by Tom Tomaszewski | Sep 23, 2023 | FRUSTRATION
FRUSTRATION / CARE
Here’s a way to think about regret. The feeling we surely all have at some point about something we wished we’d done differently, or about something we wished we’d done – or not done.
This feeling can only ever be solved through understanding what your body wants. Remember, when I say ‘what your body wants’ I mean unconsciously.
In the past, at the time of the thing you think about when you feel regretful, your body wanted something. Your nervous system reached out for a feeling but it failed to find it.
You can spend the rest of your life feeling dead inside, or sleepy somehow, wishing you’d done something differently when all your body wants is to find that feeling in the future. If you feel dead inside then it’s likely it’s lost hope (don’t ask me how a body does that). If it feels sleepy then sometimes you’re coming close.
When you find this feeling your life will become more predictable. It will have continuity because you will seem more present to those around you. They won’t automatically think about asking you to do something for them because they will experience you more like a rock in a stream than a sandbank or some weed floating beneath the surface. You’ll be more there. Less interruptible. More resilient.
This is how you find the special kind of resilience called agency.
Satisfy the feeling you experience through understanding what you regret.
by Tom Tomaszewski | Sep 21, 2023 | FRUSTRATION
FRUSTRATION / CARE
Order your material things (and I mean everything) and things you can easily get hold of like dates of special events so that they make sense not just to you but to someone who you like who seems organised. Use your imagination to work out what this would be like. Sort, gather, sift, arrange, label, box, hang, or fold the whole lot. Give everything that you and other people can easily see a place in your life.
Then you can move on to the things that only you can see or feel.
Care structures things and too much of it or not enough of it in your early can leave you with unhelpful things happening in the way that you order your life. Things get lost, overlooked, damaged or forgotten, presenting you and others with a regular source of frustration. If you are a TV station your continuity person has gone missing. The producer’s drunk. The station cat is in charge.
Think about where care comes from. What it might be all about and how people, for thousands of years, have tried to recognise its force and effects.
The word ‘care’ comes from a very old word meaning to call or to shout. Allowing yourself to speak about your frustration, to call out the things which need attention, is essential.
But before you can do that something else needs to happen. People who experience frustration in their life are generally bad at collecting themselves. Their experiences, their interests, their thoughts: all of these things tend to be scattered and aren’t things you can see or touch easily. They’re like ghosts of wild cats. They remain unreceived, not properly picked up on because something about their occurrence has gone unnoticed.
Begin by ordering the things that you can see and touch and then move onto the cat ghosts.
