Blog

Feeling snappy? I wonder if you’ve considered this…

Happiness & Fulfilment, Most Popular Posts, Relationships & Sex

The former Queen of Snappy and Bloody Good Chap

I’ve been finding myself becoming more snappy towards Bloody Good Chap and one of my close male friends recently.

I know, right, how could I be mean to this lovely spikey haired chap?!

This used to be a thing of the past for me.

In my pre-bloody good life I was the Queen of Snappy, the King of Intolerance and the Princess of Irritability.

But when I learnt (bit by bit) the skills I teach in Bloody Good Life 101, my life literally transformed. Everyone around me could see it.

I remember when I visited home after a couple of years away working on super yachts.

A common situation came up with a family member I used to butt heads with. The family member reacted as usual and triggered my stress responses, as usual, but as not usual, I used the stress reduction technique I teach my clients and calmed that shit down so I could respond calmly and rationally. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and the whole situation shifted in a way it never had before. Suddenly the brewing argument fell to the floor. My former fiery self would have worked herself up into a fury and snapped or shouted,

but this time I felt as zen as a monk.

Later that night my brother came up to me and said – wow, I know you’ve really changed, but I didn’t realise how much until this evening – I saw in my mind how the old Andrea would have reacted and I was about to duck for cover; I couldn’t believe it when you just responded so chilled out!

This radical shift was a function of everything I’d learnt over the past few years, and also related to a radical shift in the way I treated myself. I used to treat myself like shit, always internally shouting at myself for not being cool enough, fun enough, interesting enough.

I had no love or tolerance for myself at all, so I certainly didn’t find it easy to be loving or tolerant towards others. Being too ‘loving’ (or loved) actually used to make me feel sick.

A yoga teacher recently summed it up beautifully –

the way you treat yourself will radiate into the way you treat others in your life.

If you aren’t first kind and accepting of yourself, you’ll find that you won’t be able to be genuinely kind and accepting towards others.

This will usually show up in your closest relationships.

Sure, you can put on a happy, kind front to most people in your life. But if you’re horrible to yourself, you’ll inevitably end up being shitty with your boyfriend, girlfriend, parents, family, or closest friends.

If you find yourself snapping, intolerant and irritable towards your closest people, you might first want to look at how you’re talking to yourself.

I found myself telling this to one of my clients recently because she’s been snapping at her boyfriend and then beating herself up about it. She beats herself up so much in general, it’s no wonder.

Yet when I started snapping (very mildly, might I add!) at Bloody Good Chap, (e.g. how dare he be “in my way” in the kitchen!?) I didn’t see the connection for a couple of weeks.

I tried to hold it in and started getting even angrier at myself for “going back to my old ways” and being a shit, irritable girlfriend.

And then suddenly it dawned on me – the advice for my client was advice for me too! As I mentioned in my post the other day about being my own worst boss, I realised I’ve been treating myself like a slave. No of course you can’t have a break Andrea, you haven’t worked hard enough. Read a book? You must be joking, you’ve got too much to do!! Make a nice meal? Shut up and eat some nut butter, you’ve no time for cooking!

You want a break from the computer?

Sure, sure, fold the washing while watching a lecture on mindfulness.

So, having accidentally ended up working at my computer on Sunday night (instead of my planned night in), I decided to take last night off working (for myself!) and invited Bloody Good Chap over to help me stop myself from working!

And hey presto, the snapping feeling was nowhere to be seen! We had a great night and I felt loving and calm and kind. All because I first had to remember to take my foot off the accelerator and cut myself some slack!

So if you’re finding yourself pissed at others, intolerant, snappy, bitchy…. (especially those people walk to slowly or chew too loudly) have a look at what your mind is telling you about yourself. Go do something nice for yourself, take the pressure off,

leave the washing for another day!

If you want to learn how to turn off that voice in your head that tells you you’re shit, book in for a free half hour chat with me, we’ll see where you’re at and how Bloody Good Life 101 can help. I’m fully booked at the moment (yipee!!) but will have a couple of spaces coming up as clients finish the program in a few weeks.

Ps — To learn more about regulating your emotions like the kind of legend that doesn’t throw coke at me, head over here to check out Bloody Good Life, an unconventional mind-taming program for overthinkers.

Pstt - enjoyed this blog post? Fab. If you have a hankering for more radical honesty delivered freshly to your inbox every week or eight-ish, subscribe over here.

Popular Posts:

Looking for anything in particular?

More bloody good blog posts...

How to stop a bad day in its tracks

Download the free bloody good g-book. Because we've all had enough of e-books