From Frustrated to Zen With One Simple Prompt
A simple way to relax your mind in frustrating situations
People frustrate you.
Unfortunate events piss you off.
That’s normal.
But letting the person annoy you, or the unfortunate event get to you, is allowing yourself to fall into life’s devilish traps.
It brings out the ugly side of you.
But becoming immune to life’s frustrations is possible.
A slight shift in mindset — a prompt you can use whenever frustration arises — that’ll dissipate the frustration, and welcome the beautiful side of you.
What makes us frustrated?
We feel frustrated when the outcome we expect doesn’t come to fruition:
Someone not responding how you’d expect, or
A series of traffic lights going red when you’re in a rush
We expect one thing, but we receive the other — leaving us in a state of resistance.
Our problems with other people’s behaviour are the most common cause of frustration:
How could they do that to me?
If that were me, I would’ve handled it differently.
I’ve done so much for them, but they didn’t do anything for me
It’s an expectation issue.
It stems from expecting people to behave a certain way — and when they don’t, we’re frustrated.
Your reaction to waking up to heavy rain depends on whether you’d like your plants to be watered, or whether you’d like to go to the beach.
But why is frustration bad?
When you’re frustrated, you behave on a lower plane of consciousness:
erratic
volatile
mean
angry, and
impatient
You’re not yourself when you’re frustrated.
Your purest form is a compassionate one. And when you’re frustrated, you lose the love and empathy from your heart that we’re born with. That’s what you excel at. That’s how you were created.
Why else do you think love feels so good, and hate feels so bad?
Nothing good comes from frowning. Moping around doesn’t attract good people to you. It doesn’t bring you “luck”. Behaving this way, in a low vibrational state, will bring low vibrational events and people into your life.
Conversely, the good times in life are when you’re smiling. Positivity attracts positivity. The pinnacle of life is breaking bread, laughing and sharing.
That’s what you were made to do.
So you need to chase your highest form as often as possible and reframe any situations that cause unnecessary frustration to help you on this quest.
And here’s how.
A prompt to dissipate frustration
“You can’t be angry and curious at the same time.“
— Seth Godin
To parry the frustration, you can approach every situation from a place of curiosity.
Doing this will transform the frustrated emotion into an inquisitive thought.
Someone doesn’t behave how you’d expect → I wonder why they’re behaving this way? Maybe I’ve cast an unrealistic expectation on them. We have different parents, a different upbringing and different values. I shouldn’t expect them to be like me.
A series of traffic lights go red when you’re in a rush → Why is this happening? The timing of the lights is modelled based on cars per hour along the road. This is a busy road at peak time. Next time I’ll leave a longer buffer to arrive on time.
Approaching problems from a place of curiosity will not only dissipate frustrations but also help get to the bottom of issues.
And it works like magic — providing instant relief. Your shoulders relax, your eyebrows un-crease and your heart opens up. You become inquisitive, rather than angry, negative and hateful.
Leave the hate behind and embrace your curiosity — your highest form.
And doesn’t it make sense that curiosity is your highest form? We’re curious creatures after all. Humans are only here because we asked the questions: why? and how?
That’s why you’re reading this. You want to discover something new to help you live a better life. That’s why we do anything.
At our core we’re curious.
That’s why we question the universe. Is there a god? Is there not? What’s at the bottom of the ocean? What’s in space?
We’re explorers. We explore geographically and metaphysically. We explore consciousness and psychology.
Asking questions and solving them is one of the fundamental parts of being human — and by returning to our fundamentals, you can return to your highest form, and leave the frustration behind.
In summary
Frustration is a low plane of existence — it weighs us down.
Curiosity is our highest plane — it lets us float.
To melt away frustration and achieve your highest form of self — become curious in situations where you feel frustrated and angry.
Instead of moping about how something went wrong, ask yourself why it went wrong.
And don’t take my word for it — try it yourself.
Next time you’re frustrated, get inquisitive.
Ask the hows and the whys. Watch your mind become more positive. Watch how a once frustrating and uncomfortable experience becomes positive.
My life truly changed when I started approaching life from a place of curiosity, and I believe yours could too.
Thank you for reading.
I’m just sharing the lessons learned on my path to building my Mental Fortress - an impenetrable and stable mind.
If you found it helpful, that’s great. I figured, why not share it with the world as I crystallise my own ideas.
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Sincerely,
Eren