From Frustration to Compassion

Being overwhelmed is a constant problem. It would be nice if it weren't so. Learning how to not be so frustrated when life and the people around you are overwhelming and frustrating is one of the keys to being happy. It's hard, if not impossible to be happy when you are frustrated. 

 A lot of my clients come to me because they are frustrated. Either a person or a situation is causing them frustration. They want to know how to fix the problem. This is especially true when a client is a company. They hire me to "fix" a problem person.

And I help people, but rarely in the way they think I will. I help them by teaching them how to love. Love in the west is often associated with romance. But it has many dimensions and the practice of love, helps ease frustration and in turn, helps create - happiness.

And it's always amazing to me how many people resist this knowledge.  And it's not just me teaching it. Every major philosophy and religion teaches people to love. 

I had an epiphany on this a couple of years ago.

When people meet me, they realize I'm happy. And it's not an act. Most of the time, I'm in a pretty good mood.  And when I'm not, it doesn't normally last long.  I attribute my attitude to 3 things.  

1) I am biologically happy meaning, I don't have a mental health problem that makes being happy hard, like depression. My hubby suffers from depression on occasion and when he does, he needs medicine to help reset his brain and those medicines work. So, if your brain is a hinderance and not a help, seek help.

2) My philosophy, Humanism. This is a choice I have made about how I want to go through life.  If this is the one life I have, I might as well do the best I can with it - good and bad.  I'm ok with bad things happening, though I prefer good things happening. But more importantly, I refuse to stay stuck in bad things. I believe I can make the world better for myself and others, so I work to make that happen. This approach is a choice I've made and it helps me fill fulfilled and gives me purpose, which is important to being happy. We humans need to have meaning and connection to feel - good. So - I made that for myself and it works.

3) I practice love. As I said in the video, I actively think about and try to exude love. For myself, for my family, for my friends and for total strangers. Everyone.  It's my love for others, as an active practice, that helps me turn frustration into compassion.  When I find myself getting frustrated, and I do, I remind myself to think about the situation or the person, using love as my guide.  And immediately, my frustration ebbs away. And it works.  I find I can solve my problems better. Fix frustrating situations and deal with difficult people with the grace and compassion I expect from myself. 

How this applies to the workplace?

When I teach people how to stop bullying/harassment in the workplace, I not only teach the science of how to make it stop, I teach the mindset that helps you actually implement the science. And yes, that mindset is compassionate. It is extremely hard to do what works if you are angry. 

It's hard to make good strategic decisions when you are angry or frustrated. It's why the stoics encourage people to get control of their emotions. Thinking rationally is hard when our brains are overwhelmed with frustration.

Converting frustration to compassion helps get into the right mindset to create win win solutions for whatever the problem is. It also helps get into the right mindset to not be bothers by situations you cannot change.  In fact, I don't know how anyone complies with the Serenity Prayer if they are not practicing compassion and love. 

Humanistic Leadership, is loving leadership. If you are new to this, what I'd like you to do is try it. Next time you find yourself getting frustrated think - WWJD (What Would Jennifer Do). And what I would do is remind myself to love myself, love my family, love my friends and yes - love this annoying person who is frustrating me and only then, start thinking about how to fix the problem if it is fixable. And if it's not, walking away from it with love and a smile on my face. 

Good luck.

Also, if you want to take some of my course, visit: https://humanistlearning.com/ 

Why compassion matters

I have a friend who is always posting videos from a man named ZDogg.  I don't really care for the videos. While he does a good job of convincing people to follow the science, he does misrepresent things - a lot too.

But I understand why his approach has value for a specific fan base.  His fan base is awash in misinformation and is trying to figure out what is true and what isn't. And good for them for caring enough to try and sort that out! 

And good for him for compassionately trying to help them stay reality based when the media bubble they are in is encouraging them to NOT be. 

He recently shared a letter he got from someone who got covid because he wasn't vaccinated.  He was mad, not just the people who lied to him and fed him the disinformation that caused him to go to the hospital and nearly die, but also to the people who were judgemental towards him for believing the lies. 

The attitude of the letter writer was F the right, but also F the left for being so – judgy that he couldn't and wouldn't listen to them. 

Personal responsibility, cults and compassion

On one hand – it’s silly for people like this to not take responsibility for the fact – they believed people who were lying to them. And it's silly to blame the people telling them they were being lied to for being – too judgy.

On the other hand – this does validate the science of HOW people get out of cults. And that is what is ultimately important here. 

As hard as it is for people in the reality based crowd dealing with people who appear to have joined a cult of misinformation, we need to understand that if someone is in a misinformation rabbit hole and being an ass about their complete denial of reality – the way to help them out is not to shame them.  

First, they won’t listen. Second, it doesn’t work. 

What works is – encouraging them – supporting them – helping them to ask questions and find answers without being judged for asking – what may seem like insanely stupid questions. 

The key is to understand – they are coming from a place of disinformation and lies.  And they don’t know what is true and what isn’t. And the fact they are asking any questions at all is wonderful.

So – if you can find the compassion in you to not take your anger at the cult out on the person asking questions – that would be great.

What ZDogg does – is he speaks to cult members in their language so he comes off as one of them. He’s safe for them. Are the people that they’ve been told are the enemy and scary – really bad? Of course not, but they don’t know that and they are only just beginning to question the tenets of the cult.  

Is this easy to do? No, many of us have compassion fatigue and are angry at the harm the cult is doing to people we care about.  People are dying because of this misinformation! The emotions we have at the evil people killing our neighbors through cult tactics – is valid because what has happened is horrifying.

But to help people get out of the cult and to help them get and seek and accept factual information – we have to treat people asking questions – with kindness, and compassion and remember, there are no stupid questions even if the question seems insanely stupid. Why? Because anyone who has the courage to question the ideas of a cult they’ve been indoctrinated in – is showing a tremendous amount of courage – and yes – FREETHOUGHT! 

So be kind to everyone.  If you are frustrated, reframe the situation so that you feel compassion. And - ask questions and praise people for asking questions. And help them find accurate sources of information.

Sometimes that means, not challenging all the lies at once and just focusing on one thing at a time.  Cult deprogramming is a process that takes time. Never in the entire history of humanity has anyone left a cult because someone told them it was a cult.  Encourage questions. Be kind when answering them. Good luck. 

One of the topics I teach is Socratic Jujitsu - the art of asking questions.  If you are interested in doing your part to help us - bridge our divides and help people, get more reality based - asking questions is a great way to do this. Here is a link.  The program comes as an online course, or as a book. https://humanistlearning.com/book-how-to-win-arguments-without-arguing/

The importance of joy and being fully fallably human in social justice work

It's all about balance!

If you can't give yourself permission to be human, and you can't extend that to other people, it's a good time to check in with yourself.

Sam Dylon Finch wrote a lovely twitter thread about his experience in social justice. He's been both an angry social justice warrior and a loving one.  More recently loving.  He talks about what changed here in this thread.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1174106626585874433.html?fbclid=IwAR3JnWadCJOgAPKFE0xjoOM8_C6qekc3qHMExhUHz_m0TIVhN2A4nq5had8

My favorite part is this:

Because dignity and care and kindness have to come from a genuinely loving place. And if you become too absorbed in righteousness & despair, and you don't balance it with the healing work that allows you to love on your people and see THAT as truly radical... you lose yourself.

— Sam Dylan Finch 🍓 (@samdylanfinch) September 18, 2019

Loving people is truly radical. It's ok to be mad, but it's also important to love.  Love is what helps us fight compassion fatigue.

Great writers and thinkers have been telling us how to do this for a long time. In his essay Return to Tipasa, Albert Camus says the same thing. He had found that love itself was drying up in his fight against the Nazis - and then - he returns to Tipasa (a place he had played in his youth).  He says,

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”
― Albert Camus

So - in this never ending fight for justice always remember that what call us to fight - is love. And to paraphrase Camus again from his letter to a German friend - it is important - that as we fight for our truth (LOVE) that we take care not to destroy it with the very arms we use to defend it.