Smacking, chewing, swallowing noises, breathing noises, coughing, ticking sounds, clearing the throat, sniffling; they are all sounds that can be irritating. There is even an official name for when you are easily bothered by sounds, misophony. This is a psychiatric disorder in which particular sounds result in strong feelings of disgust, anger or hatred. The word “misophony” literally means, “hatred of sound”.

How do you get misophony?

In my opinion, there are two causes: 1. High sensitivity, and 2. Feelings of loathing.

1. High sensitivity
   Highly sensitive people can have overly sensitive hearing. This means that they hear well, maybe a little too well. Sounds seem loud and unfiltered. Piling a stack of plates can sound like fireworks in their ears. It can startle them, causing irritation. People who don’t realize that they have sensitive hearing can become irritated. If it goes on for too long, an angry outburst may come, “Stop ticking!” or “Stop smacking” or “Stop with the plates, you’re hurting my ears!”. A source of arguments during meals.
2. Feeling of loathing
   If you have misophony, other people’s sounds can evoke deep aversion within you. The other person’s sounds irritate you; you find them disgusting. And it worsens each time. Every time you’re together at the table, it’s ok at first until the sounds become annoying to you. You can even feel deep loathing towards the other person and forget that the sounds are the reason for it. This is often the case with young people during puberty. Especially if the young person is also highly sensitive. The young person seems contrary and unmanageable but is actually the plaything of his or her own feelings, triggered by sounds in his or her surroundings.

Where do these feelings of loathing come from?

Young people can be very difficult on themselves. They demand a lot of themselves and are not easily satisfied. They get mad at themselves. Don’t forgive themselves. Hate themselves. “Nobody understands me.” I’m worthless.” “I’m the reason they’re fighting again.” “My parents would be better off without me.”

They are confused by their own feelings and in order to understand them, project the loathing onto those around them. Preferably onto the people they love the most, because it can be painful to feel the other person’s love when you loathe yourself deep within.

They expose the loathing, caused by their own sensitivity to sound, misophony. It seems as though they loathe the other person but actually they loathe themselves. Facing this takes a lot of courage. It they don’t do that, they create a cloud of negativity around themselves, which is difficult to get rid of.

How do you get rid of self-loathing?

This is one of the strange things about misophony. The loathing you feel for someone else is actually loathing towards yourself. That is often a shock to read, but if you research it, you can see this for yourself. And… if you see that you are actually sitting in the way of yourself, you can immediately do something about it. With a coach or psychologist, for example, because the key to it is seeing your own self-loathing. Talking about it in confidence helps enormously.

You can help yourself with the MIR-Method. You erase all your old emotions with the 9 steps. You let go of anger, frustration, irritation and also loathing. You neutralize them. You become milder. And you let go of even the self-loathing you feel towards yourself.

This happens among other things via steps 3 and 4. And you can add a step 0 to them:

Step 0: ‘Let go of self-loathing’. I don’t usually add extra sentences since everything is already included in the 9 steps. Yet, I noticed that it produced such quick results with my clients that I’d like to pass this sentence on to you. Whenever you become irritated again because of someone else’s smacking or swallowing, stroke ‘let go of self-loathing’ immediately, followed by the 9 steps. You can do this silently in your head. And then you do this anytime you feel yourself becoming irritated.

Step 3: Detach father. Detach mother. Sometimes you have absorbed the loathing of your father or mother, or of a brother or sister. Because it was too painful for you to feel you have started loathing yourself. That is more acceptable for a child than feeling the loathing of someone it loves.

When you stroke step 4: Clear meridians you remove blockages from the Liver meridian and the Gall bladder meridian. These are the two meridians that are involved with having anger, frustration, irritation, resentment and loathing. If you let these meridians flow freely again, your intense feelings of anger will decrease. You become more even-tempered, less easily irritated and have a longer fuse!

And how about you? Have you noticed that you have become milder and more tolerant since doing the MIR-Method? I’d love to hear about it from you. Please write about it below! Thank you!

Greetings, Mireille Mettes

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P.S. Are you not yet familiar with the MIR-Method? Please go to the homepage: www.mirmethod.com. You can watch the video there and also the instruction video. Register on the homepage to receive the newsletter and 6 weeks of coaching e-mails for extra support!