HealthyGamerGG - You Need To Stop Taking Things Personally

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

In this video we explore the advantages of not taking things personally and why it's a crucial skill in today's world. Check out our website for more resources: https://bit.ly/3xsk6fE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, I want to talk to you all about how to stop taking things personally. So as we go through life, oftentimes people will tell us things that we don't want to hear, and we take it incredibly personally. They'll say things like, oh, bro, like, don't take it so personally, man, like it's not really you. Or if we're going through a breakup, like, oh, my God, it's not you, it's me. And it's infuriating. And when I work with my patients, one of the most important things that has transformed their lives is to teach them how to stop taking things personally.

When you take things personally, it creates bad feelings and bad outcomes. And if we can learn how to stop taking things personally, which ironically means accepting responsibility, those two are at opposite ends of the spectrum, as I hope to show you, what will discover is that it will help you feel better and do better. Now, I was even debating making this video, and I talked to about my team, because I think while this concept is so transformational,

it is also really, really hard to explain. So when I work with my patients, it's like at some point they get this light bulb that goes off above their head, like a switch flips in their mind, and then suddenly they get it, and it's really awesome. But it's really hard for me to try to explain this. So I think it's really stressing my abilities as a teacher. So please try to stay with me. Please try to get what I'm saying because I think it'll really help a lot. And if that doesn't work out, remember, it's not you, it's me.

So let's start by actually looking at narcissism, which if we really stop and think about it for a second, taking things personally is a feature of narcissism, right? So I want you all to think about the people in your life that you know who are narcissistic. Thankfully, one of the interesting positive sides for the skyrocketing rate of narcissism that we see due to things like the internet is now at least everyone has seen a narcissist. And maybe you are a little bit narcissistic. It's what the internet and social media is doing to us. We all watch videos on the internet because we want to change.

The problem is that even though we keep watching them, we don't necessarily change. I want to talk to you all about our coaching program. And if you're not interested, just jump forward 20 seconds and get straight to the video. But if you're someone who is ready to actually make change, if you want to see outcomes in six, eight, 12 weeks, if you guys are struggling with problems like career stuff, burnout stuff, social skills, low self-esteem, if you're trying to struggle to motivate yourself to actually act, that's what we built a coaching program for. Check out the link in the description below to see how

coaching can help you. And now on to the video. So here's a narcissist. I guess they are green. And what happens is let's say that you are over here and you say to the narcissist, hey, I don't like this thing that you do. Right. So let's say that you have a narcissist who always shows up drunk. They're drinking all the time. This is a bottle of beer. It looks like lipstick. Look, y'all don't watch me for the art, okay? So let's say they always show up drunk and you tell the narcissistic person, hey, I don't like this thing that you are doing. And how does the narcissistic person respond? The narcissistic person is like, oh my God, I don't know what I can do to make you happy.

I've tried everything. I do everything. They take it so personally, right? They're like, I've tried everything. I don't know how to make you happy. Like, this is a relationship that I can't win in. They play the victim card. And instead of focusing on this problem over here, they take things personally.

This is a defect of them as a person. And if it becomes a defect of them as a person, they don't actually fix this, right? That's like what happens with the narcissistic defense mechanism, is that they start playing the victim and then they never actually have to create their behavior. They start saying all this crap. They make you feel guilty. And they like, they never actually change because they don't understand that the problem is over here. And instead, you know, they sort of make the problem over here. And this is exactly the problem with taking things personally.

Now let's flip things around. So let's say that you are going through a breakup with someone. And the person says, it's not you. It's me. And if they say the problem isn't you, it's me. And you take that personally. Where do you think the problem is? The problem is over here, right?

And you're like, oh, my God, like, what did I do wrong? Like, I knew I'm pathetic. I know that you're seeing someone else, like whatever kinds of negative thoughts happen. but you internalize the problem. That's what it means to take something personally. Now, this creates a huge problem because sometimes you're actually right, and there is a problem within you. But even in this case, you don't know what that problem is, right?

Because they're not saying, this is the reason I'm breaking up with you, that there's an external reason over here. They're actually saying that the problem is not you at all. So even in the event that the problem does lie with you, you still don't know what it is, and you can't really take corrective action. there's another devastating possibility, which is that this person is actually being honest, that they are going through some stuff in their life right now where they're not ready for a

relationship. There really is nothing wrong with you. And then what happens is you feel bad. And the other problem is that there is no corrective action to take. See, if you're dating someone and they no longer want to be with you because of shit that they're going through, there's nothing you can do to actually fix that. So there's no corrective action. so there's no improvement that you can make, but you feel bad,

and then you will further rack your brain, thinking, what is wrong, what is wrong, what is wrong, what do I need to fix, what do I need to fix? What do I need to fix? What do I need to fix? And this, in turn, leads to low self-esteem, which in turn leads to more narcissistic defense mechanisms, right? There's not actually anything to fix because the problem isn't within you, but the moment that you take it personally, you beat yourself up, the problem is you, you don't really know what to fix, and this becomes a huge problem. So, what is the alternative? So this is what I work with with my patients,

which is what we actually want to do is accept the appropriate responsibility. Let's say that I go for an interview at Google, and there is some kind of leit code interview. Okay, so the skill is leit code. And then here is some prospective employer. I go to the interview and they say, sorry, you don't get the job.

Now, in this situation, I have two choices. I can take things personally. Oh, my God, I knew I wasn't. cut out for this. I really suck at this. Like, oh my God, like, you take it personally, right? The defect is within you. It is a part of your identity. It is an identity defect. And this is exactly how narcissists feel, by the way, right? So they feel like there isn't, oh, no, it's not, you just don't like me. It's not that you don't like how I always steal your shit, or I'm always drunk, or I have no compassion for you, or I don't listen to what you say,

or how I prioritize all my needs above yours. It's none of that stuff. You just dislike me. I can't win, right? Because what they see is they see the problem is over here. And I want you all to think about this. If you were a shitty human, what is the solution to that? If the problem is in your identity,

you cannot change your identity. It is not actionable information. So interestingly enough, if you go through an interview and you don't get hired, and some people will take this personally, the defect is in here, but this is not actionable. So when I work with my patients, what I try to help them do is see what the actual defect is. What we actually want to do is externalize the problem from ourselves. When we externalize the problem from ourselves, we open ourselves up to accepting responsibility.

And we also create a path of action. the reason I didn't get hired is not because I am a screwed up human being. The reason I did not get hired, I know this is shocking, is because there is a insufficiency of the skills that I presented. And I want you all to think about that, right? That's literally what not taking things personally is. It is not the problem isn't me. It is there's this thing that I need to work on. Even in the case of a breakup, right, if someone says I need someone who's more emotionally available.

And if you're not careful, you will take. take that personally. And you'll be like, oh my God, how am I ever, like, there's nothing I can do about that. This is who I am. Right. This is who I am. It's deterministic. It's fatalistic. And it's exactly how narcissists talk. They never actually address their problems, which is why, so going back to the narcissist, right, if I have a problem behavior over here, right, like drinking, and someone says, this is the problem. But the narcissist places the blame over here. They take things personally. Then what that means is they never actually correct this. This continues again and again and again the behavior continues forever so the more that they take things

personally the less they actually fix things in their life which propagates the cycle and is what creates the life of a narcissist which is that no one ever likes me i don't know what i can do differently i've tried so hard everyone hates me and then they ignore their behaviors over and over and over again so now what we can do with something super cool we can use the blindness of a narcissism, to shed light on our own lives. And when we take things personally, we are literally doing the same thing. Here is you and here is your behavior. And if you see the problem over here, instead of see the problem over here, because we as human beings are not good at seeing problems in two places, we tend to look at just one problem, right? Oh yeah, it's not you. It's me. Or I'm the

problem in the relationship or you're the problem in the relationship. Shared responsibility is scary and way more complicated. So what this does is when we see things over here, we do not see what is in here, and then we can't take corrective action. So instead, what we want to do, and this is what's revolutionary for my patience, is when I help them see that, you are actually totally fine as human being. It is this behavior that you need to change. And what I tend to find with my patience is when they start to realize this, not only do they feel better, right, because now I'm not a POS over here, and they can take corrective action. And this is what taking responsibility means. So you can take corrective action,

And then as these problems start getting better, their relationships start improving, their performance starts improving, everything gets better. And they feel better because they don't feel like a POS because they recognize that the problem is outside of myself. If the problem is outside of myself, there is a clearer way to fix it. So how do we go about doing that? So literally, what I want you all to do is to any time you take something personally. I want you to try to remove yourself from the equation. So try to practice a little bit of empathy. Put yourself in the other person's shoes and ask yourself, what do they actually see?

What is the behavior? What are the words? What is the visible expression? It is not identity, right? Because they have no sense of who your identity is. Like, that's not a thing that they can see. There are going to be certain things that you are doing, saying, certain ways that you're acting, that the other person is going to perceive. So the first thing that you need to do is look through the eyes.

of the other person, which, by the way, is the exact deficit that narcissists have, right? So even if we look at evidence-based treatment for narcissism, one of the treatments is something called mentalization-based therapy. And in mentalization-based therapy, literally what we're training these people to do is see things through other people's eyes. So ask yourself if you get something that makes you feel bad and you're taking it personally, you feel like a POS. Look at the other person's perspective and ask what are they seeing. Now, the other thing that you can do is literally ask them. What are you seeing? seeing that I'm doing. What are the behaviors that bother you? What are the words that bother you?

Like, help me understand. So what we want to do is try to externalize our perception and look at ourselves or look at what they see. The next thing that we want to do is try to focus on when you say I am a POS and you take things personally. That is going to result in, once again, certain manifestations. So what are the manifestations? Is it that I don't text people back fast enough? Is it that What are the manifestations of being a POS? And as you examine the manifestations, you are going to start to discover things over here. And then comes the most important step is once you start to isolate these things. And this is a beautiful thing.

They don't even need to be right. Right? So a lot of my patients will get hung up. What if I'm wrong about this? Right? What if I'm wrong about, let's say, this person says I'm not invested in the friendship? And I ask them, okay, what does this person see? Well, they text me and I don't text them back.

And then my patients will ask, well, what if I'm wrong? What if that's the wrong thing and that's not really the problem that is in the relationship? This is where I say, I don't care. What do you, how do you feel about texting people back more frequently? Like, do you think that would improve your life in some way? Do you think that that could help? It may help your other relationships as well. So as you take this, as you take this approach, you're going to start to isolate these kinds of things.

And then you're going to start working on them. This is what we mean by accepting responsibility. You're going to start to fix those actions. And the beautiful thing is as you start to fix those actions, You separate things from your ego. As you separate things from your ego and you start to take the right action, you remove bad feelings and bad outcomes. And if you stop and really think about it, right, so we're going to end by talking about the narcissists. What is it that the narcissist never does?

They never change their fucking behavior. They never change what they say. They keep on insisting that the problem is within them. But the whole reason that it's so infuriating is because they do not focus on the things that are outside of them. And so if you want to take things less personally, it will help you so much. Practice a little bit of empathy. Look at what other people are seeing. And you don't get to answer with they're seeing a loser.

That is not something you can see, right? Even in the case of a loser, what is a loser? Maybe it's someone who's overweight. Maybe it's someone who doesn't wear properly fitting clothing. Maybe it's someone who doesn't groom themselves properly. Boom. Action item number one, action item number two, action item number three. So literally look at things through other people's eyes.

Look at things, look at the manifestations of what you feel makes you take things personally. And then focus on those things. It'll improve your life and it'll prove the way that you feel. Last thing is that there are a couple of other things involved with this, things like ego and stuff like that. We have other sources that we talk about the relationship of what activates the ego, because taking things personally is a narcissistic defense mechanism. There's certain meditation techniques and things like that. Check out our videos on ego.

We actually have a resource pack that's all about ego and confidence. And then we also have things in stuff like Dr. Kay's guide to meditation, the trauma guide. And then the last thing that is very, very helpful is when we have trouble seeing things the way that they are, this is really what our coaching program excels at. So the reason that their outcomes are so good is because they're very good at being an external lens for you. So if you're having trouble putting yourself in someone else's shoes or seeing what they see, that's exactly what a coach is for. They're there to look at things from the outside and share that information with you in an actionable way. So depending on what y'all are interested, check out more stuff. Thanks for making it to the end of the video and let us know if this actually makes sense to you or not.

So is it you or is it me or does it work out or let us know?