When someone close to you says or does something that in some way relates to you, you are inclined to take it personally.  For instance, if you’re in a conversation with someone and they keep yawning, you are more than likely to wonder if you’re boring them.  Even if they were to tell you that they had a late night and insufficient sleep, while your rational mind may accept this, something in the back of that rational mind continues to question the truthfulness of the person’s reason.

Taking things personally is the cause of nearly every human conflict known, overt or covert.  For most people, ‘taking something personally’ means that they are the centre of what has happened or is happening.  It means that another person’s words or behavior is a direct consequence of something to do with ‘me’.

We’ve often heard the advice, ‘Don’t take it personally’.  What most people mean by that is ‘Don’t let it affect you’.  Few people actually seek to understand the deeper, truer and more empowering meaning of this advice.

And what might that be?

Well, quite simply, a person’s response to any situation is always their business, even when they seek to hold you responsible for it.  ”You provoked me!” or “You made me feel stupid” or “You’ve really hurt my feelings” are simply invalid statements.

Why?

For the simple reason that it implies that you have no control or choice over your responses.  You always do.  The difficulty for most of us is whether we are prepared to accept responsibility and take control of our thoughts, feelings, words and actions.  I love this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission”.

Notice, we are unlikely to hold another person responsible or accuse them of controlling us when we do something we are proud of.  Sure we might express gratitude for another person’s influence in certain circumstances, but deep down, we truly believe that we were primarily responsible for the final outcome.

So, you and you alone are always responsible for the way you think, feel, speak and act.  That being the case, holding yourself responsible i.e. taking things personally for someone else’s response to a given situation is simply without sound basis .

But there is another point I wish to make about ‘taking things personally’ and it is an important one.  By taking something personally, you are assuming that whatever was done was done consciously and with awareness.  However, it is probably more likely that whatever was done was done from a lack of awareness and was the result of an automatic response set in place through years of conditioning.  To the extent that your response was governed by your subconscious programming, it makes no sense to ‘tale something personally’.

This is an especially important point because it is hard to believe that it your programming that has kicked in and determined your response especially when you may have deliberated over something.

For instance, you’ve thought long and hard about whether to accept a certain invitation.  In the end, you decide you won’t.  Unless you have brought fresh thinking and been truly open to fresh possibilities, it is almost certain that old thinking and old choices will dominate.  Sure, the details may be different but the reasoning and associated feelings will have been pretty much a case of ’same ol’ same ol”.

So, the next time you feel hurt or irate about another person’s words or behavior, or the next time you feel like beating yourself up over a ‘wrong’ decision you’ve made, just remember:

Don’t take it personally!

Lucy Lopez

Awakening to our Greatness!

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