Do you feel hurt when someone doesn’t like you?

Do you get way too caught up on what other people think of you?

Do you feel offended when you don’t get invited to things?

When you don’t hear from someone, does your mind first go to, “did I do something wrong?”

If you said yes to any of these questions, congrats! You are part of the majority of people who take things too personally.

Let me say this another way. Taking things personally is the same as making it about you. And since most of us operate our lives from the point of view of "me me me" (it's simply the way our brains were programmed), the majority of us have been culprits.

There are many many reasons why we take things personally, but I have a unique theory. I believe it comes with the territory of being a highly sensitive person. We care. And when we are too empathetic to others, boundaries get blurred and we start depending on them for our happiness. That’s when things get dangerous.

So first, let’s take the sting off feeling ashamed and all self-critical for thinking things are happening to us rather than understanding on an emotional level that that’s just not the case. Your flaws are not bad or wrong. They are just your good stuff on steroids.

All we gotta to is rein it in a little bit, ya know?

So let’s talk about a solution for taking things personally. As I am sure you have experienced, taking things personally is exhausting. It can jeopardize relationships, kill your confidence, keep you in the reactive state, and leave you feeling exhausted.

If you want to show up as a powerful leader in your life and in the world, you gotta learn how to not take things so personally.

Because it’s never about you.

People’s reactions, decisions, and behaviors are not about you. They're about their perception of the situation based on the glasses of belief they are wearing.

It’s never about you.

And vice versa. When you get upset or angry, surprise! it’s not about the person. Ever.

This is the most freeing idea we can embody because it puts us back into a place of power. Permanently.

Taking things personally is the result of being too dependent on others for your happiness. And this can cause deep inconsistency and unhappiness in our lives.

Notice, for example, how we dislike people who don’t agree with us or don’t like us. If we placed our power back into ourselves, it wouldn’t matter if people agreed or not. It wouldn’t trigger us.

So the fact that we do, in fact, hold contempt to those who don’t like us (you know we get all dramatic about how we don’t like them either or we get defensive, etc.) means that we are taking things personally.

It all comes down to a loss of power.

So what can we do about it?

Give yourself the gift of space before you react to what is happening.

Do you see the power of giving ourselves space?

When you make it about you, you are not able to create healing space in the world because you are trusting in your small ego self. You are trusting in a world that vindictive, hateful and against you.

You can never take back vindictive words or angry action. So if you notice yourself getting reactive and emotional, chances are you are making this experience about yourself. And that's okay! This is simply a sign to take a step back. To give your emotions space. And then come back and handle the situation.

People will respect your decision to set yourself up for success more than an immediate answer.

And you are going to slowly feel more and more detached to actions of others and more and more centered in your being.