When someone attacks us verbally, or makes comments about us to others, it is so easy to fall into the trap of taking it personally.

What does taking it personally mean?  It means that we make the comment about us, we put meaning to it that satisfies our need to be right, our need to be safe and our need to defend ourselves (thank you monkey-mind).  When we take something personally we are assuming that we know what the other person meant and wanted us to feel.

Taking things personally, making it about US, is a great way to create drama, emotion and stress where there may not need to be any.  Let’s look at an example.

We hear someone say that “we are just in it for the money.”  Right away our hackles go up and we are ready for a fight. But this only happens if we have taken it personally.  If we have allowed their comment to affect our belief in ourselves or affect how we believe others think about us. If you can allow that first flush of anger wash over and through you and take a step back from it, you can see that the comment is a reflection of THAT person’s beliefs, not yours.  Perhaps THAT person feels some sort of conflict about charging clients, their clients’ ability to afford them, their own finances and debt etc.

Or a client tells us that we don’t know what we are talking about, they found real info on Google.  If we take that comment personally then we are insulted and angry which can spiral out of control as we  re-play the comment in our head days and weeks later. But what if, when they say that, you can allow it to wash over you and not land inside?  What if you can recognize that they are entitled to their belief about you, but it has nothing to do with you!

Not taking things personally also sometimes means that I have to let go of the need to be right and the need to be the right person for everyone.  How often do you find yourself in a disagreement because you need to be right? What if both you and the other person can both be right?  Wow! Mind blown! Both of you can be right, and still not agree with each other.  This sort of realization is so liberating and allows for all kinds of expansion in your relationships at work and at home.  

So I encourage all of you to practice taking a step back whenever you hear anything that flares your defensive emotional muscles.  Take a breath. Ask yourself:

“Does what I just heard have anything to do with me?”
“What would I be like if I knew that others’ opinions do not matter to me?”

How would it feel to not react in anger the next time you are confronted? Not taking things personally keeps you from getting on an emotional merry-go-round that just keeps spinning.  

It doesn’t mean that you are ignoring the situation.  It simply means that you have moved past the monkey-mind induced negative emotions into the realm of self-care and finding solutions that allow you to feel better.

Please let me know how not taking things personally allows you to be more of the person you know you are.  How does your day flow when things roll more easily off your back?

You can contact me via pamela@healthyselfdvm.com or set up a personal free 1-on-1 chat about this by visiting my scheduling site.  And, as always, continue to be the wonderful, compassionate rock-star badasses that I know you are!