Coping with Everyday Frustrations - as an Adult
Things not going how you wanted them to, feeling disappointed, feeling ignored or dismissed, or struggling to communicate what you want? Ever had any of these experiences? We all have. Frustration is universal. What is not so widespread is the ability to manage these experiences effectively.
Frustration is the experience of not being able to do what we want or get what we need. It can be both motivating and destructive. It can help us push through difficult times or leave us stuck, endlessly raging at what can’t be. It can motivate us to work towards changing our circumstances or lead to aggression towards ourselves (in the form of self-criticism, for example) or toward others (in the form of angry outbursts or critical behaviour). Harnessing our frustration and expressing it in healthy ways is a lifelong challenge.
Being an adult does not ensure perfect responses to frustrating experiences. None of us are always capable of managing the frustrations that come our way how we would like. On top of this, current experiences can tap into old feelings of frustration, amplifying our responses to even mild frustrations. The key skills required to build our capacity to manage frustrating experiences as an adult are emotional regulation/ self-control, psychological flexibility and patience. We can all go in and out of being able to use these skills depending on the day and the context. There are things, however, we can do to build up these essential capacities.
Emotional regulation/ self-control – when our own emotions get in the way
Our emotional responses can work for us or against us when we’re trying to understand a situation, especially when other people are involved.
Spending the day feeling unheard and unappreciated at work, an all too common experience, only to come home and have a child not respond to your presence, remaining engrossed in the show they are watching can send anyone over the edge, leading to a complete meltdown that begins with the parent and quickly spreads to the child. What you are reacting to is the sense of powerlessness that not being listened to or valued engenders. This may be more or less intense depending on past experiences of a similar kind. The emotion is understandable but the meltdown can be destructive, leading to even stronger feelings of powerless as the relationship with your child breaks down in that moment. This is the importance of building up our capacity for self-control.
In order to build up our ability to stay emotionally in control we need to develop three key abilities: the ability to reflect; a sense of agency, that what we do is both effective and matters; and the ability to value and work on relationships.
Reflectiveness is the ability to look within ourselves and notice the links between how we are thinking and feeling and what we do. Understanding internal motivations allows us to interpret our own and other people’s behaviour more accurately.
Another person’s actions become predictable when we are able to understand what the other person is doing and why. Understanding that our partner has had a rough day at work helps us to not take their sharp remarks so personal, for example. In the same way, we can understand the need of a child who remains glued to the TV or game they are playing for extra downtime after a fight with their best friend or a challenging day at school. Their responses can then be seen as less of a personal attack or a deliberate act of disrespect and more of an attempt to meet their own needs. Being able to think about why we and those around us are doing what we’re doing allows us to respond more thoughtfully, keeping both our own and other people’s needs in mind. That said, there are certain times when this gets harder – when we’re in a rush and when we’re tired. Deliberately slowing down our responses when we feel a surge of frustration or anger at these times will help us buy ourselves time to see the whole picture before reacting then regretting the outcome of our knee jerk responses.
Being able to reflect on our own thoughts and feelings, as well as the wider situation, allows us to make more considered decisions. Probably everyone of us has had the experience of reacting explosively and then being puzzled by our intense reaction. Knowing what triggered us can help us reduce these awkward, and often embarrassing outbursts.
Taking time to notice our own triggers can be helpful. Often this needs to be down after the fact. It can be difficult to acknowledge our less than sparkling moments but we all have them. Recognising them, trying to find ways to learn from them and allowing ourselves future slip-ups is the best way to gradually reduce our tendency to fire up when feeling provoked.
Coping with other people’s emotions is often central to effective communication, being able to share in someone else’s feelings without getting lost in these or shutting down. This requires an ability to reflect on what is happening, especially when things seems to be getting heated. Unless we keep in mind the other person’s point of view (thoughts, feelings and motivations) we end up talking at people rather than with them. This is the difference between noticing when someone else isn’t particularly interested in what we are talking about and changing our focus or letting them lead the conversation, or continuing blithely on. It means recognising that the other person has wishes and needs too.
We, as adults, need to be able to experience our feelings and our innermost thoughts (even the socially unacceptable ones) without either shutting them down or flooding our environment with them. As I’ve already alluded to, this is much easier said than done, especially when looking after children on a day to day basis. The self-control that comes easily at work dissipates in the face of continuous demands, physical and emotional, from young children. Emotions are contagious and just as your emotions impact your children or partner, theirs impact you.
Agency, the second important capacity for the development of emotional self-control, means knowing that what we do matters and that we can make decisions and act effectively on our own behalf. We need to value our own contributions and be willing and able to stand up for ourselves and to make decisions that are in our best interests. At work this might be evident when we contribute in meetings or address having ideas overlooked with our boss. At home it might look like doing our fair share of the housework, making decisions on behalf of the household and holding our own in a heated discussion with friends. A sense of agency is essential for feeling like a person in our own right rather than just a tool to be used by others. It helps us be assertive and to back our own decisions.
Relatedness, the third important capacity, is the ability to value engagement and interaction with others and to form supportive connections. This is a particularly important skill when it comes to navigating conflict with others. Someone who values relationships tends to be more able to share their feelings while also hearing another person’s and is less likely to try to dominate or shut down others. The outcome is far more likely to be emotionally satisfying for all participants leading to greater emotional regulation for all.
Increasing psychological flexibility
An important contributor to our ability to be able to maintain supportive connections with others is psychological flexibility. This is the ability to respond to changing circumstances. The opposite of psychological flexibility is the use of rigid, repetitive strategies. We can demonstrate this in many ways but in general in relationships it shows up as an unwillingness to take in and reflect on what other people are communicating. This may be refusing to listen to a partner’s concerns or brushing these off without considering them. It could be zoning out when someone is talking to you at work.
As with children, if you have had the experience of being repeatedly unheard or unseen in relationships this can lead to shutting yourself off from other people. Often we rely on rigid rules that we adhere to and expect others to adhere to, regardless of context. Adults who have a childhood history of being overwhelmed with frustration, for whatever reason, will often continue to rely on external rules instead of internalising these, making them their own, and thus being in a position to apply them flexibly.
Learning to recognise when we’re applying rigid expectations to ourselves or others can be a lifelong challenge but is one that will greatly increase both our confidence in our ability to adapt to situations as needed and improve our relationships, as we let go of our rigid demands on others. Rigid demands can come in the form of insistence on a tired child doing everything themselves, for example, or pushing ourselves to work until midnight because we pride ourselves on always getting reports in on time. We can expect ourselves to always be in control and then castigate ourselves when we explode with pent up anger or we may get angry at our partner for being late home when they were stuck in traffic. Being able to be psychologically flexible allows us to adapt to changing circumstances and leads to more appropriate expectations on ourselves and others. It gives us, and those around us, space to breathe.
Increasing our flexibility as adults begins with recognising when we’re being inflexible. Next time you notice yourself doubling down on a demand towards others or yourself, pause and question why things need to be done exactly the way you are insisting on. This willingness to even ask the question will open you up to a broader perspective that is gentler, on you and those around you, and likely to be more effective. After all, continuing to hammer a nail into a steel post is unlikely to have the effect you’re looking for no matter how much you think it should be able to be done. Maybe, just maybe, there’s another way.
Patience
Patience is really the integration of emotional regulation and psychological flexibility. It is built on slowly increasing our ability to wait and to tolerate the feelings associated with this. Unfortunately, we live in times when there are expectations that we respond to emails of text messages immediately, we can easily buy ready-made food, and online shopping offers us almost instant gratification. Therefore the skill of waiting has been eroded and the ability to be patient with it.
Patience creates a sense of calmness that extends to those around us. It allows us to be truly present with others and to learn to trust that we can manage the uncertainty of having to wait. It also fosters perseverance and determination as we learn to delay our need for instant results. It has never been a more essential skill to develop, and to continue to foster.
Impatience, on the other hand, is often a response to annoyance or uncertainty and difficulty adapting to changing circumstances. But, as I have mentioned above, it can also be a habit developed through lack of practice at waiting.
If you struggle to be patient when you have to wait for something or something isn’t working out how you wanted it too, it is useful to step back from the situation, literally take a breath (or ten) and reset your expectations. Getting angry is not going to improve the situation, whether it’s with a child who is not doing what you asked or with a computer that has just crashed, taking with it the work you have been doing for the past hour.
Just as with children who struggle to wait for even short periods of time because they have a low tolerance for the frustration associated with a delay in getting what they want, adults can experience ongoing struggles with delays in getting what they’re wanting or hoping for.
In childhood familiar and predictable patterns, in both relationships and daily routines, help with the development of the capacity to wait for what we want. Waiting requires the ability to manage uncertainty, uncertainty of whether you will be able to do what you want to do or get what you want. This requires a certain level of comfort with not knowing, of not knowing whether you are capable of achieving your goal or of what the end result will be, whether you will make mistakes, how others will react, what obstacles may be encountered, and whether you can surmount those obstacles. Not knowing often brings with it emotional responses such as fear, anger, nervousness, excitement and anticipation, among others.
Patience is, therefore, the ability to cope with uncertainty, to simply respond to the circumstances that you are faced with, without holding onto resentment that things haven’t worked out how you expected or wanted them to. It requires the ability to be flexible, to adapt and to stay calm in the face of uncertainty. Patience is a result of the first two skills of emotional regulation and psychological flexibility working together. It allows us to maintain relationships in the face of irritations, to persevere with challenges in the face of obstacles, and to learn from our mistakes rather than crumpling into a heap.
And for most people, myself included, it is a work in progress. So next time you notice yourself getting cranky because things aren’t going smoothly or how you wanted them to, remind yourself that some emotional self-control and the ability to flexibly adapt to changing circumstances are worth the effort, for you and those around you.
To increase your patience practise waiting. Resist the temptation to check the status of your mail order, deliberately calm yourself as you wait at a red light, take time to make a meal instead of ordering a takeaway, resist the urge to shout at a procrastinating child. Notice the feelings that come up including anger and uncertainty. Stay curious about these rather than reacting to them. Over time this different approach will lead to greater feelings of calm, being in control and better relationships. This is the value of patience.
In conclusion…
Emotional regulation/ self-control, psychological flexibility and patience are important capacities to develop throughout our lives. Identifying any recurrent challenges is the first step towards being able to respond to frustrating circumstances in more helpful and satisfying ways. Start to take note of the following. What situations really get under your skin? What experiences lead to surges of fear or rage? Do you find yourself responding rigidly to situations and then wondering why? Do you suddenly lose your patience then regret this? If so then try to identify whether your struggle is with regulating your emotions, inflexibility or impatience. If you can do this you are well on the way to managing the inevitable frustrations that life throws our way.