To me, Bother looks like someone who deliberately places their hands on their hips and fumes a big sigh of frustration or disgust. You’ve probably experienced a parent or someone gasping at you at some point in your life. It also looks like someone or something pestering you. Perhaps a child keeps asking why or while you’re sitting at your desk working, your neighbor is chomping on some carrots.

What does Bother feel like? Where do you feel it in your body? Bother feels like a wound-up spring demanding to be set free so that it can relax. In my body, it feels like tension and a hovering cloud in my chest area. It feels impatient, urgent, and distracting. It also feels irritating because someone or something has interrupted a good focus or flow. It’s like a buzzing energy that never finds a resting place.

Feeling Bothered functions to point something out to me that is outside of my normal, comfortable little world. It interrupts me. When I feel bothered, it seems like someone around me is not being as sensitive as they could be to others around them. I’m then quick to judge or jump to a mindless conclusion either about the other person or in my self-talk. I think feeling bothered could transform into a reminder to me to get ‘outside of myself’ or to be compassionate toward someone else, if I stopped to recognize it when it occurs. I could dance with that, instead of being caught up in it.

If you’re feeling it, this is an invitation for you to explore bother today. What does bother look like to you? How does it feel to you? Imagine feeling bothered and how it works for you. How might you transform it to function for you?

We are beings with feelings…