I have always considered myself pretty comfortable expressing my emotions. I cry when I am sad, I laugh hard when I am happy, and I am comfortable sharing my anger when it feels appropriate.I even have as one of my tag lines..emotional unpacking allows for our souls unfolding. My son was sharing a story recently about feeling the need to do something different. needing a change. feeling stale in where he is living. He is considering a big change- a big move-Japan. What is important here is not if he chooses to move, but that he is allowing his emotions to be expressed and not be bottled up. I told him how proud I was that he was feeling his way through his evolution, and allowing his own emotions to inform his life, as opposed to ignoring them and then giving the unexpressed feelings the power to form or even deform his life. It was so easy to be a sounding board to him, and his experience. It was effortless to support his growth -emotional and spiritual.
The next day I found myself so upset with my own frustration about a work project, and my self imposed progress ..or lack thereof. So this particular mixture was frustration and disappointment combined. A dangerous cocktail for me. I realized later in a conversation with my sister Astrid, who is a brilliant writer, BTW. And an extraordinary untangler of tied up emotions. Mine in this case. I shared with her that I realized that I held a hierarchy of challenging emotions. Grief, guilt and anger , and rage were at the top. They had a place in my lexicon of feelings. I was well versed. Not so much with rage, but it had an allocated room within my internal real estate. Frustration had no place. It was the ugly moldy garden shed -uncared for, unattended to, and not allowed. Frustration was for those less enlightened, less evolved, less somehow.I should be above frustration!I should know better. I should be able to avoid it. Like dog shit on the street! Funny because I always say to others and my clients that without frustration we would all be still crawling.
Frustration propels us forward, into change. And yet, I was incapable of allowing myself the same consideration, the same kindness. Zero compassion coming way-at least not from me!In my conversation with my sister, she revealed that she was quite comfortable with frustration, but not so much with anger. I asked her how she navigated hers when it would show up. She was casual about it, like I was asking her about having tea with her neighbour. She said, well. I recognize it. Welcome it. Lean in to it. Knowing that it doesn’t last forever, she gets curious about it. Like I would do with sadness, or anger..I was so amazed that she could do this with frustration, as I either try to move so fast that it doesn’t have a place to land like moving away from a fly or a bee, or I hide, like there’s a Jehovah witness at the door. Even those have been few and far between this Covid year! I think it was the first time I really thought about how different we all are in response to challenging emotions. I have people in awe that I have such a facility with crying, that I do not shy away from anger, and my family is simultaneously embarrassed and accepting of my echoing laugh…And yet I have been petrified, mortified by allowing in frustration.This was one that was not demonstrated in my Scandinavian family. You could always try harder, internalize it, or divert your energies. I realize now, this is why I struggled so much when I first moved to Paris in my late 20’s. Frustration and complaining was-still is as far as I know, a national pastime in France. I could not relate. I always wanted to white wash the conversation. I definitely felt frustrated by everyones else’s facility of sharing their frustration.
I realize now how blocking my access to frustration or at least by censoring my relationship with it kept me in the energy of frustration far longer than if I had allowed and welcomed it in! I love it when I find myself in a real life teaching moment. Whatever we resist persists. This is so true! It took me a good few days to welcome in the frustration, and even when I did, it was with great reluctance. And then, like magic, it dissipated, I was able to see and implement solutions that were seemingly unattainable only a few days before. When I taught yoga years ago, I used to refer to what I called then the quadruple “A adage”. Acknowledge, accept, allow and then adjust. We cannot adjust until we have accepted. and this is our life long practice. It certainly is mine! Frustration is becoming a kinder teacher these days.
Ducit Amore 