The Morning I Threw My Phone Across the Room (And What It Taught Me About Frustration)

The email wouldn’t send. I’d been trying for ten minutes. Reloading. Restarting the app. Checking my wifi. Nothing worked.

And something inside me just… snapped.

I threw my phone across the room. Not hard enough to break it — I’m not completely unhinged — but hard enough that it bounced off the couch and clattered to the floor.

Then I stood there, heart racing, hands shaking, feeling lawful.

It was just an email. A routine work email that could have waited another hour. But in that moment, it felt like the culmination of everything — every small annoyance, every blocked goal, every plan that hadn’t worked out the way I’d expected.

I picked up my phone. Checked it for cracks. Felt a wave of shame.

“What’s wrong with me?” I thought. “Why can’t I handle basic tech issues without losing it?”

I generated this image with ChatGPT

As a somatic practitioner now, I work with clients navigating frustration all the time. And here’s what I’ve learned — both through my own experience and through hundreds of sessions since: frustration isn’t a character flaw. It’s information.

That morning, my body was trying to tell me something I’d been ignoring for weeks. I just didn’t know how to listen yet.

What frustration actually is (and why it feels so physical)

I used to think frustration lived in my thoughts. That it was just me being impatient or unreasonable. Then I learned about the nervous system.

Frustration isn’t just emotional. It’s deeply physical. When something blocks your goal — a frozen screen, a delayed response, a plan that falls apart — your body registers it as a threat.

Your heart rate spikes. Your muscles tense. Your breath gets shallow.

You’re not imagining that tightness in your chest or the heat rising in your face. That’s your system shifting into fight-or-flight mode, trying to mobilize you to overcome the obstacle.

The problem? Most modern frustrations can’t be fought or fled from. You can’t punch your laptop. You can’t run away from a difficult conversation. So the energy just… stays.

Bessel van der Kolk writes in *‘The Body Keeps the Score’*:

“Our bodies carry the memory of every experience.”

That stuck energy — frustration you don’t release — accumulates. And over time, it doesn’t just make you irritable. It makes you exhausted, reactive, and disconnected from yourself.

The moment I realized I’d been carrying frustration for years

After the phone-throwing incident, I started paying attention to my body’s frustration signals. Clenched jaw during meetings. Shoulders up by my ears while typing emails. Shallow breathing basically all day.

I’d been so focused on pushing through, being productive, getting things done that I hadn’t noticed I was carrying tension constantly.

A therapist asked me, “When was the last time you felt genuinely relaxed?”

I couldn’t answer. Not because I couldn’t remember being relaxed — but because I genuinely didn’t know what that felt like anymore. That’s when I understood: my baseline had shifted. I was so used to operating in a state of low-grade frustration that I’d stopped recognizing it as abnormal.

*Names and details throughout this piece have been changed to protect client privacy.

A client named Marcus described this perfectly recently:

“I thought I was just stressed. It turns out I’d been frustrated for so long that it felt normal. My body was screaming at me, and I’d just turned down the volume.”

Why breathing actually helps (and why I resisted it for so long)

When people first told me to “just breathe” when I was frustrated, I wanted to scream. Obviously, I’m breathing. I’m alive, aren’t I? How is that supposed to help?

But here’s what I didn’t understand: there’s a difference between breathing enough to stay alive and breathing in a way that signals safety to your nervous system.

When you’re frustrated, your breath gets short and shallow. That shallow breathing tells your body you’re still in danger, which keeps the frustration loop running.

Slow, deep breathing — especially with a longer exhale — activates your parasympathetic nervous system. The part responsible for calming you down.

I started trying it. Not because I believed it would work, but because I was desperate. Inhale for four counts. Hold for four. Exhale for four. Hold for four.

The first time I did this during a frustrating moment, I felt ridiculous. Like I was playing at meditation while my real problems remained unsolved.

But by the fifth round of breath, something shifted. My shoulders dropped slightly. My jaw unclenched. The problem hadn’t changed, but my body’s response to it had.

That small shift — from reactive to regulated — made all the difference. I could think clearly again. I could choose how to respond instead of just reacting.

The reframe that changed everything

I used to think frustration meant I was failing. That if I were better, smarter, more capable, I wouldn’t get frustrated in the first place.

Then I read Trevor Moawad’s concept of “neutral thinking” in ‘It Takes What It Takes.’

Neutral thinking isn’t positive thinking — it’s not about pretending everything is fine. It’s about stripping away the catastrophic story and focusing on facts.

The next time my computer froze during important work, instead of spiraling into “This always happens to me, I’m so unlucky, this whole day is ruined,” I tried neutral thinking.

The facts: My computer froze. I need to restart it. This will take five minutes. That’s it. No drama. No identity crisis. Just what actually happened.

It sounds almost too simple to matter. But that reframe stopped the frustration spiral before it could take over.

Frustration happens when reality doesn’t match your expectations. The more rigid those expectations, the more often you’ll crash into disappointment. Neutral thinking loosens the grip. It doesn’t eliminate frustration — but it keeps frustration from eliminating your ability to function.

What moving my body taught me about stuck energy

For months after I started paying attention to frustration, I noticed a pattern.

The days I moved my body — walked, stretched, shook out my arms — were days I handled setbacks better. The days I sat at my desk for eight hours straight were days when small frustrations felt unbearable.

Van der Kolk’s work on trauma helped me understand why: stuck energy fuels frustration. Your body mobilizes to deal with a threat, but when you can’t fight or flee, that energy just circulates.

Movement completes the stress cycle. It gives your body permission to discharge what it’s holding. I started building movement into frustrating moments. Not elaborate exercise routines. Just:

• Shaking out my hands and arms when I felt tension building.
• Taking a lap around the block when a work problem felt unsolvable.
• Rolling my shoulders and neck between tasks.

These tiny physical resets didn’t fix the external problems, causing frustration. But they kept the frustration from lodging in my body and turning into something heavier.

The frustration I couldn’t name out loud

Here’s something I didn’t expect: naming frustration out loud made it less powerful.

For years, I’d suppress the feeling. Push it down. Tell myself to stop being so sensitive or dramatic.

But neuroscience shows that labeling emotions actually calms your brain. When you name what you’re feeling, your prefrontal cortex — the thinking part of your brain — comes back online.

I started practicing this. Out loud, in my empty apartment, feeling slightly absurd. “I’m frustrated.”

That’s it. Not “I’m a failure.” Not “This is unbearable.” Just: “I’m frustrated.”

Something about saying it plainly, without judgment or story, took away its charge.

I teach clients to do this now. Not to fix the frustration immediately, but to acknowledge it exists. To stop treating it like a shameful secret and start treating it like information.

When frustration pointed to boundaries I’d ignored

About six months into paying attention to my frustration patterns, I noticed something uncomfortable. The same situations kept triggering me. Specific people. Certain types of requests. Particular dynamics at work.

I’d been treating each instance as isolated. But they weren’t. They were pointing to boundaries I’d never set.

A colleague who always asked for “quick favors” that took hours. A friend who only reached out when they needed something. A boss who expected immediate responses at all hours.

I’d been saying yes to all of it. Then I felt frustrated when my time and energy got depleted. The frustration wasn’t random. It was my system’s way of saying:

“This doesn’t work for me. Something needs to change.”

Setting boundaries felt terrifying at first. What if people got angry? What if they thought I was difficult?

But staying silent wasn’t protecting me. It was just making the frustration worse.

I started small. “I can’t take that on this week.” “I need some space right now.” “That doesn’t work for my schedule.”

Most people adjusted. A few didn’t. And I learned something crucial: the relationships that couldn’t survive my boundaries were built on my self-abandonment. That’s not a foundation worth keeping.

The burnout I didn’t see coming

I thought I was handling frustration pretty well. I was breathing. Moving my body. Setting boundaries.

Then one morning, I woke up and couldn’t get out of bed.

Not physically couldn’t — I wasn’t sick. I just… didn’t care. About work. About projects I’d been excited about. About anything.

Everything felt pointless. I’d snap at people over nothing. Tasks I used to enjoy felt like obligations I resented. That’s when I realized: I’d been managing individual moments of frustration without addressing the accumulated load.

Emily and Amelia Nagoski write in *‘Burnout’*:

“Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.”

I’d been stuck. Dealing with frustration reactively, in the moment, but never actually addressing what was causing it systemically.

A client named Sarah described this pattern recently:

“I kept putting out fires without noticing the whole forest was burning.”

Burnout doesn’t announce itself. It builds slowly, frustration by frustration, until one day you realize you have nothing left.

What I couldn’t focus on when I needed it most

During my worst burnout period, multiple people recommended books. ‘The Body Keeps the Score.’ ‘Burnout.’ ‘It Takes What It Takes.’

I bought them, but reading all of them felt like a chore. When you’re burned out and frustrated, concentration is one of the first things to go. I decided to try Headway as a tool to fight this feeling. I could read a 15-minute summary of ‘Burnout’ during lunch and actually absorb the concept of completing the stress cycle.

It worked because it met me where I was. I didn’t have energy for deep dives. I needed actionable insights I could try immediately, when my system was already overloaded. Those small frameworks — neutral thinking, stress cycle completion, somatic awareness — gave me tools when my brain was too foggy for anything complex.

What I tell clients now

Frustration doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you care about something — progress, fairness, connection, competence. The question isn’t how to eliminate frustration. It’s how to work with it before it takes over.

When clients come to me stuck in frustration loops, here’s what I share:

• Your body knows first. Clenched jaw, tight chest, shallow breath — these are early warnings. Catch them before frustration escalates.
• Movement helps more than thinking. Shake it out. Walk it off. Let your body complete what your mind can’t process.
• Name it plainly. “I’m frustrated” takes away the shame and brings your thinking brain back online.

Check for boundary violations. If the same situations keep triggering you, it’s not about managing frustration better — it’s about addressing what’s causing it.

Don’t do this alone. Talk to someone. Not to fix it necessarily, just to be witnessed in it.

And here’s what I wish someone had told me years ago: you don’t have to handle frustration perfectly. You just have to notice it earlier and respond to it more kindly.

The small resets that actually work

I’m not great at elaborate self-care routines. But I’ve learned that small physical resets — done consistently — make a bigger difference than occasional grand gestures.

When frustration builds, I do one of these:

• Five deep breaths with a long exhale. The extended exhale signals safety to my nervous system.
• Progressive muscle relaxation. Tense and release each muscle group, starting with my feet. It sounds simple. It works.
• Cross-body tapping. Alternating tapping on opposite shoulders or knees. It grounds me when my thoughts are spinning.
• Gentle humming. Low humming stimulates the vagus nerve, which helps regulate stress.

These aren’t impressive. They don’t require special equipment or training. But they interrupt the frustration spiral before it becomes something heavier.

What frustration taught me about myself

That morning I threw my phone? It wasn’t really about the email.

It was about months of ignored signals. Small frustrations I’d pushed through without processing. Boundaries I’d violated. Needs I’d dismissed as inconvenient.

My body was trying to get my attention, the only way it knew how.

Learning to work with frustration instead of against it didn’t make my life problem-free. But it made me more present, more honest, and more capable of responding to difficulty without falling apart.

Frustration still shows up. The difference is I don’t spiral into shame about it anymore. I noticed it earlier. I respond to it more skillfully. I use it as information about what needs to change.

And on the days when I still lose it — because I’m human and this is ongoing practice — I treat myself with the same compassion I’d offer anyone else struggling with something hard.

Van der Kolk writes:

“Trauma robs you of the feeling that you are in charge of yourself, but healing restores choice.”

Every time you pause instead of react, breathe instead of shut down, speak up instead of suppress — you reclaim your agency. Not perfectly. Just more often than before.

That’s the practice. That’s the path through.

If you’re dealing with frustration right now — if it’s been building for weeks or months and you’re not sure how to shift it — I want you to know something.

You’re not failing. Your nervous system is just doing what it’s designed to do: signal that something needs attention.

The tools are simple. The practice takes time. But it’s worth it.

And if you need frameworks to hold onto while you’re building that practice, these summaries helped me: ‘It Takes What It Takes’ for neutral thinking. ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ for understanding how frustration lives in your body. ‘Burnout’ for completing the stress cycle.

Small insights you can use when your system is overloaded and you can’t handle anything complex.

You’ve got this. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Especially then.