Dealing with frustration

I had so many plans for this blog post and all of them are disappointing me. It's horribly frustrating, so before I go insane I am going to go with the flow and talk about frustration and how I deal with it.

The short answer is I don't. I bottle it up until I'm afraid that if I express even a small sliver of it I'll explode and then I go some place and hide. While hiding I cry and scream and do whatever works until the level of frustration drops below the point where I worry I'll hurt someone.

Adam tried to point out to me that, at least in BJJ, I really ought to try to convert this anger into some kind of energy to apply to my technique. My problem is that when I get frustrated in BJJ, say, for example, because I've escaped from mount just to find myself in side-control (and on and on), my first thought is not "well, I'll just escape from this too, and this time I'll get on top". That might be productive. No... my frustrated thoughts tend to wander towards breaking fingers, biting, and poking eyes. Civilized people just don't do this, ok, maybe in the mythical "street fight" but never to one's training partner. So now I'm in the awkward position of trying to fight against one person to get out of side-control and fighting against myself to get my thoughts back to proper jiujitsu.

On top of this, I really don't think people perceive my reactions to being frustrated correctly. People seem to tell me things like "It's ok, everyone starts out a little claustrophobic." or "You'll figure out how to position yourself so you know you won't get hurt." Maybe I'm wrong; maybe I am dealing with a secret fear of being crushed. I think what actually scares me is how desperate I am in that moment to inflict as much pain as possible. It probably doesn't matter - either way I need to deal with it and get past it. I just feel like the advice for dealing with claustrophobia is "just breathe and realize you're safe" and breathing, though helpful, does not diminish my desire to destroy fragile appendages. 

This is not just feelings either. When I get this frustrated and angry I will self-destruct rather than hurt another person. If my lip is bleeding, odds are its because I bit it until it did.

Don't think I limit my bizarre overreactions to BJJ. Other parts of my life are more frustrating than jiujitsu ever is. I miss my bird. I can't seem to get pregnant. I have motivation problems. Normal jobs bore me to tears. I take my frustrated rage and I hit the gym until I'm too tired to think about it anymore. 

As far as jiujitsu goes, I'm trying two things. First, I need a better handle on what frustrates me. The worst, I think, is being caught in one position too long. Second, I'm starting to deal with frustration by not letting it get to the sadistic stage. Say I am caught in one position too long. I'm trying to count roughly to 10 as I am trying to escape. If I haven't managed to escape and my training partner is, for whatever reason, just not moving, I'll just tap out anyway. I need to protect my mental stability as much as my neck, arms, whatever. 

If anyone has some better ideas, please, let me know.

Three questions for the end of the day

Back in my angry, bitter, post-undergrad days I was really tired of being surrounded by people who couldn't keep their shit together. Seriously, this life is not that hard. Step 1: Get some skills in something and get a job. Step 2: Try to show up and not fail at your job and you should have enough money to do something fun after hours. Step 3: Don't be an asshole (maybe this should be step 1.)

So many people fail at these easy steps... but I'm over it now.

Somewhere in my journey I realized that this philosophy was doing me great harm. It would be great if the world was so simple: Show up to life, work hard, and be rewarded or don't and be a failure. Too bad nothing is that simple.

People have their own challenges. Now when I look at other people I don't give a damn how their paychecks compare to mine or how big their houses are or how well they measure up to my old standards of success. Instead, I look at how they deal with little things. Do they treat others with dignity? Do they pause to appreciate beauty in the world? Do they learn from failure or make excuses?

This has made me a much nicer person. Until I realize I still beat myself up over my old standards of success.

Now at the end of the day, I ask myself those same questions. 

Did I treat others with dignity? 

Did I pause to appreciate what was beautiful? 

Did I learn from failure or did I make excuses?

Before I wrote this, I was sinking into a bad mood. Late at night its so easy to feel alone and weak. Its so easy to trivialize the day's work as I look ahead and see how far away my goals still are. But on this day I did not fail my three questions.

Could it be...? Nah, that's impossible.

I feel stuck! Like I'm sitting around waiting for life to move on rather than living my life. I hate this feeling and tonight I'm not going to stand for it.

I decided to reflect on this for a while (the alternative was Pinterest) and I thought about my goals and what I need to do to advance them. Is there anything I can do RIGHT NOW to help me get over this feeling?

Silence.

Ok not exactly silence. There is ALWAYS something that could be done. But I couldn't think of anything that was more than a break-even proposition. For example, I could go work out, but I'm still sore and bruised and I'm waking up at 6 AM to go work out so there is not a lot of value there.

Then it dawned on me... Is this feeling because my entire life is going according to plan?

O.O

I can almost hear my perception of self being rearranged.

Conclusions:
1. I am so unprepared for my life to be going according to plan that I am frustrated I don't have anything to do. [Side note: I KNOW I've manufactured a crisis to avoid this sensation before, I'm so glad I don't do that anymore]

2. Nothing goes according to plan. Bring it on. >:D