How do I stop taking things personally?

13 Feb How do I stop taking things personally?

Question:

How do I stop taking things personally? My feelings get hurt easily when I feel I am being harshly criticized or teased by my co-workers.

Don Miguel’s Answer:

The way we stop taking things personally is by practice. But we also need to understand why we don’t have to take things personally. We need to understand that we are dreaming all the time. We create our own story, and we live in the story that we create. But everybody around us does exactly the same thing. They create their own story and they live in their story. Other people think that they know us just as we think that we know them. But this is not true. We really don’t know them, and they really don’t know us.

When somebody talks about you, they are talking about a secondary character in their story who represents you; they are talking about an image they create for you. That image has nothing to do with you; it’s just a projection of that person’s story. If you take it personally, if you agree and believe what others say, their story becomes a part of your story. If you don’t take it personally, the opinions of others do not affect you, and this helps you to avoid a lot of suffering and conflict.

Once you understand that the opinions, the beliefs, and the point of view other people use to see the world has nothing to do with you, then you no longer even try not to take anything personally. This awareness makes you immune to what other people think about you, and what’s more important, it makes you immune to what you think about yourself.