Don't Take Anything Personally

Dr. Gina discusses Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. We discuss how NOT To Take Things Personally. It leads to needless suffering & unnecessary conflict. We make assumptions about the other person’s intentions & our projections onto others lead us to assume that everything is about us. Taking things personally can be the result of co-dependent behaviour. We discuss why we take things personally, why it's not about us & the how-to with family/friends/work and in love relationships.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hi everybody,

This is Dr.

Gina and I'm with Ben.

This is Living Simply.

Hey,

Dr.

Gina,

How are you?

I'm good,

Ben.

How are you?

I'm doing good.

It's a hectic day in the neighborhood.

So today we are continuing our four part series on dissecting different elements of the four agreements,

Different agreements of the four agreements,

The classic book by Don Miguel Ruiz.

Last time we did Don't Make Assumptions and this time we are doing Don't Take Anything Personally.

Yes,

Totally.

I'm looking forward to this today.

Before we get into that,

I'd love to touch on for a second why we're going through the book,

The four agreements,

Because we didn't really,

We wanted to touch on Don't Make Assumptions last time,

But we hadn't fully committed to doing like an episode each on the book.

So why,

You know,

Why is the four agreements so important?

First,

It's had a great impact in my own life.

I read it,

I would say almost 10,

20 years ago,

And I've used it in therapy with all my clients and I find they're at the basis of all healthy relationships.

And if we look at the four agreements and basically the dysfunction of it,

The dysfunctional side of the four agreements,

I thought they were at the source of a lot of great personal and interpersonal suffering,

Whether it's with kids or adults.

So I thought if we could learn these four agreements,

Most people's lives would be a lot better.

Yeah,

I agree with that.

So today though,

Specifically we're talking about don't take things personally.

Don't take anything personally,

Is the way that it's said.

So how do you do that?

Why is it important?

And why are the reasons that we do tend to take everything personally?

I mean,

If you know,

If you're online for five seconds these days,

You see that everybody is taking everything personally.

And they probably always have.

I don't think that it's necessarily gotten bigger of a problem,

But it's definitely out there more.

So why are,

Let's start with that.

Why do we take things so personally?

I think at the basis is because we tend to be a little bit self-centered.

We think the world revolves around us.

And we project on other people our stuff.

We assume things like we talked about the other episode.

So we think people think like we do.

So when people react to us or do things,

We assume it's about us.

So when I say most of us are a bit self-centered when we take everything personally,

I don't mean in a pathological,

Narcissistic kind of way.

I think it's just part of waking up and evolving that we need to grow out of it.

So I think sometimes it can be hard to not take things personally when a person directly attacks us.

Because it is directed to us,

But still even when someone attacks us,

It's not about us.

It's about them.

So I think it's just part of our evolution that it's a natural tendency,

But we ideally want to grow out of it.

Right.

It's not always easy.

No,

Definitely not.

Like you were just saying,

It's not necessarily like a narcissistic self-centeredness.

We're all the stars of our own movie.

You live with yourself every day,

Basically.

So you live with yourself every day.

You know your thoughts,

Your wants,

Your desires,

What you're thinking of,

Your insecurities.

So when somebody is not directly attacking you,

I think it's very easy to take it as a personal attack,

To glom on to whatever it is that they said that you identify with you,

That you're insecure about or that you're afraid of or worried about.

And say,

Hey,

I'm offended by that because we identify with whatever that is in our own head,

In the world that we create in ourselves.

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

It does because if,

The way I tell some of my clients or friends or even myself is if someone would directly attack,

And I don't mean necessarily in an abusive way,

But respond to us in a negative way,

I think sometimes it wakes up our shadow.

And an example I give to a client is if you know you're smart and you're convinced you're smart and someone calls you stupid,

It won't affect you.

But if you have self-esteem issues and you're not sure you're smart,

You're insecure,

If someone calls you stupid,

You will take it personally because you yourself would think you're not that smart.

Right.

So I think part of taking things personally is people touch our core issues,

Our wounds,

Stuff we haven't even brought to consciousness maybe that we still need to work on.

So if someone attacks that part of us,

We will take it personally,

Especially if it's not healed.

Yeah,

Exactly.

That's a great point.

If you're really confident in something,

Then it's probably not going to make a difference to you what they say.

I don't know what a good example is.

If someone tells me I'm not a good public speaker,

I probably wouldn't care because I think that they're misinformed.

I do it literally every day.

Am I the best at it?

No.

But do I have enough self-confidence to not worry about that?

Absolutely.

I'm fine.

If you tell LeBron James,

For example,

That he's not good at dunking a basketball,

He's not going to really take that personally.

I'm not comparing myself speaking to LeBron James by any means.

That's the type of thing.

I don't know why I used a sports analogy.

But if you missed quite a few shots and you would point it out to him,

It wouldn't affect him.

Because overall,

He knows I make mistakes.

It's okay to make mistakes.

I'm not perfect.

So even if you tell me I'm not perfect,

Oh well.

But,

And again,

I do not know that much about sports.

So I do not mean to be making these.

But if you told him that he's not that good at shooting three-pointers,

If you attacked him with that,

Well,

That's kind of something that he might take personally because he doesn't.

That's not his game.

You know what I mean?

So that's something that people probably ridicule him about and that he takes personally or he might take personally.

You know what I mean?

So that's an aspect of your life that you're not completely comfortable with and in control of that is vulnerable to you.

Yeah.

Where we also find people take things personally is if you're caught up in codependent behavior,

Where if you're codependent,

You will blame people for how you feel.

And you will change your behaviors to try and manipulate them and change how they feel.

You are making it personally when really it's not personal.

Because it's seeped into the dysfunction of codependency.

Right.

Could you give an example of that?

Let's say you're a people pleaser.

Okay.

So people ask you favors and you say yes,

Even if you don't want to say yes,

Just because you want them to like you.

So you're doing favors,

Doing favors,

And then suddenly you need a favor and you ask this friend that you've been bending over backwards for.

And they're like,

Sorry,

I can't for whatever reason.

And they don't even need to give a reason,

But they say,

Sorry,

I can't.

And you take it personally in the sense,

I do all this for this person and underlying that is they owe you and you're taking it personally that I did enough,

How I'm not doing enough.

Why didn't they say yes?

When really it has nothing to do with you.

Maybe they're busy or maybe they have better boundaries than you do that you would say yes to something,

But they all say no.

So you're making it about you when really it's not about you.

It's they have better boundaries than you.

I don't know if it makes sense.

I mean,

Yeah,

That completely makes sense.

You just kind of nailed me to a wall,

Personally.

But yeah,

So that makes that makes a ton of sense.

All right,

So the first thing that we talked about,

Obviously,

Was why do we take things personally?

But the commandment in the four agreements are,

You know,

Not a commandment,

But the agreement that it's suggesting that you make with yourself is to not take things personally.

How do we own up before that,

Because that's the last one.

That's the that's the grand finale.

Why do people attack you,

You touched on it earlier.

Why would someone say something to you that you end up internalizing and taking personally,

If somebody let's talk about now people directly attacking you also if you're watching this on the video.

I am so sorry there.

I'm in a terrible room for this.

There are so many it's such a cloudy then sunny cloudy then sunny day.

So anyway,

But if people are directly attacking you,

For whatever reason,

Or it feels like they are.

Why is that happening?

Why people attack us?

Yeah.

So I think it depends.

Everyone's a bit different.

But some,

Some people,

If I tell you about direct attacks,

Like direct attack,

Like not putting you down.

Yeah,

Put it like somebody.

No,

Somebody is putting you down.

Somebody says,

You know,

I'm so sorry,

Gina,

You're stupid.

Like,

Why,

Why'd you do this?

You're so stupid.

You always do like,

You know,

You're so stupid.

You know what I mean?

Like they're they're ridiculing you in particular.

So I,

I would think is they have their own self esteem issues.

They're taking whatever I did personally,

And they feel the need to put me down as a result of it because they feel inferior for whatever reason.

Maybe I reminded them of someone they don't like.

And I woke up an old wound and then they're responding to me but really,

They're projecting on me their own issues that have nothing to do with me.

And some people could attack me,

Let's say,

Because they don't like me.

And they're allowed to not like me.

But when you don't like someone instead of attacking them,

You should walk away or not hang out with that person.

So I think there are many different reasons why people verbally attack other people.

But in the end,

The way people respond to us,

The way people respond to us speaks about them.

And the way we respond to them speaks about ourselves.

Yeah.

So in the end,

It's always how I respond to you,

It speaks more about me than about you.

So it goes both ways.

But I think at the core,

Even just this could be 10 episodes on its own,

Is at the core is self love,

Self esteem.

When you don't love yourself,

It's very hard to have compassion and love for other people.

So if you have really good self love,

You know what it is to be human,

To be imperfect,

You'll therefore have the same compassion for other people.

And even if you don't like them,

You won't necessarily attack them or put them down.

You'll respect their humanity and worst case you'll set boundaries.

And like I said before,

You'll just walk away.

I think it's a little off topic,

But something that you just said about,

Like if you're the aggressor,

Right?

Like if you're the person that needs to work on yourself because you're putting others down for some,

For whatever reason.

And maybe the example that I'm going to give isn't anywhere near that harsh,

But I,

A few months ago was very stressed and I was doing a lot of stuff at the same time.

And I had to completely take,

Take over my schedule for,

For part of a day to take my mom to a doctor's appointment.

And it was,

I,

You know,

Picking her up and driving her there and everything else was like over an hour before getting to the doctors.

And then when we got there,

I had to let her off,

Help her in,

Go like a half a mile down and park and walk back.

And I asked her four times if she needed something and she said no.

And then when she got there,

She needed it.

And I had to walk back out to the car.

And then she was like,

Also,

I need a water bottle,

Go back out and get it.

And I was very upset.

I was very mad.

I was not,

I didn't put her down.

I wasn't mean,

But I was cold.

You know,

I was angry.

And two months later,

But I was really stressed and I wasn't happy going into it.

And I was,

You know,

In a bad head space for,

For a bunch of reasons.

Two months later,

So more recently,

I had to go to a similar,

Same doctor's office,

Different doctor.

So same hour long parking,

All of that stuff.

By the time I got in there from the half mile walk back,

I got to the reception desk where she was standing.

And she looks at me and she goes,

You're going to kill me.

My doctor's appointment was yesterday.

And I was like,

It's okay.

You sit here.

I'm going to go make a new doctor's appointment for you that I'll have in my phone.

And I did.

And she was like,

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I was like,

You know what?

It's fine.

That the secretary or your mom,

My mom said,

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

And I said,

No,

Mom,

It's okay.

I'm glad that you got out of the house today.

And I'm glad that we spent our,

You know,

Are having a few hours to spend together.

And I'll take you to the doctor's next month when we rescheduled it for and everything's fine.

And I was like,

This has nothing to do with her.

This was the same situation,

Kind of a worse situation.

We did all of it for literally nothing.

But I was fine.

And the only reason why I was fine was because I was in a bad mood the first time because I hadn't been doing anything for myself.

And I was stressed out.

And all of this other stuff.

Now,

I've been doing a lot of stuff for myself.

And,

You know,

I'm happier and I'm healthier and I'm doing a bunch of stuff.

And this like major inconvenience didn't bother me whatsoever.

Yeah,

There was no anger of there was literally no anger.

There was nothing to lash out at.

And if that isn't,

I think that that's a great example of how we can all be happy.

And I think that's a great example of it was me not her.

Could she have could she have asked me for the water bottle beforehand?

Could she have done that?

All of those things?

Yes.

Yeah,

And it's still not personal like the anger was normal.

Yeah,

Because you set a boundary.

And she kind of disrespected it.

Right?

Anger is normal because it's a well,

I did ask you multiple times.

So that's legit.

Right?

You're right.

Her forgetting had nothing to do with you.

Same with the second incident that she made the mistake.

It has nothing to do with you.

No,

But I took one of them personally.

Not only was I the last year out of in the last out person in the first scenario,

I also took it personally that she was doing all of those things.

I took it personally.

And then I lashed out at her.

And then she took that personally.

Yeah.

And again,

Lash out.

I didn't like yell at my mom or anything like,

But um,

But I was visibly annoyed.

Um,

In a way that I was uncomfortable with.

And,

And then the second time,

I didn't take it personally at all.

Yeah,

That that all of these mistakes happen.

They just happened and I was grateful for the day that I had my mom.

Well,

That's a good example of when we're running on an empty tank,

Our resistance is lower and we have no patients and we get aggravated for little things because we have nothing left.

Yeah.

Running on an empty tank.

How do we not take things personally?

Again,

And I'm going to sound like a broken record or a CD with a lot of presence and being mindful,

Meaning when someone attacks us,

It will be normal sometimes that we will react,

We'll be offended,

We'll be sad.

It's not the feeling that's dysfunctional.

It's what we do with it.

Right.

Present and we respond to someone.

We can't control how we feel.

It's to notice how do I feel and then be aware.

Am I taking it personally?

And then the,

The self talk will kind of notice if we are taking it personally or not.

And if we are,

It's to remind ourselves.

It's not about us first,

But we are taking it personally.

But it doesn't mean that if it's not about us,

You don't need to set a boundary.

Right.

Yep.

If we don't take it personally,

We won't be on the defense mode and therefore we can find a better solution.

But if we're in defense mode,

When we take it personally,

Then we react on emotion.

And the emotional brain is not logical.

So if we,

If we can validate how we feel and work through the emotion,

Then our left brain can find a solution to the situation that just happened.

That's amazing advice.

And I think again that you covered a lot of the other ways to not take things personally dealing with why we do and why other people would seemingly attack us.

So now I have one more question before we,

You know,

Start to wrap things up with the gratitude of the day.

But children,

Right?

Obviously.

So this is a,

This is a show where we talk about mindfulness and in parenting and kids and you are a parenting expert.

So why do we take so many things personally that our kids do and say?

Ah,

Because they are our kids.

So our,

Like I said before,

Our kids job is to grow us up.

So our kids will push all our buttons and because they are our kids,

We respond to them in a very strong fashion.

So if we start with the parents,

The parents are the ones who are going to push us up.

And so we are going to be able to do that in a very strong fashion.

So if we start with the premise of parenting itself,

What is my role as a parent?

If I say that my kid is a mini version of me and I need to mold my kid and turn him or her into something,

When they push back,

We will take things personally if we approach parenting from that lens.

But if we approach parenting with the lens of these are separate individuals from us,

They're not a mini version of us.

They're their own person and my job is to watch them blossom in who they are meant to become.

Then my job is more about guiding them,

Teaching them values right from wrong.

So we're more likely to not take it personally from the second standpoint than from the first standpoint.

Because the minute they're going to push back,

We're going to go,

No,

I'm the authority here.

You do as I say,

You love what I say you should love.

And if they go against that,

We'll take it as a rejection of us.

But if a kid,

If we use a simple example,

We discipline a child,

We say no.

And they scream,

I hate you.

And I like mommy better than you or like daddy better than you or you're not my dad.

You're not my mom.

We need to remind ourselves this is just a child expressing an emotion.

They're angry.

It doesn't mean they hate us as a person.

They might hate what we did.

They might not like what we said,

Which is okay.

They're entitled to their own feelings.

And we again,

As we would do with an adult is to go within and ask ourselves,

What is it about what just happens that really hurts and why am I taking it so personally?

So if a person grew up being rejected by their own parents and their kid rejects them,

It would be to go within and go,

Well,

I feel rejection,

Rejected and abandoned.

And that really hurts.

And that's why I'm reacting so intensely.

But my child is not my parents.

So I can't make it about me,

But it hurts just as much.

But if I don't take it personally,

Then I will respond to that in a healthier way than if I take it personally.

So it's not about not feeling.

It's about responding properly to our feelings.

Well,

That was a wonderful way to end that for sure.

I had some questions.

You answered all of them.

So,

Alright,

Let's get to the way that we end every show,

Which is talking about a moment of gratitude and what we're grateful for today.

Do you want me to start?

Yeah,

If you want to,

Sure.

Okay.

So this week was my third week off work.

Reluctantly,

I took a month off work.

But I had to take a month off work.

Just like you,

I was a bit overly stressed overworked for the past eight years.

So it's the first time in over eight years that I took such extensive time off.

So I'm grateful I could do that and grateful for all the insights that have popped into my head that normally wouldn't because I'd be too busy.

So I'm grateful for my time off.

That's fantastic.

How about you?

I'm grateful for,

Honestly,

I'm grateful for a lot of things.

It's just what I,

You know,

I did a lot of extra work this summer.

That I,

You know,

On some of the side gigs that I do,

I did a lot of like two times more than I normally do or,

You know,

Three times more than I normally do,

Whatever it is.

And I used some of that money to just purchase a new camera that I've been wanting to get so that we could start doing more things.

And we've kind of put a lot of stuff into motion in the last week or two that we've been planning for a really long time.

So I'm grateful for the ability to be moving in a direction that feels like the direction that I wanted to go in.

You know,

And I'm kind of like I'm grateful for that clarity.

Also,

Grateful for,

I've been just posting some like,

I've been like eating healthy stuff all the time and making a lot of food and posting some of it.

And just recently,

Like nothing the first couple of weeks,

But then this week,

Literally some pretty innocuous stuff like a smoothie bowl and a salad or something.

I don't even remember what it was,

But people like friends that I haven't talked to in forever are like sending me messages,

Asking me for recipes and stuff,

Which is really fun.

And it's a great,

Like,

So I'm grateful for that sense of community.

Yeah,

It's cool.

Yeah.

All right.

So this was episode two of the four agreements.

How did you feel?

Feels good.

Good.

All right.

So don't make assumptions and do not take anything personally.

And we will be back in the next episode with the third agreement.

Yes.

See you then.

Take care.

Reviews

A really insightful talk and super helpful perspective, especially the part about negative comments triggering our shadow. Great explanation on why we take things personally as well as why others make things personal.

Very interesting! Thank you!

Really excellent content, unfortunately Dr Gina's voice was at certain points almost too quiet to hear, was there something wrong with her mike? I could hear Ben fine throughout... Otherwise very helpful. Thank you 💜 x

Thank you for that. I learned a lot. 😊

I enjoyed this podcast, but found myself adjusting the volume throughout as Dr. Gina's voice fluctuated in volume.