Dealing with irritation

What does someone who is irritated go through? He or she is in a situation that does not call forth the expected outcome. There is a difference between a standard or expectation, and what really happens. So far so good. Only, this is not the end. The personality of this person wants to change this situation that so obviously does not meet his personal standards and values or ways in which he can expect pleasant or right outcomes. He wants to make such a change that the outcome then can make him feel in charge again, while his world reflects his standards and values as close as possible.

Let's take a look at this example: someone picks his nose. Your personality has learned that that is not a way of well-behaving. Even though you do it yourself every now and then, that is not the issue, it is wrong now because you see it in someone else. When you do not punish the other person for this, it would imply immediately that the standard of your personality (which he learned the hard way himself, it is very likely that you had a couple of remarks on this while you were young), can be ignored by other people without any penalty. This would weaken the worldview of your personality. So it is likely that you will make some remark, either seriously or with a joke to the nose picker, or you will tell someone else later. Because it is the process of perceiving and judging what you see itself that causes some form of tension. And you have to get rid of that. The other person is to blame for that through this mistake he made, and you are going to tell him that!

Have you ever thought about a different approach here? You can make a start with remembering that it is your own personality who calls forth this irritation. It is your standard, and your interpretation of a situation. So you are the only one who can learn to approach this in a different way. You might for example tell yourself: there is a different way to look at this, even though I may not remember which one as yet. The worldview of your inner Self is in no way compatible with that of your personality. Nose picking is not a good or a bad thing in itself. You can tell someone that this kind of behaviour is likely to bring about irritation in personalities, so that the other person can choose to either change his behaviour because of that, or not. That's all. But ever so often we react to this as if it were the end of our world. We even do not hesitate to close our minds on our loved ones for a while, and our personality may be "right" in his own perception, but it sure did not make experiences more pleasant.