Don't Take Anything Personally

When someone says something insulting to you you react, you can react externally or not, but internally there is a reaction, so even if you don't say or do

anything

in return, internally there is a reaction, you get angry, you feel sad or angry, insulted or offended, You may be having a good day and someone says one little thing that ruins it. Maybe your whole week is ruined. Maybe you feel like your whole life is ruined. All because of this thing someone said. Think about how much power there is in that, how much power others have over you. how we feel, but the reality is that we give them that power simply by giving value to what is said, other people's opinions, judgments, etc., taking something

personally

means that we have made it all about ourselves, they insult us.

They get offended but what about the other person? what is their intention their motivation what is going on inside them that has led them to behave thoughtlessly in an insulting manner we do not usually consider this in the first place it may be that there was no intention to insult or offend what was said it may have been very innocent even It may be that we have misinterpreted and misunderstood or misheard and this is something we should always consider but even if what was said seems intended to insult or offend if the person's tone was harsh they seemed aggressive and rude we should try to understand where all that comes from when someone says something cruel or mean, we tend to assume that the person is simply cruel or bad, but we don't usually consider why they might behave that way.

Something I have observed is that a person who is genuinely happy is incapable of being cruel and have you ever noticed this? Have you ever met someone who was genuinely happy and was mean to someone? Just look at your own life, think for a moment. When were you immensely happy during that time? Have you ever done something to intentionally hurt or insult someone? Think about any time you could have been, when you could have intentionally hurt or insulted someone, were you happy in that moment or were you not happy because of what I did? What I have observed is that someone who is mean or cruel is someone who is deeply unhappy, someone who is overly judgmental or critical, is someone who has a lot of negative judgments about themselves, their tendency to judge others is a way of distracting themselves. from their own negative judgments about themselves, a person who is deeply hurt and carrying sadness and anger for whatever reason often projects it onto others, even those who are innocent;

In fact, it's often easier to project it onto the innocent than onto those you were actually angry at. For example, if your boss is harsh on you and you get angry, you may feel like you can't project that anger onto your boss because it might lose your job and instead project it onto your partner, your children, or a stranger because there may be nothing they can do to you, there may be no repercussions or thinking about the bully at school. What most of us do not consider is that the bully is usually the victim of bullying, it is usually a parent or older sibling who is bullying them and they feel powerless to react to that person and that is why they look for someone who seems more weaker than them and then project all their hostility onto that person instead we only see them as cruel, mean, moody, etc., which we rarely consider is what they really are.

It happens within them, we do not consider how unhappy they are, how sad or frustrated they are, we do not consider that they may be deeply hurt. Many times, when a person seeks to exert power over others, it is because deep down, a person who often belittles others feels helpless. feel insignificant, those who insult, criticize or judge often feel deeply imperfect, inadequate or ashamed, their behavior towards others is often a way of diverting attention from these uncomfortable feelings and beliefs they have about themselves and not I am suggesting that none of this excuses their behavior it only explains it, but by understanding this we can recognize that their behavior towards us really has nothing to do with us, it actually reveals a lot about them and when we realize this we don't have to

take

action. none of it as personal, so this should be enough to understand why others may judge, criticize or insult etc., but I want to dig a little deeper.

I want us to further explore who it is that feels insulted, belittled and offended, so what exactly does it mean to

take

something?

personally

personally means having to do with the person but who or what the person is is who we are or is it just who we think we are when someone says something insulting who is insulted what does it even mean to be insulting we tend to think of insult as a type of harm , but what exactly is hurt if we speak simply in terms of what someone says? How did his words cause harm? or who we present ourselves to, but the image is not who we are, it is a mental construction composed of various thoughts, beliefs, judgments, identifications, etc., it has received many names, we call it ego, false self, persona, but however we Let's just call.

Understand that it is not who you really are, it is just an idea. Imagine that you have made a drawing of yourself, not necessarily as you are, but rather as a representation of the way you see yourself psychologically and this representation can emphasize certain characteristics of your personality. personality characteristics, qualities, etc. Now imagine that someone comes and tries to change something about that image, whether they draw something else on the image or they try to erase something, but in any case, they do it with the intention of insulting, in other words, harming. the image in some way the only thing they have done is damage an image of photos they have not harmed you but only the image you have of yourself and yet you are upset because you do not distinguish between the image and who you really are, for Therefore,

anything

that is done with that image that you assume is done directly with you and that is why we tend to get so offended, that is why we get defensive, we are defending our image, our identity, our false self, so which is important.

To understand this to make that distinction it is important to understand that the image you have of yourself is not who you really are, in fact, it is very likely that the image you have of yourself has not even been completely constructed by you, which is more likely it has been built from elements given to you by others if you grew up in a particular religion, for example, you take that religion and make it part of your identity, part of that image, if you grew up in a particular country with a particular nationality that becomes part of that image, if you are told that you are inadequate in one way or another, you take that story and add it to the image so that the image is your identity, who you think you are, all the various things that you identify as everyone. the judgments that you have adopted about yourself and so on, we take things personally because we identify a lot with that person who is based on so many things that we have adopted from others and why we have adopted these things, these identifications, these beliefs, these judgments . because we care too much what other people think we have such a strong need to be accepted and approved by others that word that we have allowed everyone to define who we are and when someone doesn't approve of us we take it very personally when we feel insulted offended criticized it is essentially a feeling of disapproval a feeling of being devalued or we could say it is a feeling of lack of respect which is actually the same thing if someone does not respect us it means that they do not value us but why?

Do we care that much? Could it be that we value the opinions of others more than we value ourselves? Because if we truly valued ourselves, if we fully accepted ourselves, other people's opinions would mean nothing to us, so ultimately we must come to a place where there is nothing. We no longer value the opinions that other people have about us, this leads us to realize that a person's negative behavior towards us really has to do with them and their own personal problems, but this also means no longer depending on others. others so that they value us at all.

This means not even trusting people's positive opinions of us because our dependence on others to give us validation, accept us, and approve of us is really what got us into this mess to begin with. It is good to feel accepted, to feel valued, to have approval and evaluation, but we do depend on others. For this reason, we are going to be disappointed again and again because there will always be those who will offer us those things. There will also be those who reject us outright, those who devalue us, those who disapprove and criticize us, and again it may have nothing to do with us, but as long as we depend on others to define our sense of worth, we will interpret these things as a reflection of our value, we will get angry, we will feel offended, insulted, etc., and that is why we need to get to a place where we are no longer affected by praise or criticism, approval or disapproval, acceptance or rejection, this means that we have to define our own value regardless of what others think and that really starts with accepting ourselves fully as we are and recognizing all the valuable qualities that we have in that mental state, we do not value other people's opinions and judgments and we do not take things personally.

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