Dealing with Anger & Frustration

In your everyday life, you may get impatient with the person on the highway in front of you, the checkout attendant at the grocery store and the car in front of you who ordered the ultra-supreme wash that takes twenty minutes. Watching the clock in the mid-afternoon, wishing it was five o’clock and time to go home. The minds tell you that you would be happier somewhere else, you are going to be late or, worse yet, someone is going to be mad that you kept them waiting. You forget that there is nothing you can do to escape the situation that is causing the delay. Instead, you are immediately triggered into stress, becoming angry and frustrated.

You may not be able to control events in your life, but you are always in charge of how you feel about them. It takes some conditioning, but you can change the way you react if you slow down. The next time you are confronted with the idea that something needs to move a little faster, stop and pay attention to the chatter in your mind. Take a few deep breaths and count to ten. Look at the situation again with a clear head and ask yourself, is this really worth bringing me out of joy? The more you do this, the more frequent your conditioned responses will be out of peace instead of frustration.

You can recreate your reactions to the obstacles in life. The only reason you get angry is that things didn’t occur as you expected. Be open to the unexpected and be willing to go with the flow. Being inflexible and rigid causes tension, opening to whatever life brings can help you move through perceived roadblocks with ease. I am not talking about ignoring your feelings, but embrace the ups and downs of life. Just like a leaf rolling down a river, you can float along the rough waters over and around the rocks and land peacefully into a placid pond.

A good practice is to meditate or use self-hypnosis relaxation every day to help your mind access the deeper calm within you so you can easily draw it up through the day whenever you need it. Knowing that somewhere inside of you is that peaceful pond that you can just sink into will carry you over the rocks and turbulence of your daily life and remind you that you are already home.