When everything feels personal

A small shift that frees a surprising amount of energy

Are you ever told that you ‘shouldn’t take things so personally’? Or do you notice that you do — in a way that ends up feeling uncomfortable? When I younger, courtesy of my flammable reactivity, I was told: ‘Don’t take things to heart’, ‘Don’t react so much’, ‘Don’t get triggered.’ Clearly, I was meant to rise above such things and not react (or at least not visibly). But even as I learnt to sometimes not always react outwardly, I wasn’t necessarily any less bothered.

Then, over the years, I realised that I wasn’t alone — and moreover, that not everyone’s reactivity would show on the outside, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t still suffer from it.

What ‘personally’ means

Also, a it turns out, what we take personally turns out to cover quite a lot of ground. Sometimes it’s the weather. Rain, for instance, choosing precisely the moment I was meant to do an outside activity. Rude. Of course we know that it’s not personal. But particularly if we’re having a bad day, it’s easy to fall prey…