Secret Sangha: Annoyance

So we do words every week and we've done such beautiful words.

We've done clarity and openness and acceptance and today this word came from I was in a stuck

in an airport trying to get to Washington DC on Friday and it was sort of one of those

nightmare experiences.

At some point in the nightmare of the two council flights, I got the message that someone

threw up in the jet way and we had to wait for Hazmat to come, it's like oh this is not

looking good.

Anyways I didn't make it that night I had to take a red eye, but in the process Aaron

and I were texting, what are we going to do on Tuesday and I just put out there like

in a joking way annoyance and then some other words and that's the one that you chose.

It's pretty good.

So annoyance, yeah, and it's actually kind of a perfect word because annoyance is

happened to us all the time all day long and what turns an annoyance into something

that kind of overwhelms us is actually not about the annoyance itself, right?

Because if you ever think about that sometimes your mom or your dad could be really annoying

to you.

Other times they're not annoying, like they're not annoying.

So what's the difference?

And when we look at it from a psychological perspective, there's two major variables in

terms of annoyance.

One is your capacity, like what is your capacity to handle the annoyance and your capacity

has everything to do with stressors in your life, heat, one of the reasons why they're

worried about global warming is that for every 10 degrees warmer that it gets, there's

a 9% increase in violence.

Like we're going to become like a violent culture.

There's way more crime on hot days.

And so heat, I mean, right, your capacity decreases if you're overheated.

Being overly hungry can impact your capacity.

There has been studies where they've looked at judges and judges offer more parole in

the morning and right after lunch.

And later in the day, you're more likely to get a sentence.

They're just being hungry, you're kind of meaner.

There's also been studies that have looked at sleep.

So if you have a poor night's sleep and you wake up in the morning and you walk in the

kitchen and you see your partner, you're more likely to interpret them as being hostile.

So these are the things that impact your capacity.

And if you think about being annoyed, annoyance has to do with your biology.

But the thing that really is interesting about annoyance is that probably the biggest

thing that impacts our annoyances is our story.

And sometimes I'll work with couples and you'll see this trend with couples and maybe you

could even notice this in a trend with a family member where there's some kind of incident

that happens.

And it's sort of just a thing, like somebody forgets to, excuse me, something happened

in my family recently, somebody forgets to pick up something, right?

You take the incident and then you turn it into, you pull upon the history of all the

other times that this has happened and then you turn it into a trend and then it turns

into the story and the story is a mismatch for your expectation for the experience.

And when you're caught in a story and you have low capacity, you're more likely to be

annoyed.

So I liked Terry Ruehl, who's a couples therapist, one of the people that was at this conference

that I was presenting at.

He says that resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

And that, I think that's what annoyance is like.

We get annoyed, we get irritated and we think that in some way our irritation or complaints

will cause things to improve.

And so we get from the incident to the threat, we go into a story and then we try and make

it go away and fix it by complaining about it.

Either our inner complaints or our outward complaints.

So I was stuck in the airport and I went to the American Airlines customer service and

at the American Airlines customer service was weighed.

And Wade was sitting in this chair at this computer with this long, I mean, the whole

flight, right?

Everyone has their very important reason that they need to get somewhere and everybody's

reason feels like the most, like my reason was more important than your reason.

And I'm waiting in line and there's Wade.

And Wade looks at me and he's like, I haven't taken my 15-minute break.

I get fit to 15-minute breaks every day.

This is Phoenix Airport and so he's waiting to take it.

So another American airline person comes in and Wade goes, I need to take my 15-minute

break.

I'm still waiting.

I'm like, I need to get on a flight and the American Airlines person gives Wade a

stickers bar.

Just make it through the next half hour and then I pause and I was like, I was ready

to go into my complaint and I'm like, I have to get on, I tell my whole story, I have

to get on the flight.

He's like, we're going to have to take a red eye and unfortunately you're going to be

in the middle seat in the back.

I'm like, but I'm presenting tomorrow at seven, you know, whatever I have a presentation,

you're going to arrive at seven, you're going to present.

So then I paused and I noticed the story that I was in and the story that I was in was

that my flight and my arrival was more important than Wade and anyone else's flight and their

arrival behind me.

And I stopped and said, okay, is that true?

The person that's next to me that wants to get on their thing or the person in front

of me or whatever, is that true?

And you can think about this for when you are stuck in an annoying situation where you

start to tell yourself things like, I can't handle this, it'll always be this way.

They're not, I am not, I always, is it true?

And then can you allow it to be what it is?

So then I asked Wade, I said, tell me about what you do on your 15 minute break.

And he said, I do a loop.

I have a loop around that's a one mile or like, I guess less than a mile.

He said one mile, but there's no way it can be a mile.

There's no way Wade can walk a 15 in a while.

So I do this loop around the Phoenix Airport and I said, oh, show it to me.

So he told me about this loop.

Long story short, I'm like, okay, connecting with Wade and then I, and then he says, what

are you going to go present?

I'm presenting on movement and blah, blah, blah.

And he said, I'm going to move you to the exit row.

So he moves me up, but the moral of the story is that when I returned back through the

Phoenix Airport less than 24 hours later, I saw Wade walking the loop.

And it made me realize everyone's in their own life experience and no person's experience

is better than other.

And when we are annoyed, we're separate.

We've separated ourselves.

So can we notice the story we're in, allow it to be exactly as it is, open up and connect?

And can we also recognize that the threats that we think are threats to safety or a sense

of self or control or connection are actually not threats.

There's always an opportunity in the present moment to be with what is.

So when we do our meditation today, we're going to do an interesting practice of opening

to what is and holding both the object of the annoyance, but also opening, expanding

to just the presence that is here without having to choose, that we can have the annoyance,

we can have the frustration that are with our partner or our family member or frustration

with life itself not going our way.

But that we can tap into reality.

And then when we increase our capacity to be with what is, then we can tolerate all sorts

of things like red-eyed flights and leaf blowers and the little annoyances that wear us

down.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Wise Effort Podcast.

Wise Effort is about you taking your energy, including in places that matter most to you.

And when you do so, you'll get to savor the good and your life along the way.

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I would like to thank my team, my partner, and all things, including the producer of This

Podcast Craig, Ashley Hyatt, the podcast manager, and thank you to Ben Gold at Bell and

Branch for our music.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and it's not meant to be a substitute

for mental health treatments.