Feeling frustrated, as everyone knows, is a horrible feeling. Most people have experienced it at some point in their lives. Frustration is not an easy emotion to cope with, and it might even stem from your youth. If you have not learned to cope with the emotion by adulthood, you’ll find living within a society difficult. Frustration is a negative emotion that can lead to very nasty outcomes. Parents can help children find an outlet for their feelings by better understanding the emotion and its function.
What is frustration?
Frustration is an emotion, a raw sensation in your body. We experience the emotion when there is a conflict between what we want to happen and what really happens. The function of frustration is to make us understand that we need to face our problems head-on instead of sitting back and simply expecting them to work out.
When things don’t happen the way you want them to repeatedly, frustration can turn extreme. It can lead you to act irrationally. When you become overly focused on being frustrated, the real reason may get clouded over by another negative emotion — anger.
Below are a few essential tips to help instill a positive attitude for coping with frustration.
Objectivity
Because frustration can become pretty intense, we tend to over-stress. To assess the real situation, try taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. Try to use reason to judge the circumstances by weighing the positives against the negatives. Think of other unmanageable situations you have had to deal with in the past. Remind yourself of situations that were worse than what you are going through right now. Positive affirmations will bolster your spirits, and help you perceive the situation from a more manageable angle.
Feel the frustration
Acknowledging your intense emotions means you fully experience them. Once you accept and embrace them, you will be able to let them go. One strange thing about human nature is that the more you try to avoid facing negative emotions, the stronger they become. The practice of mindfulness will enable you to cultivate emotional intelligence. This will strengthen your ability to forbear. This way, you will be better equipped to dampen the effect of negative emotions.
Time out
Frustration can become self-destructive. Because you feel entitled to what you think you need, when you can’t have it, you feel the pain. This can lead to thoughts of revenge. However, there are more powerful emotions with which to counteract the feeling. Keeping calm is one of them. It is a positive emotion that can prevent frustration from taking root in your mind. Take time out to calm yourself. Then take practical steps toward handling the situation. Reflect on whether there are underlying reasons that are contributing to your feelings. Perhaps you will discover some elements that you have been mishandling that you can try to rectify, which may lead to a resolution of the situation.
You often have high expectations of what you think should happen. You confuse what you want with what you really need. Making a sharp distinction between these things will help lift the burden from you. Sometimes you feel the need to impress people, and you do so at your own cost. Be sincere about how much you are able to give others without lessening yourself.
Contemplation
When you find yourself in a situation that you don’t want to be in, don’t let it get to you. Remember, there is no rush, time is on your side. If you let frustration get the upper hand, you may very well find yourself in a worse situation. Once you are able to calm down completely, you will realize that you have other feasible choices. Then you will find you are able to weigh the situation up rationally and realize that being overly frustrated is just not worth it.
