Annoying People Begone! 5-Step Method to Eliminate People You Can’t Stand

Image Credit: Liboiron, M. (2013). “Bibliography on Noise Pollution.” Discardstudios.com.

As I write this, I’m wearing earplugs. For three years, I have endured unreasonably loud noise from my neighbor. This person executes capital construction projects that take place between April through November of each year. I have been patient, understanding, and kept hoping the projects would subside, but I hit a breaking point last week after enduring the sound of saws for 10–11 hours daily for several weeks.

I work from home. I am a meditation instructor, author, and empowerment coach. Can you imagine what it’s been like trying to run my business while saws are full throttle 30 feet outside of my office window?

Last Friday, I lost my shit. My shit was lost. I came to myself screaming obscenities at Mexican construction workers who don’t speak English. Plus, they couldn’t hear me anyway. The saws drowned me out. At that moment, I knew I had to get a grip; otherwise, I was going to allow my neighbor to drive me mad and rob me of my peace and happiness. I can’t allow that because I rely on my thoughts, words, actions, and emotions to create my physical reality, and I’m not looking to create a house that sits on a property in hell on earth.

As I write this, those saws are full throttle right outside of my home office, but I’m not coming unglued. Over the weekend, I took advantage of the much-needed silence and got in tune with myself. I used my years of professional training coupled with primary and secondary research and developed a 5-step method to help anyone dealing with an annoying person. We cannot allow an annoying person to block what we want to attract, and that’s what they do IF we allow it. The emotions they evoke by provoking us to wrath are the emotions that attract toxicity.

Sounds Have an Impact on Our Emotions

It is well-documented in the scholarly literature that sound has a powerful impact on our physiology. Sounds can activate healing or drive us mad. Loud noises cause stress, and stress causes inflammation in the body, and inflammation causes chronic disease.

What happens when we don’t feel good? Our energy matches people, places, and things that resemble how we feel. It’s quite dangerous to feel agitated and annoyed for extended periods.

Most of us have struggled with managing our emotions. We might drive ourselves mad during challenging times, forcing ourselves to think positively because we don’t want to attract something bad. That never works. It makes things worse. For 17 years, I have used spiritual tools to increase my emotional intelligence, release trauma, and manage my emotions healthily. After all that practice and dedication, I still lost control because I was provoked into wrath.

When I came to myself screaming at people that didn’t speak English out my front door, I knew I had to get a handle on myself. I can’t control what my neighbor does, but I can control what I do. Over the weekend, I got some much-needed respite from the noise and remembered who I was. Silence brings me great clarity, and I used that clarity to design a 5-Step Method to help us handle annoying people so that they do not get the emotional upper hand.

5-Steps to Peace Amidst Annoyance

Step 1: Be aware of what emotions actually are.

Emotions are thoughts in the mind associated with some kind of sensation in the body. That’s why they are called feelings. We feel those sensations, and those sensations cause us to act out.

Last Friday, the saws had been going for about eight hours straight, and I opened my front door and screamed obscenities at the workers. I had felt rage for so many days in a row because of that maddening noise, and that feeling (for me) is associated with screaming and cursing. If I had practiced mindful awareness, like I usually do and like I’m trained to do, I would’ve reminded myself of this and caught myself before I had a battle with my ego.

Step 2: Love and Accept Yourself

Acting out like that caused me to criticize myself. I got mad at myself for allowing my neighbor to rob me of my peace and happiness. I didn’t beat myself up long because I reminded myself that my feelings were valid. I just needed to accept myself and love myself regardless of how I had behaved. Even though I felt ridiculous and defeated for how I had reacted, I forgave myself. After all, we are spiritual beings having human experiences, and feeling irritated and livid is part of the human experience.

Step 3: Write About the Situation Objectively

Writing about anything that has caused you to lose your shit is powerful. I wrote about my neighbor objectively, so I didn’t include how I felt. I kept the feelings out of it. I stated facts. This helped me tremendously because it made me more aware that the story around the situation is what has made me “crazy.”

We tend to attach stories to particular events, which often stirs debilitating emotions when the stories are attached to unpleasant events. Writing about my situation objectively put me in the position of the witness. The purpose of positioning yourself as the witness is to become aware that you are not the emotions associated with an event. You’re just feeling something at that moment, and you always have the choice to react or not.

Step 4: Write About the Situation Subjectively

Now it’s time to write about how you feel. After I wrote about the facts, I wrote about how I felt, and with each sentence, I chipped away at the emotions that were causing pain and suffering. I didn’t judge the emotions. I owned them. I admitted them. And set an intention to let them go because they weren’t serving me well.

Journaling is a data-driven strategy for releasing negative emotions. The more we write about how we feel, the grip low-vibe emotions have on us loosens. When we mindfully release those emotions, we don’t get stuck in them, which means we are less likely to develop an illness. On that note, always, always, always remember that stress causes inflammation in the physiology, and inflammation is the root cause of nearly every disease known to man.

Step 5: Envision the Ideal Outcome

Envisioning the outcome has never failed me. Never. Over the weekend, as I sat in silence, I asked myself, “What is it that I want to happen with this neighbor?” The answer came right away. I want him to move because I don’t think the construction will ever stop.

A few years ago, when I lived in my hometown, I had a neighbor that threatened to kill my dog because she believed he had pooped in her yard. She picked up the poop she believed was his, threw it on my front doorstep, and rubbed it all over my back deck. My dog wasn’t the one pooping in her yard, but that’s the beside the point.

I envisioned her moving, and she did. She moved to Canada about two months after that happened. So, I didn’t hurt anyone in that situation like I wanted to. Instead, I used my mind to create a solution and then bring that solution to fruition. I am doing the same thing now.

I am holding a vision of a for sale sign on display in the capital construction yard. I spend a few minutes each day envisioning that the house is for sale. I take the vision a step further and see him moving out. Then, I see new, quiet, respectful neighbors living there. And, you know what? Those visions make me feel better, and that’s the goal. Right?

I hope you’ll try this method the next time you feel a lose my shit episode coming on. My 5-step method is not something I simply made up. My primary and secondary research backs it, and the strategies have been empirically shown to reduce stress and manage emotions effectively. I packed it so that it’s user-friendly. That way, no one has to deal with a learning curve. You can jump right in and use it right away.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for giving me your most precious asset, your time. Visit www.paulaswope.com sometime and signup for my monthly newsletter while you’re there. It’s always full of spiritual tools that are effective, free, and easy to use.