How to not take things personally?

Question

Sometimes people around us say or do things that hurt us, intentionally or not. The closer to us the person, the more we are hurt by their unfavorable words and actions. To leave in harmony, we have to learn not to take everything personally.

Answer 1

To avoid taking things personally, you can practice empathy. Try to put yourself on the other person’s shoes and ask yourself, “Why is she acting that way today?”

Sometimes it is easy to just blame it all to rudeness and lack of breeding, but it won’t solve anything. You will still feel irritated, and probably have your day ruined. And by what? A single offhand comment by someone who is probably just having a bad day? By trying to understand what the other person is going through, you will find that you are getting less offended by whatever she had said or did to you.

Always remember that we all go through some rough patches in our lives. Worrying too much about our problems can make us less circumspect to the things that we say or do to the people around us. We don’t want our friends and family to think so badly of us when we do those things. That is why we should not be too quick in judging them when they make mistakes around us. Sometimes a little dose of understanding goes a long way towards the inner peace of our mind.

Answer 2

The answer to the question of how to not take things personally is really more of a peek into how sensitive we are towards other people’s feelings than anything else. It only shows that we care a lot about what other people think about us. Otherwise, why take things personally?

We only stop taking things personally when we learn to stop trying to placate the feelings of people around us. This will allow us to stay calm even when other people are being rude, or abusive towards us. It is not our problem that they have bad attitudes, it’s theirs.

But ignoring how other people perceive us is easily said than done. After all, we are social beings who need the comfort and approval of our family, friends, and other people who we interact with everyday. But when we are sacrificing our emotions just to gain their approval, we will be left always questioning why they are acting that way toward or around us. That is the root of the reason why we take things personally.