well to be fair, some people simply don’t tolerate ANC well. Likely due to a more sensitive vestibular system. I believe this group often (not always) also struggles with motion sickness.

It should be stated that noise cancellation is not hearing protection, if you were using it for that while mowing.

An old groundskeepers trick for having music and ear protection is to get those big over ear protectors and put your buds on with that over them, just being mindful of volume of course.

Another trick is to get earbuds with passive noise isolation. The Sennheisers are a hybrid. They are solid ear plugs even with the power turned off, but support active cancellation too.

With the big over ear hearing protectors that works much better than either in isolation.

Sadly, you usually have to find third party tests to find out what the passive noise isolation rating is for different brands. Manufacturers are terrible at marketing it.

You could also go hybrid the opposite way. They make some of those protective earmuffs with built in blutooth speakers now.