In managing irritability with mindfulness, we bring awareness to the mood and treat it with kindness and compassion. We all get irritable, especially when we’re under stress. And if that stress is chronic, our irritability threshold is shorter, meaning that we’re quicker to feel irritable and quicker to react or act out the irritability.
Acting out our irritability usually has consequences. It creates distance or separation when we want connection, and it can result in us feeling badly about ourselves.
Try putting some space between you and your irritability. Become intimately familiar with your body sensations that arise in response to irritability. When they arise, notice them, even name the feeling—irritability. Naming it activates an area of the brain that begins to induce a state of calm. See if you can meet the sensations and the feeling with compassion.
Our impulse is to push the feelings or sensations away and then push away what we perceive as the source of our irritability. Try remembering your intention of connection—with yourself and with others. And then try being present with the waves of feelings and sensations in your body that accompany irritability. Managing irritability with mindfulness, we ease the suffering. Watch, breathe, and notice what happens next.
Openness actually starts to emerge when you see how you close down. You see how you close down, how you yell at someone, and you begin to have some compassion. It starts with compassion towards yourself and then you begin to extend that warmth to the rest of humanity. –Pema Chodron