Frustration...

The other day I heard a story on the radio as I was driving to work that really made me think. It was about Gabrielle Giffords, the Congresswoman from Arizona who continues to recover from a gunshot wound to her head. Her husband, Mark Kelly, was being interviewed about her ongoing struggle to speak. The injury has caused a great deal of disruption in her ability to use language. He said,

“…she’s improving all of the time. We can have a conversation — it’s difficult for her. She struggles; she gets frustrated. I have to remind her that that’s a good thing. Getting frustrated is — from what I understand — one of those things that’s helped rebuild those connections in her brain. So we try to make sure that she’s frustrated…” 

“We try to make sure she’s frustrated…” wow! How different this approach is to what we normally try. Typically, we would want to eliminate frustration by either denying, resisting, or avoiding it at all costs. What if we think about it in a new way? What if we, when we feel frustrated, face it, listen to it, and believe it’s got something to teach us? Maybe we need to build new connections in our brains too?

If you’re interested, you can read the entire article and listen to the story here.