2593: How to Not Take Things Personally by Shana Olmstead on Emotional Peace and Deeper Self-Awareness

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[00:00:27] This is Optimal Relationships Daily. How to Not Take Things Personally by Shana Olmstead of ShanaOlmstead.com Quote, Whatever happens around you, don't take it personally. Nothing other people do is because of you. It's because of themselves. End quote. That's by Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements, A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom.

[00:00:55] It's not personal. Even if it feels really personal, it's coming through a filter of the other person's history, wounds, and projections. This isn't an excuse for their behavior, and it doesn't mean that you should put up with it or be in a relationship if someone is projecting all over you. It just means that learning to frame it differently for yourself will help you move on more quickly and understand that it is not about you.

[00:01:21] So many times we feel so hurt by something someone did or didn't do, or said or didn't say. We wrap our emotional stability up too much in another's hands. What if it really has nothing to do with us? I believe that everyone in our lives, especially those that trigger us emotionally, are personal emotional trainers for us.

[00:01:43] I believe that everyone signed up for these roles before we incarnated, and we agreed to help each other grow in this way, sometimes through difficulty and personality challenges. Some examples of personal emotional trainers I've seen in my practice are bosses, children, parents, friends, partners, siblings, and acquaintances. Anyone we have contact with is here to teach us and help us grow.

[00:02:08] The boss that is demanding, that doesn't listen, that pushes us too hard. This person is probably in our life to help us be more assertive, to set personal boundaries, and to know when a situation is healthy or when it's time to leave. The child that frustrates, annoys, and challenges us can help us grow in so many ways. How can this child teach us patience, compassion, and mindful awareness of our emotions and responses?

[00:02:36] What a beautiful gift to be able to practice these skills in your own home. We can't improve or evolve as individuals without experiences with people in our lives that feel challenging. The parent that triggers us can help us grow not only just with them, but the relationships we have with our parents lay the groundwork for how we respond to many other relationships in our lives.

[00:02:58] For example, if we grew up with a parent that invalidated our feelings, we may have a hard time feeling seen or heard in other relationships in our lives. To be able to evolve emotionally in this type of pattern, you get to feel every time you do not feel heard, and work on expressing yourself more assertively.

[00:03:18] Your internal work here is to validate your own feelings, explain in a calm way how you feel, and practice being okay if the other person doesn't understand how you feel. With parents, it's important to let go of any expectations of them in the relationship. Remember that they are souls doing the best that they can, and do your best to accept them just as they are. This can help you see areas that they are helping you to grow in, even if they're not aware that it's happening.

[00:03:47] Friendships are another great place to work on this whole thing, especially if we've not consciously evolved in our friendships. Friendships, we may sometimes be surrounded by friends that trigger us emotionally. From my perspective, this is both an opportunity to involve in our consciousness, as well as a chance to potentially re-evaluate the friendship. When we're triggered by something that a friend does or says, we get to practice remembering it's not personal, even if it feels very personal.

[00:04:14] We get to practice feeling our feelings, and expressing them compassionately to our friend. We get to practice growing our self-love, and potentially changing the relationship as our love for ourselves continues to grow. Romantic partnerships are lovely places to practice seeing your partner as a personal emotional trainer. Your soul helped you pick this person to help you evolve in your awareness.

[00:04:38] Every time you're triggered by something they do or say, it's an opportunity to remember, it's not about me. It's an opportunity to get curious about what's happening internally, emotionally with you, to cause you to feel triggered. It's an opportunity to get curious about the other person, to connect on a deeper level of understanding. People have so many reasons under the surface that they do what they do and say what they say.

[00:05:03] There are wounds and betrayals and surprises and triggers that are beautifully unique to each one of us. Our work is to continue to see the light in ourselves and each other. It's to focus so much on this light that the hurt becomes invisible. We are all beings of light trying our best to grow, to heal, to learn, and to love. It's not always beautiful, and it's sometimes messy, but we're all in this together. Hurt people hurt people.

[00:05:32] If we can remember this, instead of going to anger and defensiveness when feeling attacked, we can see the humanity underneath the surface. It's all a call to wake up. It's a call to connect, collaborate, and love. You just listened to the post titled, How to Not Take Things Personally, by Shana Olmstead of shanaolmstead.com.

[00:05:58] Hurt people hurt people is one of my favorite sayings ever, actually. Many thanks to Shana for that great post. It's really so applicable and practical no matter who you are. However, for many, the contents and lessons extracted from this article may become the types of things that are really easy to agree with and understand, yet difficult to live by in the moment. So, if you feel you'd really like to apply what Shana has talked about,

[00:06:27] I might recommend starting by reflecting on the times in which you have lashed out or been rude, or even just been slightly cold to someone, and what that was rooted in. Even if you can't quite trace how many of those times weren't directly related to the people you were in opposition to, there should be some in which you can say, yeah, that was because of the other thing I had going on. It really wasn't about them. Focus on those times.

[00:06:55] Focus on how you wish you might have handled it better. And remember, anyone and everyone is susceptible to doing the same thing. You've been on the receiving end of people who are caught in those spirals many times, and you will continue to be. So, imagine yourself in their shoes. That version of yourself that's frustrated with something, doesn't know how to process it quite yet, and behaves in a way that's less than ideal.

[00:07:21] We can really humanize these types of things when we reflect on how easy of traps they are for us all to fall into, including ourselves. Okay, everyone. And on that note, it's time to get going. I hope this post got you thinking. It's definitely one that, again, can be used and holds true over and over and over again. So, don't sleep on it. Have a great rest of your day, everybody. Be sure to come on back tomorrow, and I will see you there where your optimal life awaits.