The Viable Alternative

Have you ever been annoyed or confused by the phrase, “Don’t take things personally?”

Often, when people used to say that whenever someone is inexplicably nasty to you that it’s not personal, I used to get befuddled by that statement. Coming from someone who dealt with kids in grade school who were NOT nice to me while they were nice to other people, I would think it had to be personal because I was being made the target of their disdain. Plus, because I was one of the people who was being singled out, I took it to mean that there was something wrong with me.

So, when these spiritual gurus, thought leaders, and people who’ve achieved massive amounts of success would say not to take what others do to you personally because it’s never about you, while I wanted to believe what they said, I couldn’t get behind it.

But then, therapy happened (and is still happening) where I learned to get more in touch with my trapped emotions, how they get triggered, and how I respond to them, and I started to understand and agree with the whole concept from the inside out.

I noticed how when someone would say something that would trigger feelings of anger, sadness, shame or resentment within me which would cause me to have a certain negative perception towards that person, it wasn’t really about that person, rather it was that that person triggered feelings from a past situation I had with someone else that my mind interpreted as similar, and I then associated that person with that situation. My negative feelings had more to do with that other person from the past, not the current person in the present situation.

Think about it, your mother talked to you in a certain way you didn’t like when you were five years old, then a woman in your office twenty years later says something to you in a way that triggers that memory of when you were five years old, and now you want to bite that person’s head off. How can that person who you’ve known for only a week trigger such emotional intensity?

Simple. It has nothing to do with her. It’s more about your mother, the woman who raised you and was entrusted with your well being.

The other day, I was left thinking to myself, “Why do I want to punch this dude in the face?” after someone I work with said something to me I didn’t like. Noting that my feelings were a bit of an extreme reaction to his words, I realized that my sentiments towards him were projections of other past situations that had nothing to do with him, and had I not experienced those situations, I most likely wouldn’t have been thinking that way towards him. In essence, how I was feeling wasn’t personal towards him.

So, circling back, when someone is mean or nasty to us without provocation, or seems to single us out for their venom, truly, it’s never about us, rather it’s more about him or her. If someone is truly happy with himself and his life, he would choose to spread his happiness around, rather than act like an prick towards other people who did nothing wrong to him. Miserable people spread misery, so they’re not treating you bad because there’s something wrong with you, they’re treating you bad because they’re miserable and can’t help themselves.

Now, if you’re anything like the way I was in the past, you’re probably trying to argue that it MUST be personal because the person is nice to everyone else and seems to single you out, therefore proving that you’re the useless bastard that you always knew yourself to be. To that I would say it’s still not personal, because you may be on the receiving end of the person’s ire because you remind her of someone from her past that hurt her or pissed her off. In that case, that still has nothing to do with you because you’re not that person from her past. Or maybe you strike the person as an “easy target” for his bullying or nastiness. Again, still not personal. Anyone, especially a grown ass adult, has issues that have nothing to do with you if they’re looking for someone to push around or mistreat instead of uplift.

Oh, and if you’re finding that you are consistently a target of people’s mistreatment, you may want to look into the fact that maybe you have problems asserting or standing up for yourself, or are very sensitive, and “opportunists” pick up on that energy and try to exploit it. That just means that there are areas in your life that you need to work on, not that you’re a piece of crap.

Also, there are some very jealous people out there and when they see something in you that they admire or want, since they don’t have it, in their twisted minds, they feel it better to hate on you. Once again, that’s their problem not yours.

As I close, I’ll leave you with this, don’t take things personally from other people, but while doing that, it doesn’t mean you have to put up with their crap. If you have to check someone for crossing the line, check ’em!

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love