Hi guys, welcome to episode 258 of the wildly successful Lifestyle podcast. This is a great one to share…Do I say that about all of them? Probably…
Have you ever been in a situation where you’re annoyed by something someone did but on a different day that same thing made you laugh?
What was it that was different? Same person, same thing they did but your feeling about it is different.
They didn’t change anything for you to feel different. You did. You’re looking at it differently. Or maybe you don’t even notice it at all.
Most of the time we have a certain way we think people should act and when they don’t act that way we get annoyed. But what do we get from getting annoyed? Do we benefit from that? I would venture to say no. And another thing I would add is this. Most people have no idea they are being annoying. None whatsoever. They are in their own world just like you’re in yours.
I’m just going to say it. I am not easily annoyed. Most things simply don’t bother me. Now there are certain times of the month where I’m a little more annoyable, girls, you’ll understand. But even then, I’m learning to manage how annoyed I get.
This is one of the most powerful things you can give yourself is the awareness that your response to something or someone is all about you. They don’t need to change to make you feel better. You have the power to do it. It’s very empowering to know that you can choose to feel a certain way simply by looking at it in a way that serves you.
I was in the sauna at the gym the other day. I love the sauna. It feels cleansing to me. When I get in the sauna, it’s like a meditation to me. I like it quiet and if I’m being real I get a little bit of happiness if I am the only one in there.
But it’s a BIG gym so that rarely happens. So I know there is usually going to be a few other women in there and we usually acknowledge each other and then go back to be silent. Every once in a while there will be friends in there and they will talk the entire time out loud. The me before I started meditating used to get a little irritated by that. But since I’ve been meditating and working on equanimity, I am learning to welcome every moment as simply part of my experience. So I’m laying in the sauna the other day and there is another lady with me and she has earphones in and we are sitting in silence for a few glorious moments when out of nowhere, she starts this loud pitched humming. I
sneaked a look at her and she had her eyes closed, simply enjoying the moment. She had no idea she was humming out loud. I caught myself immediately when I started to get annoyed and thought wait this is part of my experience. I just smiled to myself and thought I love that she’s enjoying this sauna as much as I am, and I welcomed that moment to my experience. She stopped soon after and we sat in silence the rest of the time. I could have focused so much on her humming that it ruined my time in the sauna that I just end up leaving the sauna and not getting my 15 minutes in there that I love so
much. Now I’m irritated the rest of the day and I tell people about it which causes me to start attracting more stuff just like it. That’s how the world works guys.
You know how when you’re having a bad day, it just seems like one bad thing after another and same goes for a good day. You can change the momentum of your day if you notice it starting to go south.
My husband and I will often go to dinner just the two of us but we have different couples that will join us periodically. So now at least once a week we will meet them for dinner. There have been several times that we’ve been in a restaurant with one of our friends and he will notice someone’s child watching a video and the audio is a little loud for a restaurant and so he will bring it to our attention because this is a pet peeve for him and now we all notice it. It really has gotten so bad that we’ve joked about it and if there’s not someone with a loud phone just give it a minute there will be. And it happens a lot. But when Eric and I are alone at dinner, it almost never happens. It might be there but we would never notice it because it’s not something we are in tune to or even annoyed by. But he’s looking for it and it rarely disappoints him, to the point now where we just expect it to be there and laugh when it happens. We are all noticing it and we are all looking for it so it must show up. The interesting thing though is we don’t notice it until he points it out. Then we notice it. It was there before but we were not giving our attention to it at all.
What you give your attention to and how you choose to look at something are in your control. So in the sauna it’s a small room so when someone humms loudly, you’re probably going to notice it but you do control how you choose to look at it. But when you’re around a lot of people if you’re looking for the things that annoy you, you’ll find them every time. But if you’re simply having an enjoyable time and knowing that there will be other humans that will be part of your experience and sometimes it’s going to be a screaming baby or a toddler watching cartoons on a phone so that mom and dad can eat dinner and enjoy a glass of wine for a few moments.
When I hear a crying baby I send the parents love because as bad as it is for you, it’s 10x worse for them.
We live in a world that we share with billions of other people. We are going to run into situations that test our patience. Of course we are. But getting annoyed at every turn only makes things worse. Continuing to talk about the annoyances only brings more of that into your experience.
Your attention is valuable real estate. Tony Robbins always says Energy flows where your focus goes. Sometimes you just have to laugh, there have been times like that for me and sometimes you have to remove yourself from the room and that’s ok too. But once you remove yourself from the room, leave your attention to the annoyance in that room as well. Don’t keep it alive by continuing to bring it up. This will just bring more of it.
And if you’re easily annoyed, maybe ask yourself why you are giving so much power to other people or outside circumstances? Could it be that you’re so entrenched in your comfort zone that any little thing sets you off? The more we grow and the more we experience the world, the more tolerant we become. You would think it to be the opposite but it’s not, it opens your eyes to just how much we have in common and just how much people live in their own world and aren’t even thinking about you and your world. People who seen a lot 10 to be a little more compassionate.
Another thing is to realize sometimes an annoyance we have with someone else is a reflection of something we don’t like about ourself. Always look in the mirror first. Growing yourself and making changes in yourself will have you becoming so self aware that the little things others do will roll right off your back because you know it’s not about you or against you.
And finally don’t underestimate being hungry sometimes when you’re annoyed it’s simply because you need to eat that’s usually for me when I’m the most annoyed is when I’m hungry and that’s when I can laugh it off and then feed myself because I’m definitely the problem
We don’t benefit from being annoyed. Quite the opposite. It usually just makes things worse.
We can spend an entire day annoyed about something a stranger did in traffic that morning. That’s a lot of energy spent giving your power away to someone else.
My challenge to you today is to recognize when you’re starting to get annoyed. Is there a way to laugh it off? Can you find some compassion for that person? Are you expecting too much? Don’t lose faith in humanity but don’t expect other people to wow you with their manners, because they probably not going to
So, You’re going to get annoyed. You’re human. But HOW much power you give to that annoyance is all up to you.
I love you guys I’ll talk to you in a few days
