How to Stop Taking Things Personally

Humans are social creatures, as Aristotle taught us millennia ago. We learn who we are by our interactions with others. Every day, we interact with many people. From the moment we wake up we are interacting with our family or our roommates; at school we interact with our classmates or at work we interact with our co-workers; when we run to the grocery store on the way home we interact with people there. We get along with some people amazingly and other people we disagree with at every turn. Some people just annoy us no matter what we do. In every situation, it is easy to take things personally.
In this article, we are going to be focusing on intimate relationships where a strong bond has already been established. The advice in this article is applicable to any relationship, though – even your relationship with the stranger behind you in the checkout line.

The Formation of Your Emotional Landscape

We all have a unique emotional landscape that we navigate when we are interacting with other people. Different things can trigger us, as if we were stepping on hidden landmines. We might think that this landscape should all be smooth and easy to navigate, but the truth is that it is full of hidden dangers that we do not even know are there until we are right on top of them.

This emotional landscape is formed by our memories of our previous experiences. When we have a negative social experience, this triggers our subconscious to guard against having such an experience again in the future. We place barriers and guards around that area to prevent being wounded again. In doing so, we unconsciously create little landmines where we feel intense emotion when we come too close to them.

How These Wounds Got There

In our earliest moments of life, we are completely dependent on others. When we are first born, we can’t even move for ourselves. We are completely helpless and dependent on other people to feed us, bathe us, change us, keep us warm, and cuddle us. When we need something, we cry to make our needs known. When we are babies, we learn how the world is going to treat us based on how our parents and caretakers respond to us. If babies and children suffer neglect during these critical, formative times, they will learn that no one cares about them.

As we get older, we are still dependent on other people. The actions that other people take determine to a large extent the experiences we have and the actions we take ourselves. At this age, we learn to blame other people for our actions. This blame may be justified in the early years of our life, but it is also tempting to let it continue to ages where we should actually be responsible for our own behaviour.

So why do we cling to the tendency to blame other people? This habit and tendency starts in early childhood. From our earliest moments, we take the actions of other people personally. Our parents don’t come and take care of us, and we are hungry and dirty and cold. Our friends make fun of us, and we cry and have a temper tantrum. Our teachers don’t act fairly to us, and we get in trouble for things we didn’t do. Babies and children don’t even have the capabilities to not take these things personally, and so the wounds of infancy and childhood stick and embed themselves in our psyche and our understanding of who we are.

As adults, though, we are not dependent on other people. We can take actions for ourselves and think for ourselves.

How Other Modalities Teach Coping Mechanisms

Other self-actualisation techniques recommend that people think about the responsibilities of other people and oneself objectively. Do you really have to go along with what other people say? Is anything bad really going to happen if you disagree with someone? Is the other person’s approval really worth the suffering they put you through?

These techniques are helpful, but in the end they are only superficial bandages to the problem. They are based on the belief that other people hurt us with their words and actions. The truth is that other people trigger our self-defence mechanisms that surround the wounds we received as children. Therefore we need to think about the wounds, not about the other people.

I have been studying other people and contemplating my own wounds for over 12 years. I have considered many different tools for healing. Over a decade ago, a group of scientists developed the Mind Resonance Process to teach people how to take back control of their lives. This process lets people reverse the damage that has been done to their psyches. This process gives us freedom to avoid the emotional minefields in our psyche so that we can live our lives the way we need to. The survival mechanisms we learned as children are not necessary anymore. If we keep them around into adulthood, they leave us powerless and vulnerable. The Mind Resonance Process helps us learn to be free from these negative memories so that we can depend on ourselves instead of others.

People who go through the Mind Resonance Process come out feeling empowered and confident. They discover their own internal strength, and find that the words of others are powerless to hurt them. They discover the strength to end relationships that no longer serve them, and to surround themselves with people who build them up instead of who tear them down.

On the other hand, if you keep these psychological wounds untreated inside of you, you find that it is hard to discern and make healthy decisions. You are mentally reduced to the age that you were when that thought process was formed. A situation happens and you mentally revert to the level of a child; with every wound it becomes harder and harder to pull yourself out of this cycle. If you are finding it hard or impossible to rise above the wounds you received as a child, the Mind Resonance Process is the modality for you.

If you would like to experience for yourself what the Mind Resonance Process can help you achieve, visit the Institute of Self Mastery website where you can request your free 1-hour consultation. Let me help you start on your path to emotional freedom!