Why You Should Never Take Things Personally

When we take things that are said to us, said about us, or done to us personally, we suffer. This type of inner suffering is unnecessary. How can we stop suffering? Listen to this talk and learn about why you take things personally and what's involved for you to break free from the habit. Find out what steps you can take to live a happier life with much more freedom.

Transcript

Welcome to 30 minutes of where I want to explain what happens when we take things personally and how we can stop taking things personally.

And as a result of that shift within how we engage in the world,

We can end pretty much 90% of the suffering that comes from taking things personally.

It's the single most potent way to make us suffer is taking things personally.

Why do we do it in the first place then?

We do it when we don't know how to use our mind properly.

And we don't have education or freely available trainings like we learn how to brush our teeth,

We learn how to dress ourselves,

We learn a language,

Maybe two if we're lucky enough,

Pretty young.

Do we learn how to use our minds?

No.

Do we learn how to use different viewpoints,

Different lenses of perception?

No we don't.

It's only when we begin to be interested in spirituality,

In going within,

In mindfulness,

In finding stillness,

Connecting with nature.

These are the things that make us more aware that there is more to us than our mind.

Once this shift comes in,

I am not my thoughts.

There is something that's deeper than the material of my mind.

This is the first fundamental breakthrough which makes us orient towards our spiritual nature.

One thing that will keep us bound to our thoughts is the practice of taking things personally.

Now,

Here's why we really do it.

Here's what happens when we take things personally.

We use a part of our brain that doesn't need to be used in this way.

We perceive what somebody else says or what somebody else does as an example,

As being about us.

We use a part of our brain,

Literally,

A network that gives you a sense of yourself.

We use it erroneously.

We use this network,

Self-referencing network or default mode network as it's called in scientific terms.

We use this default mode network to interpret what somebody is saying to us or doing to us.

If we're using that part of our brain,

Then what they are doing is telling us something about ourselves.

It's interfering.

It's influencing our sense of ourselves.

And what happens?

If it's in any way negative,

We feel pain.

If it's positive,

We feel puffed up and we want more.

And it's volatile.

And we can spend all of our lives searching for endorsement.

Tell me I'm good.

Tell me I'm lovable.

Tell me you approve of me.

I want to be around people who make me feel relaxed.

This is prison.

This is totally prison because we're being directed to live at the whims of our default mode network.

If that part of your brain is guiding your way on,

Then you will move away from conflict.

You won't have the tools to do it.

You'll feel extremely hurt.

You'll feel extra sensitive.

You might even be an empath.

And many empaths are not really empaths.

It's just that they're using their default mode network where it's not the appropriate part of our brains to use.

So why we go into this cycle of I feel good because I know I'm loved.

Oh my God,

So and so said something about me or did something about me and it's gone in.

I've got an ouch from it.

Now we go back into needing to feel loved and approved or we heal ourselves enough to feel okay.

And then we want more of that.

And then we dive in again because,

Of course,

Life happens.

There is no freedom in that cycle of I'm loved,

I'm not loved,

I'm loved,

I'm not loved.

There's no freedom in that at all.

Where it comes from,

We know it's part of our brain.

And I get to how you use your brain differently in a few minutes.

We know it's from erroneously using our mind.

What keeps that habit alive in our brain is a belief that I'm not safe.

I'm not safe in who I am as a person.

And so I feel safe if I'm around people that like me.

And so it's very easy for me to feel not safe around people who talk about me or are nasty to me or disapprove of me.

I will take it very personally because the feeling is I'm not safe here.

Now that belief I'm not safe is unconscious for most of us.

I'd like to invite it into your conscious mind.

Whether you're safe or not safe doesn't depend on the people and influences that are around you and the circumstances that are around you.

It doesn't.

Your default mode network thinks it's all about keeping you safe.

What your default mode network is committed to doing is I will make sure you are safe by wanting more of endorsement and approval.

And oh my gosh,

When somebody disapproves of me or there's conflict,

What I'm going to do is realise I'm not safe,

I'm not safe,

I'm not safe.

And our emotions take that in and it becomes overwhelming and we feel gutted or a milder version of it where it's just a niggling,

Don't like what they said,

Here's what I should have said.

You go over the conversation 20,

000 times in your head,

An imaginary solution of how you could have retaliated and pushed that energy back.

That's never going to work until you see the I am safe piece.

I'm not going to let my brain vet and interpret my interactions out there in order to find out if I'm safe.

I want you to know that you are safe.

Know that you are safe.

That's the normal MO that you are safe.

Like right now,

Right now,

Don't go into your mind.

Don't look for evidence because if you take things personally,

You will find plenty evidence right now of why you are not safe.

That's what your default mode network is going to want to do.

Right now.

Right now.

Are you safe?

Right now.

Feel into it.

Don't go up into your head.

Feel into it.

Is your body safe?

Right now.

Don't go into thoughts to prove otherwise.

Julie says yes.

Are you safe?

Anybody else know that they're safe right now?

It's an inner feeling.

Don't go into your head.

Don't go into your head.

Yay.

Some yeses are coming.

Thank you,

Folks.

Yeah.

We're safe like pretty much all the time.

And I'm asking you to trust your nervous system to know when you're not safe.

Like you got to swerve out of the way of a car that's breaking a light.

Like you've got to,

Whoops,

Step back on the road because you were going across a pedestrian walk but the car didn't see you there.

Whoops,

And you stop.

These mechanisms,

They'll kick in.

Like,

Heaven forbid,

But this is the world we live in right now,

Especially in the US.

There's a shooter in the supermarket where you are.

You're probably going to duck.

You're probably going to just paste yourself to the floor without even thinking about it.

Your default mode network isn't going to have to work out anything.

A different part of your nervous system will take care of you if you're not safe.

You will have an automatic response.

Can you trust that?

Can you trust that and take the responsibility away from your thinking brain to find out if you're safe in regular situations through the day?

It would be useful to check in and see,

Am I safe?

Am I safe?

For a few days,

Am I safe right now?

Am I safe?

If it becomes the new normal that,

Yeah,

Actually I am safe,

Your body will relax.

You won't use your mind so much because you won't be auditing and editing to check to see,

Am I approved of?

OK,

Now I'm relaxed,

I'm safe.

Oh,

Bit of conflict here.

I need to resolve it or move away from it or blame them or deal with it in order to relax and feel safe.

So feeling safe is very linked to feeling relaxed.

And our natural MO is to feel relaxed.

It's natural.

We need to relax to go to sleep.

We perform better when we're relaxed.

We learn better.

We laugh more.

Life is easier when we're relaxed.

It is our mind that gives us excuses.

And if we believe them,

They become reasons to stay uptight.

Work on,

I know I'm safe.

Am I safe?

I know I'm safe.

So that the wisdom that you are safe is no longer a responsibility of your default mode network in order to audit and check out to see who am I safe with,

Who am I safe with.

This will really help in not taking things personally.

I am safe.

I am safe.

I am safe.

Now the second reason,

There's two primarily.

If you can nail these two and be mindful of them till they become the new normal,

You won't suffer half as much.

You just won't feel an ouch every time there's a negative thrown at you.

You won't because you'll use a different part of your brain to engage in the world.

Because you won't need every interaction to tell you if you are safe or not.

You don't need reactions to tell you if you're safe or not.

You don't.

You don't.

So the second most important thing.

If you feel whole within yourself,

If you love yourself,

If you believe that you're capable and competent,

We all have things we can learn.

We all have areas of growth.

We all have things that we'd like to be able to do better.

But in general,

Do you feel capable?

Do you feel capable?

If push comes to shove,

Could you support yourself?

Do you feel capable in how you manage yourself?

That kind of capability.

Are you a capable human being?

If you feel capable and if you love yourself,

Loving yourself is the tough one.

If you do love your personality,

How you show up in the world.

If the two of those are in place,

Then we have the ingredients to bring us to a place of wholeness.

If we have a sense of wholeness and if we can feel like,

Yeah,

Actually,

I'm OK.

I'm actually OK.

Kind of like who I am,

Like my personality.

I even love my quirks and my shadow side.

If you can be in that place of where,

Yeah,

Actually,

I love it.

I'm not talking about being narcissistic and being all cocky about it.

I'm talking about an honest self-love.

If there is an honest self-love for who you show up to be,

An honest love for your body,

An honest love for your capabilities,

An honest love for your personality.

If that's in place,

You won't go to others to tell you if you are lovable and if you are capable.

That's the second biggie.

These are the two pillars that hold up.

I'm sensitive.

I'm taking everybody's opinion on board.

I'm constantly looking for approval from others.

These are held up.

These practices,

Mental habits are held up by two things,

Just two things.

I'm not safe and I don't love myself.

I don't think I'm capable.

So personal,

Inner wholeness.

If you're not whole,

What's your mind going to do?

I'm going to fix that for you.

I'm going to compensate my sense of wholeness through the attention from others,

Approval from others.

We will even,

I will do nice things so I get positive feedback from that person.

I like that person,

So I need that person's approval so I will go out of my way to be noticed and recognized by that person.

And if you've seen yourselves in these examples,

They're hugely exhausting to do these things.

Hugely exhausting.

And it's more than,

Excuse me,

Accepting yourself and then loving yourself.

Loving the parts that you even struggles to accept.

Loving yourself.

Really loving all parts of you.

Having compassion for the parts of you that are like,

Yeah,

I have that nasty streak.

Oh,

Bless me.

Like that,

You know,

I know where I got it.

It's okay.

I'll work on it.

But you need to have that kindness and compassion,

That relationship of love for yourself.

And so the wholeness part,

If you're not whole,

You're going to invest in being endorsed by others to compensate,

To fill the gap because you're not doing it for yourself.

And you will be super sensitive,

Super sensitive when anybody criticizes you in any way.

You will take it really deeply within,

Again,

To fill the gap.

Now,

That's an indirect gap it's filling.

What it's doing is like,

I don't feel whole is my unconscious belief.

I don't love myself.

This person doesn't love me either.

And it feels so darn uncomfortable.

That the emotional pain is there as a useful trigger to tell you,

Hey,

This amount of suffering for that simple comment that they might or might not have meant.

I want to believe they meant it,

But actually it's just their opinion.

So why did it come into me at all in such a forceful way?

And so when we soak up other people's opinion,

It's because there's a gap in our own self love.

There's a crack within ourselves.

We're not whole.

And so with that space in ourselves,

Another person's comment will come in,

Find a place.

And the emotional pain is a trigger for like,

OK,

OK,

My reaction is too strong.

The pain is too much because of what they said.

It's not about the other person.

It's an indicator for each of us.

When there's a lot of emotional pain,

It's something to do with ourselves.

What is in me?

What is in me that pays so much attention to what they said,

To what they did?

Why does it have so much importance that I'm gutted?

And you will find it's my own lack of wholeness.

That's where the space was,

Where somebody else got their opinion in.

And,

You know,

Everybody's just obsessed about themselves.

Everybody runs these me,

Myself,

I thoughts until they stop doing it.

And so other people who might send their like a jive your way,

That could easily come from their survival mechanism.

I'm jealous of you.

I don't like you.

I need to push you away because I'm hurting and you're bringing up something in me that's scratching my heart.

So bugger off.

That's usually the reason why we hurt each other and it's unconscious stuff.

And so if that's going on for somebody else,

Why would you make that about you?

Why would you make that about you?

Maybe it was never about you.

And so when a jive comes at me.

I take it for a walk.

Before I take it in,

I take it for a walk.

Like,

OK,

Is there truth in it?

Is there truth in it?

Did they see something and accurately point out something in me that I need to heal,

Shift,

Improve upon,

Learn about that I'm not aware of yet?

Are they really seeing something in me that needs attention?

Very rarely there is something.

But I'm completely willing and open to hear whatever it is.

Like totally.

Because every feedback might be an opportunity for me to grow.

Do I need other people's approval?

No.

Genuinely,

No.

I don't.

I don't.

I've trained my brain to go back to what it was meant to do.

I know I'm safe.

You know you're safe.

Let yourself feel safe.

Let yourself feel relaxed.

If you can live from that place and you love yourself,

Bring in the wholeness part.

Genuinely wholeness.

Bring in the wholeness part.

The two of those together.

What has happened for me?

I know I'm simplifying it,

But I think these are the two critical things that if you actually get these two parts,

A huge transformation will happen.

Like it has to happen.

Because when you know you're safe,

Your system is relaxed.

When you know you love yourself,

Authentically there's love and care for who you are.

Now how I show up in the world allows other people to be who they are.

And allows me to be who I am.

I don't need other people to be any which way for me to feel safe,

For me to feel whole,

For me to be relaxed.

They have full permission to be who they are.

And what's going on for them,

Even if it's dumped on me,

It kind of doesn't go in.

I'll have a look at it at the outside of my energy field,

But I have no interest in making that about me.

Why would I make it about me?

Everything we do is really about ourselves.

And in my world,

And I want to spread this everywhere,

Our heart opens.

If we rest in there is a feeling of safety,

I know I am safe.

And yeah,

I love myself,

I have compassion for myself.

And my good points and my crappy parts that have yet to be healed.

It's all mine.

It's all mine actually.

If somebody else sees them and I don't care,

This is my job.

This is my gig to take care of this woman so that she can be a better version of herself.

Not in any pressurized way,

But out of love for her.

There's a natural evolution that kicks in.

It's not in order to be approved of.

It's because of self-love.

And so this is what is in place for us to live from the heart.

Then we're present because our mind isn't watching consciously or unconsciously to see am I approved of?

Is this okay?

Is this the right thing?

None of that happens.

You're in the moment and you respond in the moment and you respond from your heart because your heart is open to you.

Your heart is open to you.

If your heart is open to you,

You won't have needs for approval and needs to be loved that go out there.

You won't need anything.

You actually won't be needy,

Emotionally needy at all.

There's huge freedom in that.

Huge freedom.

And our emotional needs come from,

Please compensate because I am not whole.

Please compensate because I just don't feel safe unless you love me.

Can you see the way out of it?

This is easier said than done.

Sure.

Is it worth it?

Totally.

Totally.

How to love yourself?

Stop criticizing yourself.

Stop criticizing yourself.

That'll do most of it.

That'll do most of it.

And so back to the brain part,

Default mode network.

If you're using that,

How am I doing?

It's the self-referencing network is the other name for it.

So it refers everything that you perceive to be about me.

What does this say about me?

What does my responses on social media?

What do they say about me?

It doesn't matter.

Who care about the people's opinions?

Let them have their opinions.

It's got no significance at all to who you are.

It doesn't say anything about you actually.

Nothing.

It says something about them.

Your friend's reactions to you says something about them.

It has nothing to do with you.

Don't use your self-referencing network to engage with your friends,

To engage with your family,

To engage with your social networks.

Don't use your self-referencing network.

Be present.

Post and say what comes from.

Yep,

I'm relaxed with them.

There is love for me.

I'm not needy right now.

I feel and am safe.

All right.

That's the way to approach your family and see how interactions are then.

You'll stop playing roles that are inauthentic.

It's worth it.

It's worth it.

Anytime,

Wherever you're going after this talk,

Even if you're going to bed and you're on the other side of the world to me and it's late at night,

See if you can go to sleep with,

Okay,

Do I know I'm safe?

Am I safe?

Can I feel safe?

All right.

In the morning,

I will wake up safe like we are.

Before the mind kicks in,

We absolutely are relaxed and safe.

Totally.

How long does that knowing that you're safe and you're relaxed,

How long does that last in the morning?

How long does that last?

What is it?

What's the point of where your default mode network takes over and you're auditing your world to see I'm safe.

I'm okay.

I'm not okay.

I need you to love me.

Where do you start running your position in the world through your self-referencing network?

You can function just fine using a task-oriented network,

Which helps you to participate in life and your heart.

Not needy,

Self-sufficient,

And from here,

I participate in life.

From here,

I'll do what comes next and I'll be present to what's going on and not going into my head wondering,

Am I safe?

Am I safe?

Do you love me?

Am I just right?

Will they approve of that?

What's the tension do I need now?

Oh my God,

It's exhausting even to think about it.

Love yourself enough to give it up.

Please love yourself enough to give it up.

Just taking a quick look at the chat box.

Your friends treat you.

.

.

No,

My friends treat every friend differently and bully me.

When people bully us,

There is something within us that says yes to that behavior.

With self-love,

I love myself too much.

This is what you will say and I want you to say.

I love myself too much to let me be treated like that.

I have no intention of connecting with people like that.

I'm not going to stay without friends until I find ones who love themselves enough too.

Because people who bully us,

They're operating from fear.

For people to abuse power and for us to give it to them,

Which is the bully victim thing,

Find your own power because you're giving them the power to do that.

Find your own power.

I'm going to schedule a talk on power in a couple of weeks time.

I think that's a good point.

Be in your own power.

There is no need to abuse it.

When you're in your own power,

Other people won't FECK with you.

They won't because you'll be like,

Oh,

You won't be a walkover.

That comes from self-love.

Not from you being a bully,

Not flipping the coin,

But from self-love,

Self-care,

Autonomy.

I am safe.

I am whole.

How am I whole?

I love myself and I trust my own capabilities.

Let there be a relaxed presence that comes from this.

Live from there.

Your heart will open.

Life becomes simpler.

And you get to honour what's really significant for you and what the world needs,

All of us,

To live from a place of love.

Thank you all.

Catch you down,

River.

Catch you down,

River.

Reviews

I am safe. Thank you.

So insightful. I will listen again to embody these truths!

Exactly what I needed to hear rightly now at this very difficult time l am going through hurt, pain & feeling so lost. You’ve given some powerful information & tools to use that make a lot of sense.
Thank you sooo very much. 🙏🏼

This was brilliant - so many messages to think about and I’ll definitely be coming back to listen more on this, thank you xx

Fantastic, thank you! Helpful in understanding friend and grand daughter.

I have alot of work still to do! Thank you for the great insights.

A must listen talk. Psychological yet spiritual. Thank you.🙏

This is spot on Jac, I needed to hear this. I love your direct approach. That pesky default network part of the brain. One of my favourite talks on IT. I will repeat it until it embeds and I live it. Thank you

Just what I needed to hear. Thank you for sharing this...

Thank you for sharing your wisdom and putting into so clear and authentic words. Your words brought a lot to surface and to my consciousness about me and close people 🙏😊

Self love is really difficult for most, especially when one has encountered so many negative experiences. My grannie always says it's jealousy! However; you are right ... if we can master feeling safe and self love the world would be beautiful.

Wow, how inspiring. And yes, I get it. I sometimes feel like people are walking around in a dream, and not really seeing me. And other times I worry about what people will think of me.

Nice talk and nice to hear an Irish voice..my grannies maiden name was O'Keeffe from Dublin..perhaps we are distant relatives!☘️💕catch you down river.

Beautiful words. Very timely in my life at current.

I loved this. It really resonated with me. I understood for the very first time that this was me. This was me you were talking about. It’s exactly how I feel. But how do I fix this? Where do I go or what do I need to listen to or read, to help me fix this within myself?

Thank You ✨

Very elaborate and beautifully addressed. It's so important to not just do self care but to feel that you are safe and cared for, not by any external element, but you yourself! And that makes all the difference how you show up in the world around. Thankyou so much for this.