How to Stop Taking Things So Personally
In today’s episode, I’m answering a listener’s question on how to stop taking things so personally. This is something a lot of us struggle with, and can lead us to internalise others’ behaviour in ways that damage our self-esteem and exacerbate our suffering.
We’ll cover:
Why you might take things personally
The link between people pleasing and taking things personally
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Sign up for my upcoming masterclass on Building Trust
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
Stephanie Rigg [00:00:04]:
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, which is episode 100, very exciting, we are talking about how to stop taking things so personally. So this is something that I know a lot of people really struggle with. And I think there can be a tendency to be really hard on ourselves and to experience this taking things personally as something that's wrong with us, that we need to change about ourselves. Because that means we are overly weak or fragile or emotional in a way that we perceive as being wrong or in need of changing.
Stephanie Rigg [00:01:05]:
And so I'm going to share some thoughts on taking things personally, why we might do that, what might be the underlying drivers or wounds of that, and offer you some reframes so that you can maybe depersonalise people's behaviour. And depersonalise situations and prevent yourself from participating in that really unhelpful storytelling that so many of us do, where we make ourselves the centre of the universe and suffer as a result. But also some more nuanced shifts that allow you to hold both things to really honour what you're feeling in response to someone's behaviour, while not taking that additional step of adding to your suffering by making it all about you. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements, as I said, celebrating that this is episode 100 of the podcast. This podcast was launched in April of 2022 and has been released weekly with no breaks, I don't think, or maybe a quick break in January this year, but has been very much a labour of love for me each. Week to join with you in having these beautiful, important conversations. And it is a real honour for me to be able to help you on your journeys.
Stephanie Rigg [00:02:23]:
I know there's so many of you on every corner of the planet. When you look at the stats for this show, it really is very wide reaching and I do feel incredibly lucky to be able to do this work. And so, so very grateful for all of your ongoing support in following the show. Subscribing, sharing, listening every week. It is very, very humbling. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for that. A second quick announcement is that I am holding a master class in a week or so. I'm just trying to do the math on when this episode will come out, but I'm holding a master class on building trust, so this is going to cover both self trust and relational trust.
Stephanie Rigg [00:03:12]:
And again, you will have heard me speak about this whole piece around trust on the show in both of those contexts, building up our capacity to be discerning, to know what is right for us and to act in accordance with that, but also to navigate trust wounds in a relational context and rebuilding trust where that trust has been breached or broken. So it's a really important conversation and workshop and it has been a long time coming, but I've finally put it in the calendar, so if you're interested in that, do sign up. It's a live Zoom masterclass and there'll be a recording for anyone who can't join Live, so definitely cheque that out if that is something that interests you. Finally, just to share the featured review for today, which is this review is not only about Stephanie's podcast, but about her Healing anxious attachment programme that I took a couple months back. I was going through a breakup after five years of toxic relationship and if I had to choose one resource to help me at that point, it would be Stephanie's work. I'm in awe of the amount and depth of material this podcast and the programme complement each other so well. But if you can do just one, it won't be long before you notice a tremendous change in mindset and subsequently the quality of your life for the absolute better. I'm forever grateful.
Stephanie Rigg [00:04:27]:
Stephanie, keep up the good work. Thank you so much for your beautiful review. I'm so glad that the podcast and the course has been a great support for you in that time and that you are blossoming into the next chapter as a result. So sending you lots of love. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my masterclasses and you can choose to come along to the building Trust Masterclass Live, rather than having one of the recorded Masterclasses if you so desire. Okay, all of that out of the way. Let's dive into this conversation around how to stop taking things so personally. So, as I said, this is a really common topic of conversation with people in my community, on social media, with clients, with students.
Stephanie Rigg [00:05:12]:
It's definitely a recurring theme, but this particular episode was inspired by a question I got from someone on Instagram saying, how do I not take it so personally that someone ghosted me? And it really made me reflect, because while I think a lot of common advice would be just move on, write it off, don't worry about someone who ghosted you, they don't mean anything. I think in some respects that kind of bypasses the validity and the truth of the feelings, right? We can go straight to the rationalisation process of like, I shouldn't let this person who I don't even know affect me that way. But I think that to adopt that approach, actually, if anything, adds to those emotions, because it's kind of coming in with shame and saying, I shouldn't feel the way I do. And so, as I was reflecting, I thought to do a podcast episode on it, to unpack that a little and to add some nuance, as I foreshadowed in the introduction. And so whether it's Ghosting or whether it's you're in a relationship and you have a tendency to personalise your partner's behaviour, I know that I can still do this from time to time. Certainly that is my muscle memory is to personalise. If my partner is being moody or I perceive him as being impolite or abrasive or short tempered, it's really easy for me to make that about me and to get really indignant and go, how dare you? Don't speak to me like that. And to really fight back, even though his behaviour is really not about me and his emotional state is not about me, it's really easy for me to make it so and for me to tell myself the story that his emotional state or his mood is a personal attack on me.
Stephanie Rigg [00:07:08]:
And this is where the nuance is important, right? Because it's both. We're allowed to feel affected by things, and particularly if you're in a relationship. But frankly, even if you aren't, even if it is someone you're just dating or seeing casually, you are allowed to be affected by things. And it's not helpful to fight against the fact that you may or may not be affected by things emotionally and to just say like, oh, you just let it wash over you, it doesn't matter, it's just not being with reality. So I think that to acknowledge like, yeah, I'm affected by this. Another example that I got recently was someone saying how can I not take so personally when the guy I'm seeing has to work late and has to cancel on our plans? He always makes an effort to reschedule. And I know it's not about me, but I get really hurt and take it personally. And I think that again, it's like you're allowed to feel whatever you're feeling.
Stephanie Rigg [00:08:05]:
But where we can come into a bit of trouble is where we then go, okay, this person had to cancel on me, or this person's in a bad mood, or even this person goes to me or this person rejected me. And we take that and we take the initial feeling of hurt or upset or disappointment and then we go that additional step and we make it a shame story. We go, it's because I am not good enough. It is because I am unworthy. It's because they're taking advantage of me, it's because they don't respect me. And that's where we get into trouble. That's the kind of taking things personally that we really want to watch. Because I think that is where our wounded parts, where the neuroticism in our mind will start to take us down a path that ultimately fuels whatever.
Stephanie Rigg [00:08:56]:
That painful feeling is something that I teach in my breakup course higher love is to really want to actually be with those primary emotions, but try not to make them personalised emotions, try and stay with what I term situational emotions. Like, I'm disappointed, I'm hurt, I'm upset, I'm angry, I'm frustrated with the situation, I have grief towards that, but I'm not going to let that become I'm feeling deeply ashamed and unworthy and making it about me in a really essential, fundamental sense. Because, again, that tends to be where we spiral and where we really internalise other people's behaviour as being about us. And I think that that is really where we struggle. So all of that to say, in this effort to not take things so personally, what we want to look at is what am I making this person's behaviour mean about me? And so for a lot of us, that will be in the vein of Unworthiness, that will be some sort of story that's traceable to Unworthiness. And oftentimes I think that that is coming from the same part that wants to people please or wants to make other people happy all the time, wants to be the peacekeeper, wants to work really hard to make the relationship perfect, wants to be in control all the time. And so to the extent that we don't succeed in that, whether there's a rupture or things don't go the way that we wanted them to, we feel like we've failed. And we then take that sense of failure as a personal failure and as meaning that if I've put all of this work into making you be a certain way towards me or trying to ensure the outcome that I want, that makes me feel good and safe in this relationship.
Stephanie Rigg [00:10:58]:
If that doesn't happen, then not only am I disappointed, but I feel like a failure. And I feel like there must be something wrong with me or I must fall short of the mark for you to be behaving in the way that you're behaving. Because I've put so much effort and energy into trying to control you and us and everything, the conditions surrounding our relationship to deliver the outcome that I wanted. Right? And so when we start to peel back the layers of this taking personally, we see that all of those tentacles that we've spoken about, a lot of control and fear and manipulation and people pleasing and striving and proving, all of those things are lurking underneath the surface. So it's usually not just I'm hurt by your behaviour, it's I'm making that mean that I am not good enough or I have failed in my mission to make you be or act or do what I wanted. And I think that that's really where it can go, to that next level. So rather than just beating yourself up and going, oh, I shouldn't take this so personally, oh, why am I so pathetic for being upset, this upset when they cancelled? Why am I crying? Because they cancelled dinner because they had to work late. What is wrong with me? I think we instead have to turn towards that with a level of curiosity and go, okay, what am I making this mean? What additional stories am I layering on top of the facts of the matter here? And how are those stories contributing to my heightened emotional state in response to this thing? To the extent that feels disproportionate to what's really going on.
Stephanie Rigg [00:12:38]:
And I think that when we can venture down that path of compassionate self inquiry, all of a sudden, it's not adding shame into that. More shame, because often there's already shame, but more resistance, more criticism. I shouldn't be feeling the way I'm feeling. Can you hold whatever it is you're feeling? Ah, I feel really hurt. I feel really let down. I feel really disappointed. I was really looking forward to that, or I was really excited about this person or any number of other things because this shows up in so many different situations. Someone's upset with me and I feel incredibly personally affronted by that because I feel like I made a mistake and that's really uncomfortable for me.
Stephanie Rigg [00:13:22]:
All of these things. When we start to scratch the surface a little, we can see what's actually there and when we can allow what's actually there to be there and try and stay with the primary experience of that rather than going to these secondary and tertiary stories and layers and meaning making, which is really where we hurt ourselves more. That's where we can start to heal these things and start to reframe and reprogram those beliefs and kind of coach ourselves and cheque those stories go, Is that actually true? Is that really what's happening here? Or is that a story I'm telling myself? And what might be another story, what might be another way of interpreting what's going on here? And how can I support myself in this experience to stay kind and loving and centred and to the extent that there is behaviour involved in a situation that really is hurtful that you really don't feel comfortable with or good about. Then again, as I've spoken to so many times on the show, it's not like you have to go down this path of self inquiry and then just make it your problem and never bring anything to the relationship. It's just that I think once we've metabolised our initial emotional responses and we've gone through that process of reflection and regulation, we can sort of sift through what's really there and get to the heart of it. And to the extent that there is something that needs to be brought to a partner to say, hey, yesterday when you said this or didn't do that, I felt really upset or disappointed or hurt. And I'd really appreciate if next time you'd consider or you'd be open to whatever, when you're coming at it with that energy of recognising what your history and your sensitivities might be bringing to the table while also holding firm on self advocacy and clear communication in a way that's not accusatory and attacking and blaming. It's not a raw, unfiltered, highly emotional version of what you're feeling.
Stephanie Rigg [00:15:51]:
That's really how we can make these changes. So it's not like, oh, I've just got to stop taking everything so personally because I'm too sensitive and I'm too emotional and I'm too needy. That's not going to help you or your relationship because all of those feelings are still there, but you're just trying to push against them and internalise them and bottle them up and I promise you they will come back with a vengeance. So rather than that, I think, tending to them and really being with those emotions, holding them and feeling the discomfort of them, but offering yourself, what do I need? Okay, what do I need in this moment? What conversations need to be had with my partner? How could we do things differently next time in a way that we can meet in the middle? I can get what I desire by way of love and support and connection and they can still be their own person. It doesn't have to veer into that realm of control and demand and accusation and blame. This is really the work of secure relating. It's not just making your stuff your sole problem. I think that that's, again, it can be a bit of a pendulum swing.
Stephanie Rigg [00:17:05]:
We go from hurling attacks and blame and hand grenades at each other to starting to do this work, and then we can internalise everything and go, oh, I think it's just me, and I'll spend the rest of my life in self analysis and trying to figure out all the answers without ever having to bother someone. I think, as always, we want to find our way to a healthy middle ground where we can take responsibility for our part. We can go through those processes of self regulation and tending to ourselves first and foremost, but then still feeling like we can. And indeed, sometimes we should still be bringing things to a partner or a person because it doesn't have to be romantic, bringing things to the table and having conversations that allow for all of that to be there, but in a way that is really grounded and honest and open and loving and desiring a mutually beneficial solution. So I hope that that's been a helpful reframe on this whole experience of taking things personally and the tendency to beat ourselves up over that and maybe judge ourselves as being overly sensitive and recognising, that that can just add fuel to the fire, add more tension to your emotional landscape that's already under stress. So I do hope that that has been helpful. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, super grateful. If you can leave a comment on Spotify, leave a review on Apple podcasts or a rating.
Stephanie Rigg [00:18:45]:
Share it with the people in your life. I do appreciate all of you so much. Thank you for 100 episodes of On Attachment, and I'll see you again next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much.
Stephanie Rigg [00:19:16]:
Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again sooner.