Your reaction to your uncomfortable feelings is either to defend yourself or to submit passively to what the other person seems to think of you. Either way, you view the other person\u2019s behavior as a literal, serious, personal threat to your well-being:<\/p>\n
\u2022 In traffic, your blood pressure shoots up as you fume about the sloppiness of other drivers and about how their recklessness is putting you personally at risk.<\/p>\n
\u2022 At the office, you take a colleague\u2019s disagreement with you as personal disrespect or hostility.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Closer to home, your girlfriend goes off the deep end over some silly joke you told at a party, and you feel personally attacked and hurt.<\/p>\n
In reality, reckless drivers drive recklessly whether you\u2019re on the road or not. Your colleagues at the office can disagree with you for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with you. And maybe your girlfriend is upset because the way you told that joke brought back some painful memory that you know nothing about.<\/p>\n
In each case, what you\u2019re taking personally isn\u2019t personal at all.<\/p>\n
Let me give you another kind of example.<\/p>\n
A client of mine was deeply in love with a woman who wasn\u2019t emotionally available. She would draw him in and then do something to push him away. (This is what\u2019s commonly called sabotaging the relationship.) At first he took her behavior personally because he had behaved badly toward her a few times and felt guilty. But as he and I talked, and as he looked at his past behavior, he expressed deep sorrow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He worked on forgiving himself, and he apologized to the woman he loved. She accepted his apology, but soon enough she was pushing him away again. He was finally able to see that she had major issues around emotional intimacy, and that her pushing him away wasn\u2019t any type of personal statement about him. She\u2019d had a pretty tough life, and the way she protected herself whenever she felt unsafe with someone was to go on the attack or withdraw. And her protective technique was highly effective!<\/p>\n You may never know the real reasons why people in your life have attacked you or withdrawn from you. They may have been suffering from the effects of past abuse, or other problems of their own may have played a role. What you can know is that their provocative behavior was almost certainly not personal, and so it would be a mistake for you to take it personally.<\/p>\n \u2022 Don\u2019t defend yourself against insults or other hurtful behavior. Your attackers aren\u2019t interested in your point of view. They\u2019re focused on relieving their own emotional pain, at your expense. Others\u2019 antagonism is no reflection of your worth as a person, and you require no defense.<\/p>\n \u2022 Don\u2019t worry about looking or sounding stupid. If someone asks you a question and you don\u2019t know the answer, you can say, \u201cI need to think about that and get back to you.\u201d Remind yourself that you\u2019re an imperfect human being, you\u2019re allowed to make mistakes, and you do many\u00a0things quite well. You will never be superior or inferior, but equal.<\/p>\n \u2022 Put less focus on yourself. Instead, think about your goals and the steps needed\u00a0to meet them. In a social interaction, think about how to make the experience\u00a0itself enjoyable, and ask yourself what you can do to feel more comfortable.<\/p>\n \u2022 When someone attacks you, muster up the courage to risk doing something\u00a0new. For example, you can simply say, \u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re trying to accomplish.\u201d That\u2019s not a counterattack. It\u2019s just the truth. And if you feel good afterward, savor that feeling\u2014you will have earned it.<\/p>\n Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you take someone\u2019s anger-provoking behavior personally, you feel offended and disrespected. Your reaction to your uncomfortable feelings is either to defend yourself or to submit passively to what the other person seems to think of you. Either way, you view the other person\u2019s behavior as a literal, serious, personal <\/p>\n Read More<\/a>
Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger<\/a> March 19, 2019<\/p>\n