Show Notes CYH Episode 24: A Guy at McDonald’s - Processing irritation at another's behavior

Welcome friends to Consider Yourself Hugged episode 24! Today’s Hug: A Guy at McDonald's - Processing your irritation at someone’s else’s behavior (click here to listen).

I’m Dr. Tami West, here every week to bring you tips on living a life that brings you mental and emotional wellbeing.

Well, I did it. I did the very thing I’ve asked you not to do: I made assumptions about another person’s behavior and got, irritated - not just irritated, but IRRITATED ALL CAPS!

Let me set the stage. (Story in podcast)

Here are the mistakes I made, and I hope you’ll use this as a checklist for your processing

irritation with others. In fact, I’ll post this as a checklist in the show notes.

1. I went in with elevated expectations: It was midday, I picked a quiet McDonald's. Easy in & out. Easy parking. So my expectation was that I’d whip in and whip out.

2. I began assigning motives – "He's clueless, only thinking of himself..."

3. I escalated the situation in my mind: Have you never been to a McDonald's before! how can you not see others are waiting!!

4. I began rallying the troops. I looked at the cashier. She looked at me. I looked behind me to see if anyone else was looking, you know, like "Can you believe this guy!”

5. My self esteem went up: I would never do that!

6. I assumed and, yes, maybe even hoped for, the worst. Yes. I did.

7. I didn’t look for the other side of the story.

Now listen, I didn’t process this until later. I didn’t know in those few moments that’s what I was doing. But we do it. We all do it. What I hope is that we’ll do it less. I think I do do it less, but I wanted to relay this one to you while it was fresh.

As soon as I saw this man with his family, I allowed him grace. Maybe he was counting the dollar amounts for every item he was ordering. Maybe he’s raising his grandchildren. Maybe he’s a hardworking father of all these children trying to make ends meet.

AND, we weren’t even in a hurry!

We’re all in this life together. Most of the time no one is trying to ruin your life. Use the checklist. Try to make decisions as to when YOU will ALLOW your irritation to grow and whether or not you’ll fertilize it.

And that’s our time for today. I surely hope my mess up helped you so please pass the show link along to a friend or two. And click here to get info if you’d like me to speak at your next event. The monthly giveaway will come from leaving a comment here on the blog so be sure to do that. And thank you for listening – it means a lot to me!

Finally, remembering our mental & emotional wellbeing goal, I hope that you will renew your thoughts daily, adopt empowering language that prevents verbal harm to yourself and others, and make positive mental and emotional choices on a daily basis.

And until next time, Consider Yourself Hugged 😘🤗