It was just one of those days where I woke up being annoyed.
I didn’t know why, or about what, yet I was. Grrrr. Wrong side of the bed and all that.* Just farking annoyed.
But it was a Saturday, and I wasn’t going to waste it or have it be ruined by being annoyed! So I didn’t let myself be. I ignored it. I pushed it aside. I resisted it. When it welled up and I got growly, I growled it back down.
Soon after dinner, though, it was getting old. A whole day of this! What the heck? So I swore and told myself, “Fine, you want to be annoyed? Then go ahead, be annoyed!”
And in that moment, the annoyance completely, utterly, lifted and disappeared.
Then I got really upset! “Come on … I’m finally ready to be annoyed and now I can’t be? Gah!”
With the annoyance gone, though, that passed pretty quickly and I could only laugh. I was so odd! And as I sat in that oddness I got something for myself, that whole thing was a great example of the adage:
“Resistance equals persistence.“
I’d spent the whole day resisting the annoyance – I don’t want to be, it shouldn’t be, this is stupid, there’s no reason for it, not gonna let it get to me, etc. etc… Yet to do that I had to keep creating the annoyance in order to have something to resist against.**
But when I listened to it, got present to it (in a mindfulness way), and let it be for what it was (I’m feeling annoyed) and what it wasn’t (everything else), then it disappeared. Like I’d flipped a switch. Being heard and known, it ceased to be.
And I had a most lovely evening after that.
* Though, at the time, I was living in a place where there was really only one way to get out of my bed, so…
**And it’s good to note too that I also didn’t just succumb or surrender to it. That’s not the same as being present to it.
Lynx Thoughts 