How many times have you found yourself full of anger, rage, fear, doubt, along with that pit in your stomach when someone criticizes you and puts you down? If someone ends a relationship, or has an affair, you could feel as if, “what did I do, what’s wrong with me?” If someone cuts you off in traffic, calls you names, someone yells at you and tells you you’re stupid or worthless, or if your kids say that you’re a bad parent and they hate you, what is your response? And, how is that making you feel about yourself?
Have you ever wondered why you respond and think the way that you do? Your response triggers your own issues (which I will write about in another post), but it is also important to understand that when you take things personally, your automatic response is triggered by the belief that it’s all about you. When in reality, it has absolutely nothing to do with you at all. You have taken it personally as if what the other person is saying or doing is a direct attack on you.
I often say to people, “What other people say and do is about them… What you say and do and how you react is about YOU!”
Understanding this concept will help in realizing that what other people say and do has everything to do with who they are, what is going on inside of them, and how they deal with their own issues. The same holds true for you. What you say and do to others has to do with your own thoughts, beliefs, and personal issues.
“So, why then is it so hard to NOT take things personally? How can I change it?“
You can change it instantly by changing your belief about why people say and do the things that they do. For anyone to take things personally, you have to have the belief that it has to do with you and you did something wrong, that you are the cause for that person to act the way they are acting. When you change your focus, and condition yourself into a new way of thinking, you will see that you and the situation are not the cause, but the effect.
Exercise: If you would take notice for about a week, and see how many times you lash out at others for whatever reason, and stop yourself in the moment, and say to yourself, does it really have to do with that other person, or am I really angry with myself and how I want or how I thought things should be? This little exercise will help you in viewing your own behavior and realizing that if you act this way, others do too!
Hope this helps.
Many blessings to you.
Namaste,
Dr. Laura R. Kiray, Msc.D., Ph.D.
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