Frustration — A Hidden Ally

If we consider that frustration is an elusive yet profound guide towards what we truly want or are missing in our lives, everything starts to change.

Last week I wrote about the unique attitudes that make dialogue possible — namely the letting go of any purpose or objective or agenda as we non-judgmentally observe the opinions and assumptions that show up.

From here, I want to focus on the individual dialogue — the dialogues we have with ourselves. I believe that in continually engaging in an inner dialogue we stand to make new, creative and meaningful discoveries.

However, as we become more aware of our inner world, it can be shocking to see with incresing vividness the confusion, cruelty and apparent madness of our minds. And so attempting an inner dialogue — tuning in to our thought processes — with any effort is bound to result in frustration. Because of this, it is essential to change our relationship with frustration.

We need to understand frustration to be a marker of fertile and meaningful territory for gentle but diligent exploration, instead of reactively fleeing from it altogether.

We first have to apprehend [our opinions and assumptions], and just let them be; and this will bring about a certain order.

— David Bohm

It is incredibly frustrating to have all these opinions. It’s frustrating to have some aspects or voices within ourselves more dominant, or others that are barely able to make themselves heard. We may feel as though our life is a role play for a sliver of who we really our in our entirety. It goes without saying that in our wished-for worlds we are far more satisfied, far less frustrated people.

And so it’s no surprise that we are quick to label frustration as an wholy negative thing, doing everything we can to minimize and avoid it.

But if we consider that frustration is an elusive yet profound guide towards what we truly want or are missing in our lives, everything starts to change.

Frustration may be the thing that we are the least able to let ourselves feel; and by not being able to feel, to think, and by not being able to feel it or think it enough, we obscure our satisfactions.

— Adam Phillips

Frustration signals hope because it requires us to believe that what we want is available. You could go so far as to say that frustration is ultimately a form of faith. It signals a future. It’s with this optimistic and deeply curious perspective that we ought to fortify ourselves as we forge ahead in the exploration of our frustrations.

But as long as we have this defensive attitude — blocking and holding assumptions, sticking to them and saying, ‘I’ve got to be right,’ and that sort of thing — then intelligence is very limited, because intelligence requires that you don’t defend an assumption.

— David Bohm

As we continue to dialogue despite the inevitable frustrations, we are doing something far more meaningful that we may realize at first. David Bohm says it wonderfully:

In fact, we could say that instead of being part of the problem, we become part of the solution. In other words, our very movement has the quality of the solution; it is part of it. However small it is, it has the quality of the solution and not the quality of the problem. However big the other one is, it has the quality of the problem, not of the solution.

Small, consistent steps towards greater awareness and understanding through dialogue.

If you’re interested in a unique tool for self-observation, check out open dialogue — a simple web-based tool to support inner dialogue.