a message from Dr. Judith Orloff

Wednesday, 29 February, 2012  (posted 23 March, 2012)

"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself."
...Saint Francis De Sales

Every day there are plenty of good reasons to be frustrated. Another long line. Telemarketers. A goal isn’t materializing “fast enough.” People don’t do what they’re supposed to. Rejection. Disappointment. How to deal with it all? You can drive yourself crazy, behave irritably, feel victimized, or try to force an outcome--all self-defeating reactions that alienate others and bring out the worst in them. Or, you can learn to transform frustration with patience.

As a psychiatrist, I help others see that patience doesn’t mean passivity or resignation, but power. It’s an emotionally freeing practice of waiting, watching, and knowing when to act. To many people, when you say, “Have patience,” it feels unreasonable and inhibiting, an unfair stalling of goals. In contrast, I’m presenting patience as a form of compassion, a way to regain your center in a world filled with frustration.

In “Emotional Freedom”, I discuss how to transform frustration with patience. To tame frustration, begin by evaluating its present role in your life, how much it limits your capacity to be happy. The following quiz will let you know where you are now so you can grow freer by developing patience.

Frustration Quiz: How Frustrated Am I?

To determine your success at coping with this emotion, ask yourself:

Answering “yes” to 5-7 questions indicates an extremely high level of frustration. 3-5 “yeses” indicates a high level. 2 “yeses” indicates a moderate level. 1 “yes” indicates a low level. Zero “yeses” suggests you’re dealing successfully with this emotion.

Even if your frustrations are off the charts, patience is the cure. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to cultivate this invaluable skill. Life teaches patience if you let it.

4 Tips for Dealing With Frustrating People 

When someone frustrates you, always take a breath first before you react. Decide if you want to talk now or wait to calm down. If you’re highly reactive and upset, have the discussion later when you’re calmer Then you’ll be more persuasive and less threatening. At that time use this approach:

Tip #1. Focus on a specific issue--don’t escalate or mount a personal attack.
For instance, “I feel frustrated when you promise to do something but there isn’t follow-through.” No resorting to threats or insults. In an even, non-blaming tone, lead with how the behavior makes you feel rather than how you think the other person is wrong.

Tip #2. Listen non-defensively without reacting or interrupting.
It’s a sign of respect to hear a person’s point of view, even if you disagree. Avoid an aggressive tone or body language. Try not to squirm with discomfort or to judge.

Tip #3. Intuit the feelings behind the words.
When you can appreciate someone’s motivation, it’s easier to be patient. Try to sense if this person is frightened, insecure, up against a negative part of themselves they’ve never confronted. If so, realize this can be painful. See what change they’re open to.

Tip #4. Respond with clarity and compassion.
This attitude takes others off the defensive so they’re more comfortable admitting their part in causing frustration. Describe everything in terms of remedies to a specific task, rather then generalizing. State your needs. For instance, “I’d really appreciate you not shouting at me even if I disappoint you.” If the person is willing to try, show how pleased you are. Validate their efforts: “Thanks for not yelling at me. I really value your understanding.” See if the behavior improves. If not, you may have to minimize contact and/or expectations.

In communication, patience is a powerful emotional currency. As you’re more able to tolerate the discomfort of frustration and not blow it by acting out, your relationships will function on a higher level. In any interchange, always define what you’re after. Is it to resolve a specific frustrating behavior? To say “no” to participating in a dead-end pattern? Or is it to simply to convey your feelings without expectation of change? Even if the frustration is irresolvable, patience sets the right tone to treat others and yourself respectfully.

• Am I often frustrated and irritable?
• Do I typically respond to frustration by snapping at or blaming others?
• Do I self-medicate letdowns with junk food, drugs or alcohol?
• Do my reactions hurt other people’s feelings?
• When the frustration has passed, do I usually feel misunderstood?
• During a hard day at work, do I tend to lose my cool?
• When I’m disappointed, do I often feel unworthy or like giving up?

Judith Orloff MD is bestselling author of the new book Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Three Rivers Press, 2011) upon which these tips and article are based. Her insights in Emotional Freedom create a new convergence of healing paths for our stressed out world. An assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, Dr. Orloff's work has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, and in Oprah Magazine and USA Today.
This message was originally posted here

God said:

The sun always comes through. You can rely on it. You do not worry when there is no sun on a cloudy day. You know the sun is there behind the clouds. You know that the bright sun will always show up, just as you know that spring follows winter. You can rely on much on Earth, and you rely on it. You trust. You have had experience with this trust.

In life, when you are disappointed, and you feel that I am not here for you, remember the sun that shows up. The sun may show up quietly, almost unnoticed, and yet the sun always shines brightly again.

Know that you can rely on Me too.

Sometimes you are in a room with the curtains drawn and you don't see the sun. That is how it is in daily life when you may feel that not only are you unable to see evidence of My love for you - that is one thing - but even more dismaying, that I am not there. I am always here, and I am always here for you. You may feel that everything is going wrong. That is because you cannot see.

If you could open the curtains, if you could see beyond what you see or don't see, you would see My love shining for you, and, beloveds, I don't shine aimlessly. I never overlook you or pass you by. Through thick and thin, I am with you, yet you may see heartache after heartache and not see My presence.

There is always something going on beyond your perception. Know that whatever appears that seems like tragedy to you, there is a bigger and higher purpose beyond what you presently see. One day you will see what you see now as tragedy from a greater vantage, and you will see the connectedness of life, and you will see all that there is to see, and you will see in a different light. You will no longer cast certain events as tragic. You will no longer feel desperate.

All that you presently see as dire, you will see the okayness of that. You will see that life has ever been shining.

My dears, life on Earth is taken so seriously. Even as you know life on Earth is temporal, you take it as if it were the most serious thing in the world. I well understand that life and death are huge to you, yet even in the darkness you may see around you, there is light, and the light is a given.

Life on Earth as it appears, by its very nature, is impermanent. Life on Earth isn't everything. Life on Earth isn't the end-all and be-all. Neither life nor death is a travesty. That which is impermanent doesn't rule. It seems to, yet life unfolds itself, and a story is told. Take the story in stride.

You are not your story anymore than you are your body. You are the very sunlight even when you don't see it. Your perception, as important as it is to you, is not everything. Perception is only perception. Perception is of the Earth. Knowingness is of Heaven.

In Earth life, you take an elevator, and you get off the elevator. In Eternity, you have full vision. There are no curtains to curtail your vision. In Eternity, you see there is no end whatsoever. No end, and no pain.

What is seen as tragedy, what is seen as death, is as much illusion as the whole screenplay you have been part of. The whole movie you have watched is only a movie, and movies are over. Life is eternal. Life is always. The picture show is an event shown on the permanent field of life. In Truth, there are no goodbyes. Earth life tells you that you are being separated. Earth life is like a decal you are pulling off. It covered up that which lies behind and beyond all life on Earth.

Permanent Link: http://www.heavenletters.org/the-sun-always-comes-through.html

God said:

What you are doing as you grow in life is creating an empty space! Fullness is emptiness, beloveds.

When you are attached, you are full of expectations. You are full of more than expectations. You are full of your ideas of what must happen, or should have happened, ought to have happened, and you are attached to your ideas which, in your mind, become rules, become standards, become sacred, holy, sanctified, authorized, ordained. You compare what you insist on with what actually occurs. Of course, in so doing, you are barking up the wrong tree.

You would limit life. You would reduce possibilities. You might remove the idea of possibilities altogether and stick with certainties, certain prescribed certainties approved by you.

There is more than one road to travel.

You have opinions, and opinions change. Furthermore, they have to change. Life in the world is all about change.

Through change, you grow.

You want to create an empty space in your life where you are unstuck from the past. The past includes your past ideas. How you were brought up or not brought up is no excuse now. The past is not an Open, Sesame. The past is a closed sesame. The past is more like your grandmother's attic all filled with old furniture that really needs to be dusted off, needs to be useful, needs to be given away or sold in a store rather than stuck in the attic.

We can translate empty space to mean you are not attached. All the spider webs are gone. You are cleaned out. You have purged yourself of the past and the talons with which the past may have kept you in thrall. The past does not really exist. Just the same, you may keep it close to you, the past like a refrain in your head, the past like an oldie, the past like a finger poked into your ribs, the past like a plug that keeps things in and doesn't make room for new things to come in. Yesterday's newspaper.

This empty space We can think of as a cushion of silence. The acoustics are good. The guitar is silent. You are filled with silence where all newness can quietly enter. Newness is motion. Newness can swing by where there is space for it.

However, when there is empty space, there is a tendency to fill it up, and, so, your mind becomes tied up, wrapped up in thoughts, tightly bound in thoughts, filled to the brim with thoughts so you can't even think! There isn't room for more. You may be frightened of emptiness, and so you fill up your mind with more thoughts, sometimes heavy thoughts, and you fill up your life with extensions of your thoughts, thoughts heaped upon thoughts, and you are certain that full everything is better than empty anything, and, yet, everything you desire exists in empty space. Make room for your dreams to come true. Make room for life to enter a new dimension. Be open-minded. Be open-hearted. Declutter your mind so your heart may open and life begin.

Goings-on are not quite the same as life. Life isn't only goings-on. There is more to life than its activity. There is more to life than what you did over the weekend or what you are going to do next weekend.

There is more to life than you have imagined. Allow that empty space in your mind, and all will arise from the depths. New-born thoughts will arise. Magic will arise. Happiness will arise. You will arise.

Permanent Link: http://www.heavenletters.org/dreams-will-come-true.html