is a big bugger.
It robs you of joy.
It blurs your sense of reason.
It annuls the patience and calm warm heartedness you may tend to feel more regularly. At least the steady calm you may strive to feel more consistently.
And what’s more, it seems like it just springs up outa nowhere.
Me?
I can’t stand frustration because it’s a reminder I’ve allowed my emotions to rule the moment instead of standing up to the pull.
Ugh. Today I get F for not getting pulled into frustration.
In fact, maybe I get F for all last week ? hee hee.
Okay…pause…breathe….be gentle with my heart….
But man oh man, it just hit me outa nowhere ½ way through the morning. I got pretty darn miffed at someone who hadn’t disclosed a lot of information that to me was essential tidbits in order for me to make a good decision about something.
Ooh! I stayed miffed at him for a real long while and then whammo! I turned the frustration onto myself calling myself every name under the sun outa more frustration that I didn’t think to ask for those fine tuned details.
By lunchtime I was a huge grump and felt really stuck in a big messy moody blues mood ? (no offense moody moodies…love that band!).
So here’s what works for me when I recognize that I’m stuck in the rut of frustration.
At least here’s what works when I first realize I’m stuck there. ?
First, I gotta calm down and breathe. And I do this several ways.
But most importantly is this: I first have to recognize that there’s a ton of muckety muck thoughts squirming all around in my thinking. Nothing’s focused, I feel heated, and a lot of these thoughts fall under the guise of personal accusations, should have’s or could have’s.
Okay, so that’s the first step: stepping or leaping or jumping or mentally running out of that whirlpool.
Then I re-establish what I know is governing and controlling the moment at hand, in spite of my emotions and reactions.
I make my thoughts stand still. And I affirm that the divine Mind, universal intelligence, holds all authority right at that moment. Not my will nor anyone else’s. And right at that moment, everything in the universe that is substantial, lasting, enduring and true is controlled by this Mind.
So I get calm by mentally redirecting my thoughts to focus on what is the foundation of all. And I get this established in thought. I don’t move onto thinking about anything else, in fact, until I am completely still and completely calm and completely OUT of the entanglement of the frustration.
Once I am fully in the knowing of this spiritual fact, that the universal, divine Mind is controlling me and all, then I reason spiritually. I know that because I’m under this control, my thoughts are governed by this Mind and in fact reflect the nature and essence of this Mind.
It is my true nature to be understanding, compassionate, courageous, and intelligent—not stupid, lazy, unprepared, or unfeeling. And once I establish in thought my true nature, I continue to reason, a bit more objectively, about the circumstance at hand knowing full well that I can not fall prey to any tactic that tries to dupe my convictions.
I am much calmer, much more compassionate with my initial motives and intent. And I have forgiveness and understanding in my heart toward the person who earlier I felt wronged me.
And suddenly, with this shift of perspective, a wave of calm comes over me and I can go about the rest of my morning or afternoon or whatever without lashing out or feeling taken advantage of or wronged in any way.
Now, this kind of spiritual reasoning isn’t something I just made up. What has helped me begin to start reasoning spiritually are the ideas that Mary Baker Eddy writes about in her main work Science and Health.
In that book she affirms “We must try our thoughts and see if they are of God.”
This is always a really good bench mark, especially when feeling drowning in a sea of emotions, anger, frustration or self loathing.
The way I’ve come to know if a thought if ‘of God’ is to weigh it. Seriously. Like if you’re buying produce. You don’t get the tomatoes that have a bruise, you don’t pick out the dried up oranges, you don’t get the grapefruit that’s started to smell overripe. So too in thought: anything willful, dark, angry, frustrated–these are not the thoughts of the one universal intelligence.
Right in the midst of feeling the pull of frustration, thought can shift. It can! All it takes is one moment. One thought. And sometimes it’s as simple as doing this in thought “ooh, i can feel that pull of rensentment and anger coming on. Now I know that these thoughts are not my natural inclinations. So I am not going to succome to their pull. I know right now that I reflect and embody the nature of the divine intelligence and so too must my thoughts image that way of thinking.”
But what IS that way of thinking? How can you get out of that frustration rutt and reflect your natural spiritual inclinations?
Well, it’s like this….I am always asking myself: what is the divine Mind knowing about this? How can I see the spiritual substance of this situation right this moment?”
Now don’t laugh or roll your eyes. Often when you feel frustrated, you feel darn well justified at doing so. It’s empowering and full of life and full of feelings you know are well founded, for gosh darn it, this or that situation has screwed up a huge part of your day/week/month, or whatever. Or worse, this situation may well have caused you a ton of pain.
But here’s what I’m seeing more and more:
The only person wronged when I let myself harbor indefinitely in resentment and frustration is me.
Those feelings don’t get me anywhere and really rob me of my rightful peace and joy.
Plus, I just feel yucko when I’m walking around stewing over something. And that yucko feeling robs me further of being able to bring my fresh self to other situations that may have nothing to do with what caused me to be frustrated. You know?
Why should I show up to a friend’s house irritated by something someone said on a phone call? Worse, why should I take that irritability out while I’m driving? Or why should I bring my angered self up to a cash register and act impatiently toward the cashier?
Without realizing it, if we don’t handle our frustrations, they handle us, shape our moments, and carry this dark looming cloud around us wherever we go.
And I guarantee you, if someone’s giving you attitude, generally he or she is mulling over something in their thoughts that has nothing to do with you. He or she is probably stuck in that frustration rutt too.
So how do we not let ourselves be robbed of our right for consistent joy?
Fight it off as if you were barring your home from someone trying to break in or as if you were resisting someone from trying to kidnap you. I’m serious. Fight those thoughts off. Refuse to let them attach themselves as your own thoughts, even when they come as your own thoughts.
In my thoughts, it comes like this “oh, that really miffs me. I can’t believe she did that or he said this. What the heck are they thinking to treat me this way?’
See the self and the human will? It comes guised as my own thoughts, but it is NOT my natural inclinations.
All of our natural inclinations pull us to seek the good and the true substance, not the bad and the ugly.
So right then, in that moment when you feel the pull, when you’ve ‘tried your thoughts’ and see that they are not what you would otherwise naturally think, resist them. And instead, fill your thoughts up with a deep defending of your own innocence, you own being perpetually governed by the one divine Mind, your own liberty to not be duped by evil, unkind, irritating thoughts at any moment.
You see, sometimes we think ‘well okay, if I’m not gonna let myself be frustrated, how can I think so I won’t become that way?”
But it’s not about switching frustration to joy.
It’s about defending your inability to be duped by any thought that differs from the natural spiritual inclinations you have.
Do this a few times and you’ll see how natural it starts to feel to resist the pulls to feel frustrated.
You may in some occasions let something go and just not be moved about it. You may at other times be filled with compassion and understanding toward the socalled wrong doer. But you won’t allow yourself to be duped because you’ve defended that your innocence is unalterable and whole and steady.
I do this sometimes hourly. Some days I do it as the situation arises. But I’m always defending my innocence, and my right to not be duped by malicious thoughts.
In truth, we each have the right to reflect the divine intelligence moment to moment. But it takes work to realize this and better still to live it.
But the rewards of learning how to perpetuate your right to peace and consistent joy are soo soo worth it.
Give it a try. Lemme know how it goes. Lemme know if you need help or wanna chat about
any of the ideas in this blog. Kay?
Enjoy your day……and thanks for reading. ?
Be well…..Tre 🙂