124: Feeling Frustrated: What to Do When Overwhelmed with Frustration

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Mar 5

In this episode, we discuss the feeling of frustration. Responding to a listener's question about feeling stuck and overwhelmed by frustration, we explore various emotions that often accompany feeling frustrated, such as anger, hopelessness, and disappointment. I talk about the importance of understanding the root causes of our frustration and offer advice on how to process and work through it. As always I emphasize the value of being kind to oneself, acknowledging feelings as part of the human experience, and finding ways to relax and calm the nervous system.

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Timestamps ⏱️

Introduction: 0:05
Listener Question: 2:13
Outro: 22:03

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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Castmagic. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:01]:
Welcome to New View Advice with Amanda Durocher. Hello, beautiful soul. Welcome to New View Advice. My name is Amanda Durocher, and if you are new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for the healing journey. It's not my intention to give you all the answers. I believe you have all the answers you seek. You just may need a new view and a little help along the way. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:23]:
Today, we are discussing the feeling of frustration. I I'm answering a listener question from someone who is feeling frustrated. They feel like nothing has been going their way, and it has lost them feeling frustrated and also angry, hopeless, and disappointed. So today is an episode where we're really gonna dive into our feels, and we're gonna talk about all the feelings that go with feeling frustrated. Because oftentimes, frustration arises, and if we don't look at that frustration or if we're not able to really pivot from that frustration and more emotions tend to build around that frustration, and I think that's very common for a lot of people. And I know I can relate to this question, and I think many of us can relate to feeling frustrated. So my intention for this episode is to offer ways for us to begin to feel our frustration process and deal with our frustration, also to offer some ways to begin finding the roots of that frustration because I find with so many emotions, when we can connect to the root of why we feel that way, then it is easier for us to move forward. And as always, I hope to help you to feel less alone because I know this listener mentioned feeling lost and stuck.
Amanda Durocher [00:01:25]:
And sometimes it's knowing that we're not alone in having all those hard feelings that can help us to begin to move forward. Before we jump into today's episode, I wanted to mention that if you haven't already, I invite you to check out my website, newviewadvice.com. So New View Advice is currently in a evolution phase, and I am moving into being more of a media company than just a single hosted podcast. So on my website, NuviaAdvice.com, you'll find blog posts, poems, stories, and more podcasts for the healing journey. My goal is to bring more content and resources for people healing all for free. So if you're interested in learning more about Nuvia Advice or seeing if there's more resources that you may find interesting, you can check out my website, NuviaAdvice.com, after this episode. And with that, let's jump on into talking about frustration. Hi, Amanda.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:13]:
I found your podcast recently, and I found it to be really helpful for me on my healing journey. Thank you for continuing the work you do. Recently, I've been having a lot of hard feelings, mostly feeling really frustrated because nothing's been going my way. I feel like I experienced disappointment after disappointment, and, honestly, it's just left me feeling broken. It's left me feeling a lot of frustration, which then leads me to feeling angry and hopeless. I feel stuck, and I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm in an uphill climb with no end in sight. Nothing goes my way.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:42]:
What do I do? Is there any way for me to feel better? I just feel so lost. Thank you for your question. This is such an honest question, and you're definitely not alone with feeling like nothing's going your way. I feel like everybody hits a point in their life when they feel like nothing is going their way. So this is a very relatable question. I know I can relate to this question. It's kind of funny. I actually had a very frustrating moment happen right before recording this episode, and sometimes I feel like that happens so that the feeling that we're talking about can be fresh in my mind because, oof, frustration.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:16]:
Let's talk about it. Because dang, it's uncomfortable to feel frustrated. So frustration often arises when we feel stuck or we're unable to achieve something that we were hoping for or when an expectation isn't met, we can feel frustrated or, as you mentioned, when things are just not going our way. And when that happens, sometimes our frustration then turns into anger, as you mentioned. And I think that's really common because when we're frustrated and things aren't going our way, if we're not able to be with that frustration or pivot or realign almost, then that anger can arise or the hopelessness because it makes us feel like nothing's gonna get better. So in your situation, it sounds like you've been experiencing a lot of frustrations, so it makes sense that the emotions are just being piled on. And I wanna mention that frustration is often this moment when we are kinda hit with a stark realization that something's just not gonna go the way we want it to. And then we can be left feeling frustrated because we either had our hopes up or because something just didn't go as planned.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:20]:
And this is really difficult, but truthfully, it's part of the human experience. Right? Not everything is gonna go the way we want it to. And as you mentioned in your question, nothing's been going your way, and I think we all experience that at some point. We just experience a point in time when nothing's going our way. And in your question, you mentioned it feels like this uphill climb with no end in sight. And I couldn't help but think of the song The Climb by Miley Cyrus. I don't know if you guys know it. Maybe you should just go listen to it on your own time to listen to the lyrics.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:48]:
Because the truth is that song to me, like, sums it up. When I read your question, when I originally received it, I just kept hearing that song on repeat. That when we experience frustration, it's an inevitable part of life, but it's also I find in order to process and to feel the frustration, it's really about a perspective shift. So when we experience frustration, we can either go down the rabbit hole of then getting angry and hopeless and feeling overwhelmed and stressed, and that just leads to the cycle you're talking about where everything feels like it's going wrong. Or we can have the perspective shift that to me is like the song sums up that it's about the climb. It feels like an uphill climb, you said. And so much of life is that uphill climb. It's that perseverance.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:31]:
It's that hard work. It's that step by step. It's that faith that things will work out. It's understanding that if things don't go the way we want it to go, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong in that moment. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong. Like, we have to have all our feelings about it. When I'm disappointed, I have to allow myself to have all my feelings. So often with disappointment, frustration comes grief.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:52]:
Because depending on what we're frustrated or disappointed about, we might have to grieve that expectation. For me, when I want something to work out so bad a certain way and it doesn't, there's a grieving process, and those are feelings that need to be had. But then it's back to the climb. It's back to the step by step perseverance. Whatever I'm working towards is going to work out or things are going to get better. I just have to keep the faith, as Miley Cyrus says. When it comes to frustration, I think that understanding why we're frustrated is a really helpful first step. And so I have an example from my life to kinda talk about how, like, sometimes we have to go deeper, and I hope this is helpful.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:34]:
So when it comes to frustration, I find that sometimes we can be like, I'm frustrated because of x. So in my life today, like I said, I had a frustrating moment. Somebody canceled on me for, like, a third time, and I was like, oh my gosh. Frustrating. This person just keeps canceling. And with that, I felt frustrated. And I could just say, oh, I'm frustrated because that person canceled. But the truth is it's deeper than that.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:55]:
Why am I actually frustrated? Yes. I'm frustrated they canceled, but why is was I not so frustrated the first or the second time that they canceled? It's this third time that left me feeling really frustrated. So if I was to go deeper with it, it's that I had an expectation that we would meet today, and we didn't. But, really, the frustration is that with the third cancellation, the more I reflected on it, the more I realized I felt disrespected. I felt like this person was disrespecting me. And then to go deeper with that disrespect, that's been something I've been healing in my life, to be honest with you, this feeling of being disrespected by people from my youth. But the truth is, this situation with this person just triggered in me a deeper healing that needs to happen. But I share that because sometimes when we're feeling frustrated, we need to identify why we're really feeling frustrated.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:44]:
It's not necessarily what happened in the moment. It's a deeper feeling. And how do we do that? We can ask ourselves, like, why do I really feel this way? Why do I feel stuck in this cycle? What is beneath this? And sometimes that's gonna go back to a childhood wound. Sometimes that's gonna go back to a different situation than what's happening right now. And it's all about asking yourself those why questions, really getting to know yourself and being honest with yourself about what's going on underneath the surface. Because I think when it comes to frustration is it it's kind of like a surface level feeling as in there's something under it. And if we don't get to what's under that frustration, more emotions will build on top of that surface level. And so we can either go deeper.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:24]:
I'm feeling like going deep into the ground and see what's under the frustration or we end up building on top of it. But when we build on top of it, we're then gonna have to go through all those feelings. As you mentioned with the anger and the hopelessness, those are very common feelings when we feel frustrated and we feel like life is out of our control and we continue to try to control it and we feel all the feelings. Also with anger, I wanna honor that depending on what you're frustrated with, maybe you're going through that grieving cycle. As I mentioned, when I feel frustrated or disappointed, sometimes I have to grieve the expectation I had, and anger is one of the stages of grief. Hard feelings arise, I just really think it's an invitation for us to always go deeper, to be with ourselves, and to get to know ourselves better. I think the healing journey is so much about being kind to ourselves and learning to be our own best friend. Obviously, we need people.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:12]:
Obviously, we need best friends, family, lovers. It's also so important for us to be kind to ourselves and to get to know ourselves. And when these feelings arise, I always think that they're just an invitation for us to understand how we're feeling. We so often judge our feelings like they're happening to us, but they're part of us. Our feelings are information. Feelings, especially hard feelings, can feel so overwhelming, and we don't like to experience pain or discomfort, and hard feelings are uncomfortable. The feeling of frustration is uncomfortable. It creates discomfort.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:47]:
And I find today that so many people are running from discomfort, but discomfort is not a bad thing. It's often where our growth edges are. So I find with the feelings of anger or frustration or whatever feeling you're having that feels difficult, they often arise because the more difficult the feeling or the more intense it can feel, the harder it is to ignore. So with you, you mentioned that you've been feeling these a lot, and my guess is it's starting to compound and you're starting to feel more and more difficult feelings. And that's what tends to happen because when we ignore it, it doesn't go away. The information's still in the body, and then the emotion get more and more intense because a part of us doesn't want to ignore that emotion. And that's what I want us to understand is that, again, these emotions aren't happening to us. They are happening as a part of us.
Amanda Durocher [00:10:33]:
Our emotions are a part of the intelligence within our bodies that is just communicating to us how we are feeling so that we can pivot. Does that make any of that easy? Of course not. No. It's not easy. With my example of feeling frustrated and then realizing I felt disrespected and then understanding that went further back and it's something I've been looking at with other relationships in my life, this feeling of disrespect and then honestly being honest with myself about times I disrespect myself. None of that's easy, but on the other side of that is the relief I'm looking for. When it comes to our emotions, truly, I've found the only way is through. We can try and numb them and bottle them up and stuff them down and repress them and suppress them, but they live in the body until we process them, until we feel them, until we're honest with ourselves.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:21]:
And all these hard feelings you're having, what I'm trying to say, is that they're not there to punish you. They're not there to hurt you even though they may hurt. They're not there to hurt you. They're there to communicate something. And I don't know what they're communicating for you, but none of it is wrong. You know? I think so many times when it comes to our feelings or when we have a difficult experience or we have discomfort, we label it as wrong. And the truth is, as I mentioned at the top of this episode, what you're going through is part of the human experience. And I think when we can relax into that, that we're not always supposed to be happy go lucky or just in a constant state of peace, we can relax more into these feelings, and we can be kinder to them and allow them to communicate with us.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:05]:
So when dealing with frustration, I think getting to the root of the why can be so helpful. And as I said, it's so often not just saying that person frustrated me or that situation. Normally, there's something under it, and it could just be an unmet expectation or an expectation or an unmet dream or an unmet experience. But being honest with yourself about what that frustration's really telling you can be really helpful. And as I mentioned, it could go deeper than that situation, as I mentioned with the disrespect for me. So ways we do that is journaling. Journal out that frustration because frustration leads to anger so many times and irritation, and I find with those feelings, so often they need movement. They need action.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:46]:
I don't find sitting in meditation about frustration to always be the best practice. Sometimes I do. I don't know. It's whatever works for you. Everybody's gonna find a different way to be with their feelings. But I think journaling or exercise is so helpful, bringing that emotion into a yoga practice or an exercise routine or going on a run, but finding ways to be with the feelings. Because if you just try to shove it down or numb it, like I said, it's still gonna be there. So you want to be with the feeling.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:15]:
And sometimes you might just have to go on a run, and then you're just gonna feel better and you're gonna feel less frustrated. And then something frustrating might happen again, and it's just understanding that their emotions, they come and go. It's when we don't allow them to come and go that they tend to stay longer, actually. So allowing ourselves to feel them and to let them go is a helpful practice. And I mentioned the getting to the why and the journaling and things like that because it's easier to let something go when we understand why it came up. We're able to let that feeling go when it gives us the information. That's why sometimes our feelings linger is because they have information for us. And until we get the information, it it stays because it wants to communicate something.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:53]:
I know a lot of people listen to this podcast are trauma survivors, as am I, and I find it's the same thing with trauma. We're like, why am I still dealing with this? Why is this layer up? And it's because it still has information for us. It still has something that needs to be processed. And that's also how our emotions tend to work, is that it's just trying to show us something so that moving forward, we can show up differently or we can pivot or we can set new boundaries. You know, in my life, sometimes frustration arises because boundaries need to be set. So the more I can work with my emotions and allow them to communicate to me, easier it is. But with all that, sometimes frustration and feeling like we're in a cycle of emotions that will never end can be really tough on our nervous system. And I find that the answers to what our emotions are trying to communicate to us are when we have a relaxed nervous system, when we're in a calmer state, when we're able to breathe deeply and to be with the feelings.
Amanda Durocher [00:14:45]:
Sometimes it's hard to get there. Sometimes we're stuck in the fight or flight. We're stuck in the stress response. And so I mentioned that because you may be being like, Amanda, I can't get to the y. Like, that's just, like, not gonna happen. And if that's the case, then I think for you, it would be finding ways to relax and to be kind to yourself. That could be slow breathing. It could be that meditation I talked about without having the intention about why is this frustration out.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:08]:
Like, the intention would be to just calm your nervous system. Maybe it's going to a sound bath. Maybe it's taking a bath. Maybe it's taking a long shower, but it's finding ways to relax. I think so many of us live in a stress response all the time, and that's also something frustration can just be communicating is that there's just too much stimulus. There's too much going on, and you need to calm down. Because sometimes when I'm feeling really frustrated, all I need to do is relax. And it's like, oh, I just had too much on my plate, and that frustration was trying to show me that I had too much on my plate.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:41]:
But I think with you, since you feel like you're in this cycle of the frustration, I just invite you to begin to work with the frustration rather than work against the frustration. Because like the song The Climb by Miley Cyrus, the uphill feeling isn't a bad feeling. It's not a bad thing. You're gonna have periods where you feel like you're in a downhill or where you feel like you're on a plateau, and then you're gonna go up again, and then you're gonna go down again, and then you're gonna plateau again. I want to reassure you that however you're feeling right now, you will not feel that way forever. I can't tell you the amount of times. I still get in this mindset that when a really difficult feeling rises, I swear I will feel that way forever, and it's just not true. Feelings come and go.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:28]:
So, again, I mentioned that because it's a practice of learning to be kind with yourself through this because you mentioned feeling broken and having all these difficult feelings. And I have found in my life when I feel broken, when I feel really low, sometimes the only thing there is to do is to be kind to myself. Because feeling broken is so hard, and it can feel like this rock bottom experience. But truly, sometimes we feel broken so that we can start from scratch, so that we can put ourselves back together in a new way because the way that led us to feeling broken isn't working anymore. So you mentioned feeling stuck and lost in this cycle, and my guess is you've been playing out a lot of the same patterns over and over again regarding this frustration, and it just may be time, because you feel broken, to put yourself back together in a different way. And there's nothing wrong with that. So many times in my life, I put myself back together, and then I fall apart again. Put myself back together, fall apart again.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:28]:
And it's because I put myself back together, but I put certain pieces in wrong, or I had certain beliefs that still aren't serving me, and then I fall apart again. I feel broken again. And I'm like, how can I be here again? But each time we feel broken, each time we fall apart, we aren't where we were the last time we felt that way. We're always moving forward even if we don't feel that way. So I also wanna assure you that, especially if you're ready into this podcast, you're on your healing journey, you're bringing awareness to yourself and your feelings. You are moving forward. It's often just slower than we want it to be. And, also, we're never gonna feel perfect, and we're never gonna feel like we're always in that plateau.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:06]:
Because I truly don't believe life is ever meant to be easy. And truthfully, if you look outside, I don't think we're living through easy times. I think we're living through times where it's easy to check out. It's easy to numb. It's easy to live in distraction. But the world I see isn't easy to live in. A world really divisive, a world where people are not understanding of each other, where it's hard to find compassion, where people have these crazy expectations of one another, and where people, in my opinion, haven't learned how to be with their feelings, not easy. It's not easy.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:45]:
And so the kinder you are to you, the easier life becomes because when other people have all their feelings or when other people frustrate us, we can come back to ourselves. We can come back within. That's why we do the inner work because the more we do the inner work, we create that that inner safety, that inner peace, that inner trust, the more we are not thrown off by whatever is going on around us. And that could be on the world stage, on the national stage, at your work environment, at your home, with your family, or just in your relationship. But the more we learn to be with the discomfort, the more we understand a few things, which include discomfort comes and goes, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with us. There's nothing wrong with feeling discomfort. I don't even think there's anything wrong with feeling broken.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:33]:
And I've heard people be like, you're never broken. You were never broken. I might have even said that on a new view advice episode at some point. It's a real feeling, though. It's a real feeling to feel broken. There's nothing wrong with that. It's the first step of so many things is awareness and acknowledgment of I feel broken. Because if we don't acknowledge we feel that way, then there's no way to pivot or to heal or to move forward.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:55]:
We can break our wrists. Why can't we feel broken in heart and spirit? It's a very painful experience, but I do think that it's okay to feel that way. I don't want you to feel that way. I hope that by understanding your emotions are there to help you. Your emotions are there to inform you rather than punish you. It can help you to feel less broken and help you to pick up the pieces. As a trauma survivor, I talk about it all the time, a survivor of sexual violence. I have felt everything in this question, and I have felt so broken so many times before.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:27]:
And it leaves me feeling a lot of hard feelings anytime I feel broken. But I find that the feeling of brokenness is often rooted deeper. When we're adults and something happens, if we feel broken by it, my guess is it goes back to a childhood wound. It goes back to a traumatic experience. It goes farther back than whatever you are navigating in your present day life, and that's okay. We have to look at the roots of our wounds in order to heal them. There's just nothing wrong with that. So I hope something in this answer was helpful.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:58]:
Honestly, this wasn't the answer I expected to give. I've been free flowing these answers these days, and sometimes I'm surprised by what comes out of my own mouth. So I hope something in this answer was helpful for you. And I also just wanna say that if you find yourself really stuck, as you mentioned, try something new. Try something new, anything new. Try a different kind of exercise. Try journaling. Try meditating.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:22]:
Try calling a friend if you never reach out to a friend. Try something different. Sometimes, we just need to do something different so that a different outcome can arise. I find that many times when we have hard feelings, it can lead us to feeling inactive and not doing anything because we just allow those feelings to take over. Pivot. Get out in nature. Oh my god. Every time I go on a nature walk, I am shocked how it is like magic.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:48]:
So I just invite you, if if you listen to this and nothing helps, try something new. So thank you so much for this question. I hope something in this answer was helpful. I am sending you so much love. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of New View Advice. As always, I I am so grateful to have these conversations each week and to talk about our feelings. Gosh. How many places in the world do we get to just talk about our feels? So thank you so much for this question.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:16]:
If you found this episode helpful, I invite you to share it with a friend. Word-of-mouth is so helpful right now, and I would really, really appreciate it. I love what I do, and I'm currently starting new podcasts, creating new content, and I'm super excited where new video advice is going. I just need people to find it. So if you you found this episode helpful, it would be amazing if you shared it with a friend. Thank you again for joining me for today's episode. I hope I was able to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through. Send you all my love.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:43]:
See you next time.