Secret Sangha: Annoyance With Dr. Diana Hill

This talk explores how everyday annoyances can build into larger emotional reactions and how to relate to them more skillfully. You’ll learn how factors like stress, expectations, and the stories you tell yourself shape your experience of irritation. Through relatable examples, the session offers a practical way to pause, reflect, and create more space in challenging moments. It invites you to respond with greater awareness, patience, and connection in the face of daily frustrations.

Transcript

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 stuck in an airport trying to get to Washington, D. C. On Friday, And it was sort of one of those nightmare experiences. Because at some point in the nightmare of the two canceled flights, I got the message that someone threw up in the jetway, And we had to wait for hazmat to come. I was 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, Like, 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. Annoyance. It's pretty good. So, Annoyance, Yeah, And it's actually kind of a perfect word because annoyances happen 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, But then other times 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. What is your capacity at 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 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's been studies where they looked at judges, And judges offer more parole in the morning and right after lunch, But later in the day, You're more likely to get a sentence. So, 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 annoyance 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, 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 Real, 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, Our 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 Wade. And Wade was sitting in this chair at this computer with this long line, I mean, The whole flight, Right? Everyone has their very important reason that they need to get somewhere, And everybody's reason feels 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 two 15-minute breaks every day. I'm like, 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 Snickers bar. Just make it through the next half hour. And then I paused, And I was like, I was ready to go into my complaint. And I'm like, I have to get on. I tell him my whole story, I have to get on the flight, And 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. And I'm like, But I'm presenting tomorrow at 7, You know, Whatever, I have a presentation. You're going to arrive at 7, 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 it can't, There's no way it can be a mile. There's no way Wade can walk a 15 minute while. So they, I do this loop around the Phoenix airport. And I said, Oh, Show me, Show it to me. So he told me about how this loop, Long story short, I'm like, Okay, Connecting with Wade. And then he, And then I, And then he says, What are you going to go present? I'm like 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 another. 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 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 and putting it in the places that matter most to you. And when you do so, You'll get to savor the good of your life along the way. I would like to thank my team, My partner in all things, Including the producer of this podcast, Craig, Ashley Hyatt, The podcast manager, And thank you to Bangold at Bell and Branch for our music. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not meant to be a substitute for mental health care.