Focused Frustration: a Positive Force

Like everything else in life, we get to choose how we respond to frustrations that we encounter. No sense in denying that they happen, and there is a lot of sense in choosing to look at them as challenges that have the potential to propel us forward in our heart’s purpose. However, there is a lot of harm in not acknowledging them and dealing with them in a deliberate, positive manner.

Unattended, unresolved, and ignored frustrations can damage us. Many times when I refer to the ego, it sounds negative. I have said, though, that it has a function or it would not be a component of us humans. When we ignore frustrations, our egos tell us we are hurt and wounded, and we start building defenses and protections to assuage that pain. This creates dysfunction in our operating systems, the most important being that we lose part of our core self identity due to ego operation and are hindered, then, in following our heart and creating our vision. So much to explain here, but I don’t know how profitable or necessary it is.

I do know, though, that the alternative offers great benefits. I have spent the last three days trying to figure out why I can’t post this link from my Facebook page. I was doing that every day until then. I still, as I write this, have not figured it out, and that means that I have probably spent no less than six hours at different times working on it. Yes, frustration! Of course, LinkedIn is giving me the same response, so somewhere in my computer is something like a virus, add-on, or plug-in that those sites don’t like. I look at coding, but I might as well be looking at Egyptian hieroglyphs, except that I can at least see anomalies. But I really don’t know what I even need to fix. Ugh!

Yes, see, frustration. I made the deliberate determination almost immediately that I was NOT going to let my writing be unannounced. I consciously spoke with my heart: I was not going to let my purpose and vision be muted. I have done a few different things, including getting the word out on other platforms — probably not well, but it has expanded my knowledge of these and helped me to see how many platforms can work synergistically. I am always learning and discovering, so I had to learn this. I know at times in my past where not dealing with frustration has defeated me in some ways and kept me from achieving goals. Not this time, though, and not when it directly involves my expression of self and love to others.

Focused frustration means acknowledging it and meeting the challenges. It tests in some ways how real our vision is, whether we will keep moving forward in positivity. That is the way to deal with it — keep moving forward and resolving the problem or reframing how our goals can be met minus the frustration, because maybe we don’t need the objective that has caused the frustration. So, we defeat it or go around it.
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Focused frustration can produce determination and provide a reminder of just how important our visions are. Such frustration can expand our knowledge as we are driven to meet challenges and resolve conflicts — internal or external. Some good focused frustration can help us eliminate self-doubt. Will we let anything stand in the way of making Self known, of making connections, and of making meaning in our lives?
Onward and upward!

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