How to Free Yourself From Experiencing Frustration

HJ:  This is a great article that doesn’t need much of an introduction because it really contains just about everything you need to know about feeling frustrated — the how, the why, and ultimately the solution to it, if you can get a handle on your own expectations and thoughts.  I would only add one thing and that is to remember that nothing in life is truly bad or good — that is dualistic thinking based on a perception of right and wrong.  Everything simply is…  everything we experience has a lesson to teach us and when we shift to this perspective, frustration naturally diminishes.  As we become firmly rooted in this mindset and live in alignment with the principles explained below, frustration begins to disappear as we move squarely into the flow.

– Truth

How to Be Free of Frustration

By Steve Pavlina | Steve Pavlina

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If you’re feeling frustrated, it means you’re holding a vibe that aligns with a reality that you don’t want.

How do you create the vibe of frustration? It’s pretty easy. Simply observe your reality, and then resist or reject some aspect of it. Look at your financial situation, and resist it. Look at your job, and resist it. Look at your relationship (or lack thereof), and resist it.

Once you’re holding the frustration vibe, you’ve locked in your resistance. So reality responds accordingly. It says, “Oh… you’re holding a vibe that aligns with what you don’t want. So here’s plenty more of what you don’t want. You’re welcome to experience that for as long as you like!”

You may think that the solution is for reality to adjust itself first — or for you to make changes in your external world — and then you’ll be able to let go of the frustration. But does that actually work? Nope.

The more you try to work on the external world, while still resisting parts of it, the longer you perpetuate frustration. Even if you manage to seemingly fix some part of your external reality, another part will soon break. Or you’ll pull ahead and then fall back… again and again. Ever experience this?

There Is No External World

The reason this approach doesn’t work is that there is no external world, as least none that you can directly access. Where does all your knowledge of the external world exist? It exists in your mind… or in your consciousness. That’s where you hold all your memories, knowledge, and experience. That’s where your feelings are. That’s where your vibe is felt.

Think about your experience of reality as objectively as you can. Where are all your observations being processed? Where are those apparent 3D visual images you see around you being simulated? Where are the sounds you hear interpreted? Where are your feelings being experienced? All of this is happening in your brain and in your body.

Where is the frustration? Obviously that’s in your mind (or brain) too.

Moreover, where are all those frustrating experiences? Do they really exist “out there”? If so, then point to them. If you can’t point to them or identify their location in space, then they exist only as memories and mental projections, which is all clearly in your mind. And if you believe you can physically point to them right now, then what are you pointing at? You’re observing yourself gesturing within a visual construct that’s being simulated in your brain, which is still an internal reality.

Once you realize that there is no frustration out there — and there are no frustrating experiences out there in the world either — you’re one big step closer to releasing frustration altogether. If these experiences are internal to you, which in truth they are, then perhaps you have the ability to release that frustration without needing to change anything at all outside of you.

You are indeed capable of doing this. A good start is to realize that it’s rather silly for one part of your mind to resist another part of your mind. To create frustration, for instance, the part of your mind that observes must disagree with the part of your mind that predicts.

Observation vs. Prediction

If your observations and your predictions disagree, does it really make sense to have them do battle inside your mind?

What’s the simplest way to end this inner conflict? How about if prediction surrenders to observation? Let observation win, let reality be what it is, let your observations be as they are, and decline to fight yourself if your predictions disagree. Instead, let your predictive abilities learn and grow in response to your latest observations. Don’t cling to inaccurate predictions.

When you allow yourself to wallow in frustration, you’re continuing to wage war between prediction and observation. And wars of this nature have a tendency to self-perpetuate. This means that you’ll continue to find new sources of conflict even as old ones dry up. As long as you believe that it’s okay for prediction and observation to fight, your mind will continue to feed the battle with fresh troops, ammo, and supplies.

When you realize that this conflict is pointless, which indeed it is, then you can consciously end it. To do this, one side must surrender, and the losing side must be prediction. Otherwise you’ll just fall further out of alignment with truth, and you’ll attract even greater frustrations as you widen the gap between prediction and observation. It’s better to correct your predictive errors when the fighting isn’t so intense.

Surrender

Once you surrender, both sides will put down their weapons, and the fighting will end. Instead of feeling frustrated, now you can start to vibe with acceptance… and eventually, with peace and flow and happiness.

As you continue to surrender the unwinnable battles of frustration, you’ll gain access to even more resourceful vibes. When your predictive abilities and your observational abilities cease fighting, you have more resources to devote to your creative abilities. Instead of having your creativity diverted to the conflict, you can create what you desire instead.

Resisting your observations is not a path to manifesting your desires. You can’t create if you deny what you’ve already created. You can’t elevate your vibe if you won’t accept what you’re attracting with your current vibe.

If you want to speed ahead even faster, then allow yourself to love what you’ve already created. No matter how nasty it looks, love it like a frog prince. Find some way — any way — to see the beauty behind the apparent ugliness.

Resisting Scarcity

When I was broke and in debt many years ago, initially I resisted that outcome. With each new year, I grew ever more determined to resist my observed reality… and to recommit myself to creating wealth instead. After a while I had to conclude that this internal battle wasn’t working. I kept losing money for 5 years straight. Resisting brokeness with all my might did not summon abundance into my life. Resisting brokeness just made brokeness a bigger and bigger part of my reality. Eventually I had to sell off most of my possessions, lose my office, and lose my apartment. The more I fought against being broke, the more broke I became.

Finally I came to my senses. I recognized that resisting brokeness was draining my creative energies, leaving  me with little power to create and experience what I actually desired. While my predictions were fighting my observations, I simply didn’t have the inner resources available to create what I desired.

And so I gave up and surrendered. I stopped fighting. I acknowledged and accepted my utter brokeness. I let myself wallow in it, like I was taking a bath in a tub full of broke.

I declared prediction’s unconditional surrender, and I proclaimed observation the final winner of this years-long war. My many attempts to create wealth were clearly not working, nor were they ever likely to work. The goals, projects, actions, and attitudes that I predicted would lead to wealth and success had taken me in the exact opposite direction. It was an extraordinary failure, one of my life’s biggest. Finally instead of resisting this observation, I celebrated it. What a spectacular failure it was!

Relief

When this war finally ended, I expected I might feel rather depressed about the whole thing. Maybe there was some of that present, but it soon faded, replaced by feelings of relief and even some elation — feelings not uncommonly associated with the end of many wars.

As my inner soldiers returned home from the battlefield — some victorious, others defeated, but all of them relieved that the fighting was over — I put them all back to work. Instead of working on weapons and battle training and military pursuits, I put them to work in construction. With no more war to fight, I had plenty of inner manpower to attend to fresh creative projects.

And those projects succeeded. Without the vibe of frustration rooting me to a reality I didn’t want, I allowed myself to gently glide over to a reality I did want. By declining to resist what I’d already created, my creative powers went up a level or two… or ten.

Abusing Your Creativity

It was difficult to learn the lesson that when I resist what is, I’m destroying my own creativity. Now I understand that if I want to create and attract what I desire, I must encourage the heck out of my creativity now. I must allow myself to see the beauty in what I’ve already created… to lavish heaps of praise on my creativity for what it’s done thus far… to keep noticing its strengths and its potential, not its shortcomings.

If you deny, resist, or condemn what’s already showing up, you’re shaming your creativity into oblivion. That’s like trying to train an athlete by constantly saying, “OMG you frakkin loser! You suck!” and offering no encouragement or positive feedback whatsoever.

When you resist what’s showing up in your life, you’re abusing your creativity. Is that really the relationship you desire? Will it really benefit you to bash and berate your creativity into becoming ever more helpless and powerless?

Aligning with Abundance

Since those hard-earned lessons, I’ve had a relatively easy time staying in the flow of abundance — and continuing its expansion into other areas like the delightful enjoyment of open relationships. The core of this abundance-creating philosophy is absolute acceptance of what is.

Whenever I see observation and prediction getting snippy with each other, I give them both hugs and tell prediction to sit down and listen more carefully to observation. Once those two are back to being best buds, then plenty of fresh energy flows into creativity. And creativity is really good at manifesting new desires.

I also praise my creativity for what it’s already summoned into my life. I look for any excuse to give it a poth (pat on the head).

Look at that beautiful article you just wrote. You’re such a wordsmith!

You really helped that woman feel loved and appreciated. You’re doing a great job of connecting from your heart!

You’re on an airplane again. Kudos to you for traveling — this is fun!

What if you’re having a bad day? Again, find any excuse to praise your creativity, which is the same thing as finding something to appreciate in your reality.

Who just made popcorn without burning it (mostly)? YOU did!

That was a nice hug you gave your daughter. She really had to strain not to crack a smile!

So you sent your ex-wife a text message intended for your girlfriend. What a stimulating way to start your day!

Taming Prediction

If you want to invite more abundance and flow into your life, you’ll likely get much faster results not by pounding away on your desires but by releasing your resistance to what’s already showing up — as well as any worries or concerns about what might happen next.

It’s easier to start a business if you don’t worry about going broke. It’s easier to invite loving relationships if you don’t worry about potential rejection. It’s easier to write interesting articles if you don’t worry about criticism.

I’m very happy with my life right now. This has been an amazingly beautiful year, and I’m excited about what’s coming up in the next month or two. I’m looking forward to cool creative projects, lucrative business deals, warm and loving cuddle sessions, exciting travel adventures, yummy sex, new friends, new growth lessons, and more.

But I’ve learned that it’s usually disastrous to let my predictions get too far ahead of my observations. I allow myself to enjoy the vibe of being already aligned with my desires, but I don’t let myself get clingy with it.

If I become attached to certain predictions, then what happens if and when my observations fall short of my predictions? What happens if an expected business deal falls through, or a cuddle partner cancels, or a beautiful trip gets postponed? If I get clingy with my expectations, I’m inviting frustration.

I allow myself to make predictions — I can’t really help that — but I let them float around continuously without declaring a solid lock. Only observation has the privilege and the responsibility of declaring a lock (and even then, that sometimes needs to be tamed as well). Prediction never gets to wield the baton of certainty. Prediction can only suggest, never assert. Prediction can only declare what may be, never what will be.

By releasing my attachment to what might be, and simply resting with my intentions, I avoid a great deal of frustration. Sure I screw up from time to time. But when I come to my senses, I tell prediction to surrender. I put him back in his proper position and remind him that he’s a scout, not a general.

This requires patient practice. I often have to go back and remind myself of the ideas I’ve shared above — that my predictions and observations are both internal and that it’s foolish to permit them to fight within me. Fortunately perfection isn’t necessary. Even a small improvement in this relationship can attract some very nice outcomes.

Creativity’s Trainers

Maybe I’ll enjoy a lucrative business deal or two in the weeks ahead, but maybe this won’t actually happen. Maybe I’ll go to Canada and Norway this month, but maybe those trips will get canceled for some unpredictable reason. Maybe I’ll have some delightful cuddle sessions and a threesome or two, or maybe I won’t.

Even when I have seemingly solid plans for these welcome experiences, I do my best to avoid clinginess. They’re still just possibilities, regardless of how likely they may be.

Whenever prediction wants to shout, “Let’s celebrate in advance. This is totally a done deal!” I don’t grant it the authority to declare itself an accurate authority on the future. I allow it to suggest, and I listen to its suggestions, but I retain an attitude of “perhaps, but perhaps not” when listening. I know from experience that prediction can wield tremendous confidence even when it’s dreadfully wrong.

The irony is that when I keep prediction from ascending to the level of hubris, it tends to be more accurate than otherwise. By keeping its station humble, it perpetually feels it has something to prove, and so it does its most reliable work.

Think of prediction and observation as creativity’s co-trainers. If the trainers are yelling and screaming at each other, that doesn’t benefit the student. Having the trainers on equal footing is too tricky a balancing act. The most sensible approach is to have one Master trainer (observation) and one assistant trainer (prediction). When there’s a disagreement about the training regimen, they can first attempt to hear each other out and try to achieve consensus, but if that isn’t realistic, then the Master trainer has the authority to make the call.

By loving and accepting your current reality as you invite new desires, you can create what you desire faster and more easily. You can prevent new wars from breaking out between prediction and observation… and ensure that they work cooperatively as co-trainers of your creative abilities. This means more energy flowing into creation, and less energy squandered on frustration.

Moreover, by releasing these inner struggles (or at least toning them down), you can free up more time to enjoy the deliciousness of receiving.