This past week I said a phrase in Portuguese and it wasn’t the proper way of saying the phrase. It was something so silly as using the wrong adjective to describe something and a woman yelled so loud in front of everyone, correcting my Portuguese. Mind you, I didn’t expect her to respond that way and I couldn’t help but laugh. Seeing my response made her realize that she should not have yelled like that, so she apologized out loud and said that she reacted that way because she said the same phrase that I said and someone else yelled at her to never say it that way again. What makes me write this is that I wonder, how many times do we get the most odd responses from people and we take them personally?! How many times do people do things and we wonder what we did wrong and we take it personal?! The truth of the matter is that basically 98% of the time the response and reactions of others have nothing to do with us and all to do with them and it is something that perhaps we did or said that triggered a memory in them.
Indeed life is too short to be taking what others do so personally and it is not healthy for your well-being to take other people’s odd responses to what you do personal. When you do take everything personal, this creates havoc on your self-esteem and self-concept. Just so you know, self-esteem and self-concept are two different things but both go hand in hand when it comes to your relationship with yourself and I will discuss the two on another post. It is in your best interest to just focus on you being your best you regardless of what others may say or think. Now, I would like to clarify that I am not implying that you disregard what others think and feel. This is not what I am saying because it is important to be aware of the way you affect others. However, there are certain things that you just can’t pay mind to because if you do, you will just go crazy and create unnecessary problems within yourself that you do not need. Let me just explain what I mean with this. If I were to take how that woman spoke to me personally, this is what would have happened. She corrected my Portuguese out loud in front of everyone, right, and so if I start to take it personally, I would be embarrassed at the fact that I made a mistake, which then would have made me feel worried and self-conscious about my capacity to speak the language, which would have blocked my mind from thinking in this language, which would have affected my self-concept (meaning how I view myself), which then would have affected my self-esteem and on and on it goes. So you can see how taking what others do and say personally creates a ripple effect that is just no good for your overall health. You, for that matter, WE ALL are much more than our mistakes because we are human beings and as human beings we are entitled to our mistakes. When you try to please others and make others approve of you, you will NEVER be happy and your true essence will not come out. How can your true essence come out when trying to be perfect for others or trying to please others?! It’s impossible because no matter who you are, there will be those who will think whatever they want to think.
The truth is, you never know what other people went through, their experiences, their past, how they were raised, etc. Therefore, when someone reacts to something you do or say in a very odd way when you didn’t do or say anything to offend them, just have some compassion and remember that this has nothing to do with you and all to do with them. Remembering and knowing this fact will spare you from so much mental, emotional and physical ache because everything we think and feel eventually we physically feel it because the mind, body and soul are all connected.
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