12-minute letting go meditation for frustration, during a break

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for frustration. A letting go session you can do during a break. A guided session of about 12 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: frustration

Frustration is blocked progress, repeated. Each small obstruction adds to a background irritation that eventually has nothing to do with the original cause.

It tends to show up as:

Sighing more than usual
Everything feeling slightly too slow
A short fuse over minor things

Releasing some physical tension interrupts the accumulation. Frustration is often held in the jaw and hands more than it is thought about.

Doing this on a break

Leave the room if you can
Do not start anything else in the same gap
Set a timer so the break has an end

A break spent half-engaged with a screen is not much of a break. Guard the whole five minutes.

How letting go works

Letting go is about loosening grip rather than dropping things. It works on the effort attached to a problem — the holding, rehearsing and bracing — which is separable from the problem itself.

Pick one thing you are gripping and loosen a single finger
Release the effort with the exhale, not the issue
Set down temporarily; you can pick it up again after

What happens, minute by minute

0:00Notice the temperature of the air on the backs of your hands.
0:13With each exhale, let a little of the effort go. Not the problem — just the effort.
0:28You can think about other things. When you notice, come back. That's the whole practice.
0:42Notice the weight of your arms without moving them.
0:53Count four breaths silently. Then stop counting and just follow.
1:05Feel the air move past your upper lip. It's the coolest spot on the way in.
1:20Notice your lower back. Let it curve however it curves.
1:32Feel your face. It's probably softer than it was five minutes ago.
1:45Move to your forehead. Let it be smooth instead of gathered.
1:57Feel your hips. Wide, heavy, and doing nothing.
2:08You are allowed to be unimpressed by the jaw tight with frustration. Indifference is a legitimate response.
2:23Picture the annoyance that will not settle as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
2:42Follow the breath down into your belly and feel it come back up.
2:55If you're replaying a conversation, let it play. It'll finish on its own.
3:08Setting something down is not the same as giving up. You can pick it up again after.
3:23A few quiet breaths. That's all this is.
3:34If a song is stuck in your head, let it play in the background.
3:48You have been carrying this competently for a while. A few minutes off will not undo that.
4:03Quiet now. The next part will wait for you.
4:14Notice how you're sitting. Adjust if you need to. Then settle again.
4:27We are not solving anything in the next few minutes. We are setting it down, temporarily.
4:42A short silence. Let it be empty.
4:52Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today.
5:03Ask yourself what you could stop holding for the next sixty seconds. That one is a good start.
5:19Nothing to follow for a moment except your own breathing.
5:31Notice any urge to check something. You can wait two more minutes.
5:44Let the breath be shallow if shallow is what your body wants.
5:57A few seconds more.
6:06Feel your knees. They're just hinges, but they've worked hard.
6:18Let the breath get soft, the way it goes when someone is reading beside you.
6:32Nothing changes for a moment.
6:41Now the right shoulder. Let it be a centimetre lower than it was.
6:54Feel the air as it passes the back of your throat. It's cooler going in.
7:08Stay with it.
7:16Notice your whole body as one shape, sitting or lying here.
7:28Let your belly rise first, then your chest, then the tops of your lungs.
7:42Let the quiet do its work.
7:52Notice the backs of your knees, which you feel more than you think.
8:05Give the repeated small irritations a shape, a colour, a temperature. Turning it into something specific makes it easier to hold.
8:22I'll stop for a moment. Take the pause at your own speed.
8:35the jaw tight with frustration may quiet down, or it may not. Either is fine. We are practising staying, not performing calm.
8:53Let the breath move at the speed of a sleeping person.
9:05Notice where the annoyance that will not settle lives in your body. Chest, throat, stomach. Rest your attention there without trying to change it.
9:24You do not have to like the repeated small irritations to breathe through it. Liking was never the requirement.
9:40Follow one full breath from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.
9:54If your body wants to move, let it move, then come back.
10:07Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking.
10:18No words for a moment. Only the next breath.
10:29Pick one thing you are gripping — a plan, a worry, a grudge — and loosen a single finger.
10:45No rush to move on.
10:54Start to notice the edges of your body again, and the surface you're on.
11:08Wiggle your fingers and toes, gently, like you're testing that they still work.
11:21Stay here a little longer.

Questions people ask

What does this session help with?

Frustration is blocked progress, repeated. Each small obstruction adds to a background irritation that eventually has nothing to do with the original cause. Releasing some physical tension interrupts the accumulation. Frustration is often held in the jaw and hands more than it is thought about.

Where and when should I do this one?

Leave the room if you can. A break spent half-engaged with a screen is not much of a break. Guard the whole five minutes.

What actually happens during the 12 minutes?

Letting go is about loosening grip rather than dropping things. It works on the effort attached to a problem — the holding, rehearsing and bracing — which is separable from the problem itself.

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.