Why do some things just really seem to irritate of us?\u00a0 For most of us, there are certain actions that others can take that automatically elicit, or \u201ctrigger\u201d, strong reactions. Often, our first response in these situations is \u201cthey shouldn\u2019t do that\u201d. The \u201cshouldn\u2019t\u201d is often associated with judgment. For instance, if we\u2019re driving along, paying attention, and someone suddenly cuts in front of us so we have to brake to not hit them, we may have a strong emotional response such as anger, and quickly think \u201cthat person is not being respectful\u201d (or an even stronger negative thought).\u00a0 Both of these happen so quickly and feel so natural we may not even be aware of what is going on.\u00a0 But why do we have these reactions to certain triggers?\u00a0 Why isn\u2019t the emotional response relief that we didn\u2019t hit them, and the first thought \u201cthey must really have something important to do if they\u2019re driving that way?\u201d<\/p>\n
Often we have these strong reactions due to our personal histories and the rules we have learned to live by.\u00a0 A possible rule in this case could be \u201cpeople should be respectful of others\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s a nice sentiment, and most of us may feel this is appropriate, but it is not a universal value shared by everyone.\u00a0\u00a0 If we do feel this way, it has been learned, and the earlier we learned it the more strongly we are likely to react when it is violated.\u00a0 If we learned this growing up from a very young age, it\u2019s likely to be very strongly held.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t right or wrong that we hold these strong beliefs, but it is important that we recognize them.\u00a0 Yet, we often don\u2019t, we just feel that\u2019s the way things should be.\u00a0 And yet, when we do recognize them, then we have choices about how to respond.\u00a0 Otherwise, every time someone cuts us off in traffic we\u2019ll find ourselves feeling angry and then reacting out of anger, and most of us have learned that this often doesn\u2019t bring out our best behavior.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say we won\u2019t feel anger, we will, because emotions arise in the limbic system, a part of the brain not under conscious control. Thus, we can\u2019t just think our way to not feeling anger.\u00a0 But we can notice anger when it arises, and we can recognize it\u2019s arising because someone has violated one of our rules (which may not be one of their rules), and we can acknowledge that they may have had a perfectly good reason for acting as they did.<\/p>\n
This leads to several important points.\u00a0 First, since emotions arise from the limbic system, getting upset at ourselves or others for having an emotion is not consistent with our actual physiology.\u00a0 We usually can\u2019t control feeling emotions very well, but we can control how we respond to them.\u00a0 Second, jumping from observing a behavior (getting cut off in traffic) to an assumption of intention (that person is not respectful) is based on our view of the situation, not on any actual knowledge of the other person\u2019s motivation.\u00a0 \u00a0Often our first reaction is to assume a negative reason for their action, but this is a choice, and we could choose to assume positive intent instead.\u00a0 Many people find that intentionally assuming positive intent regarding other\u2019s actions can have a very powerful positive effect on their relationships and their own well-being.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most important lesson from all of this is the impact that being mindful in the moment can have.\u00a0 When we feel ourselves experiencing a strong emotion we can pause and notice it.\u00a0 As soon as we pause, then we have the possibility of making different choices.\u00a0 We could choose to react to the emotion as we have in the past, or we might choose to respond differently.\u00a0 We could choose to be judgmental of ourselves for having a strong emotion, or we could choose to bring some kindness to ourselves and acknowledge how difficult it can be to be with our emotions.\u00a0 We could choose to be curious, and ask ourselves when we first felt this way, and wonder what personal rule might have been broken.\u00a0\u00a0 And we could choose what assumption to make about another\u2019s intentions.\u00a0 Do we assume they were out to get us, or do we choose to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they had a good reason for acting as they did?\u00a0 All of these choices can arise from intentionally paying attention to our present moment experience, with kindness and without judgment.\u00a0 And an excellent way to learn how to bring this way of being into our daily lives on a consistent basis is to take a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction class, and once we have taken a class, to continue to practice mindfulness regularly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why do some things just really seem to irritate of us?\u00a0 For most of us, there are certain actions that others can take that automatically elicit, or \u201ctrigger\u201d, strong reactions. Often, our first response in these situations is \u201cthey shouldn\u2019t do that\u201d. The \u201cshouldn\u2019t\u201d is often associated with judgment. For instance, if we\u2019re driving along, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-updates"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\n