Wednesday 24 July 2024

Annoyance Day: Here's a List of Things That Are Annoying Me and You're On It

“Did I mention I’m annoyed?”

I was on my regular evening call with Fran. It was a Friday. “Yes, Fran. I noticed.” After thirteen years of friendship, I don’t miss much. She was, indeed, annoyed. By this friend and that. By this thing someone had done or said, that thing someone had not done or not said. By people in general. By life. There was quite a list. Like any of us, Fran gets frustrated from time to time, but it was rare for her to be quite so annoyed at quite so many things all at once.

I invited her to take advantage of how she was feeling by throwing anything and everything that was annoying her into the pot. This and that. Him and her. Everything and everyone. Noting that my name was conspicuously absent from the list, I told her I was feeling left out. “Aren’t you annoyed at me?” It turned out she was, so we got that out into the open too.

I didn’t try to fix things or dismiss how she was feeling. I didn’t offer my point of view, rationalise why maybe that person had done what they did, or why things perhaps weren’t as bad as she was making them out to be. That could come later, if needed. Right now, it wasn’t about helping Fran find her way out. It was about being with her where she was. My intuition was borne out the following week when she thanked me for how I’d handled things on Annoyance Day, as she named it.

“You didn’t tell me to get over it and move on, or just let it go. You sat in the shit with me.”

I laughed at that. “I didn’t sit delicately at the edge, either. I invited you to throw it all over me too!”

Sitting beside her in the mess is an analogy Fran’s used several times, and it’s one I’ve taken to heart. The following is from the epilogue to our book High Tide Low Tide. Fran is talking about some of her darkest times.

[Marty] did not reach down a hand to pull me up from my dark hole. He came down and sat with me while I began rethreading, bit by bit, what could be mended. .... To him it wasn’t about getting me to climb out. It was about being with me in all of it.

That Friday evening, things weren’t that bleak. Fran wasn’t furious, or desperate, or suicidal. She was simply annoyed. Pissed. (Pissed off, as we’d say in the UK.) It would have been easy for me to try and placate her. Debate or cajole her out of how she was feeling. I might have succeeded. More likely, I’d have added to her catalogue of annoyances. Allowing her to be in the middle of all she was feeling, without judging her for it or pushing for her to put it behind her, gave Fran permission to own her emotions and experience them for what they were. Afterwards, we acknowledged how well it fit in with our mantra Feel it. Claim it. Love it. Let it go. Here’s another excerpt from our book:

It can be challenging to handle powerful emotions, especially when they seem to come out of nowhere. Rather than allowing our emotions full rein, or trying to deny them, we find it helps to accept what we feel, take whatever meaning we can from the experience, and then release our attachment to it so we can move on.

All four steps are important, but it’s easy to rush through the first one, especially where the emotions are unwelcome. The ultimate goal may be to let go, but if we don’t allow ourselves to feel what we’re feeling we’re cheating ourselves of the moment’s potential. It’s an approach worth considering. I’m happy to report that in our case, Fran was able to move through her annoyances and emerge the other side. There will be other Annoyance Days, I’m sure. For her. For me too. We know how to approach them, though, both individually and as friends. There’s strength and comfort in knowing that.

Over to You

What do you think of how Fran and I handled things on this occasion? How would you respond to a friend who came to you with a big list of annoyances? How would you want your friend to respond if you were feeling that way? What helps — and doesn’t help — in moments like that? We’d love to hear from you, either in the comments below or via our contact page.

 

Photo by 傅甬 华 at Unsplash.

 

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