Frustration & Anger: How to Cope
Frustration and Anger is normal and even a healthy emotion - it's how you deal with it & respond.
Negative emotions and energy can turn destructive and out of control.
As we go along our daily lives we sometimes come across situations that may frustrate and anger us and when they occur so often the feeling can turn into resentment. Having such feelings may be a reaction to things that threaten our well being alerting us to deal with the problem, but most often it is us who have these feelings that most often get hurt by them.
We all experience and deal with frustration and anger in different ways but for some it sometimes takes over and causes problems in their daily lives so it is important to understand yourself and your temper so you know how to deal with it. Needless to say, we cannot live in a world without frustrations because we are social beings and as social beings we interact with others and these interactions sometimes tend not to be as smooth sailing as we would like them to be.
Having had many of these aggravating situations I decided I wanted to know how I could control these feelings, not end up feeling resentful and not allow the problem to become worse. I found that there are a lot of books and articles written on this topic all containing much information. In the state of mind one may be whilst looking for this kind of information, reading upon pages and pages of jargon and technical language is quite a frustrating task in itself so I took it upon myself to break it down for anyone else who would like some insight without wasting much time. I have listed things that I found most helpful and I hope you find it useful too.
Tip 1: Identify the things that annoy you so you can avoid them and the conflicts they cause.
We all have things that annoy us whether its noise, lack of sleep, lateness in others, etc. and just by knowing these little causes of frustration, you could come up with better ways of dealing with bad situations before they happen like letting other people know how you feel about things so they are aware of it.
Tip 2: Understand that not everyone thinks the way you do.
We all know this but it easy to forget in the heat of a conflict. When arguing with someone you may find yourself wondering why they just cannot understand your view point because you find it some simple to grasp and why they insist on imposing their view on you. This can be really frustrating. However, the best way to deal with such a situation is not by starting or continuing the argument but by discussing your points in a calm manner. You cannot change someone’s opinion, you can only share yours and hope they consider your point and maybe implement it in the situation you would like them to.
Tip 3: Do not focus on who is to blame.
It is easy to point fingers when something goes wrong. Whilst its important people take responsibility when they do wrong it is not your obligation to make sure they do so. If it’s a crime or a violation of the law report it but in social situations were consequences of the problem are trivial then trying to understand were the problem could have come from would allow you to understand more of the situation and I find that when I understand things better they tend to worry or frustrate me less.
Tip 4: Forgive but do not forget.
Forgiving someone shows that you are over the problem that you had. However, you ought to remember the problem and the circumstances that surrounded it and learn something from it. I am not saying you should lose trust but remembering things makes you a bit more cautious. You can learn to identify a potential problem by remembering how a previous similar situation played out.
Tip 5: You need to remember you cannot control everything.
Relax in knowing that some things, no matter how cautious you are, are not up to you and it not your responsibility to ensure everything goes well. You should not make things that are not your responsibly, or your problem, be your problem. You may get missed by trains repeatedly, the weather may not be what you expected, someone will do something wrong, etc. but you should not let that change your mood because it is out of your control. These things happen once in a while and they will keep on happening despite how you feel. Yes you may feel annoyed for a second but just by remembering that it is out of your control you can let go knowing that such is life.
