Here’s a funny story for you. At Wildmind, we fund our activities by selling meditation supplies, so our office doubles as a mini-warehouse with incense, Buddha statues, meditation cushions, and mindfulness timers.
One day, I kept getting interrupted by a bell. At first, I thought it was no big deal and maybe someone had just knocked a wind chime while moving stock around. But when the sound continued, it became really annoying. Strangely, no one seemed to be doing anything that would make this noise. I even asked around if anyone had an app running with chimes, hoping to write an article without interruptions. Everyone else was also disturbed and assumed it was something I was doing!
We eventually figured out that one of our mindfulness timers had somehow turned on. The challenge was identifying which one, out of about two dozen boxed timers. The bell would ring every few minutes, but by the time we reached the timers, the sound had stopped.
I took it upon myself to find the offending timer. This involved isolating them one by one to eliminate the silent ones. After much disruption, I finally found and turned off the timer, allowing us all to work without distractions. The whole ordeal was disruptive not just because of the bell, but because of the effort needed to identify and switch off the timer.
Ironically, the random bell was meant to be a prompt for mindfulness – to take a moment to breathe, relax, and let go. None of us remembered to be mindful when hearing the bell; instead, we were all annoyed by what was supposed to be a mindfulness tool!
One takeaway from this is that a mindfulness bell only works if we expect it to. If I don’t associate the bell with mindfulness, it won’t function as a reminder for me. But this got me thinking, why not treat every annoyance as a mindfulness bell? While writing this article, I was interrupted by a coworker asking for advice. It made me realize I could use these interruptions to check in with myself mindfully.
Similarly, when I was frustrated by some malfunctioning software, someone pointed out that it was an opportunity to become mindful of my impatience, which I found to be a brilliant idea. I want to train myself to see annoying experiences as mindfulness bells, triggering deeper self-awareness. Instead of ranting when I’m irritated, I can acknowledge the frustration as a form of pain and respond with compassionate thoughts.
Basically, I aim to view annoyance as a cue for mindfulness, helping me to be more aware and compassionate towards my own feelings.