Stop Taking Shit Personally

0:00Hi and welcome back to your safe space. I'm currently taking a little season break, but obviously I wasn't going to leave you with nothing to listen to. So while I'm away, I'm bringing back a couple of your safe space episodes that you guys absolutely loved, and low-key are still just as relevant now. So whether you've listened before and needed the reminder or you're hearing this for the first time, I hope you love it. Enjoy the encore episode and I'll be back in your ears very soon. Let's get into it. Welcome back to your safe space, the podcast hosted by me, Adele Marie. Just like the name says, this is your space, to chart, reflect and dive a little deeper into the things that matter. Today we're talking about something all of us can relate to, taking things personally. A text gets left on red, someone's tone feels a bit off, you don't get invited somewhere, and suddenly it feels like rejection. So today we're unpacking why we do that, and more importantly, how do we stop doing that? Let's open up the space.

1:05Hi, happy Monday, happy new week, happy, happy wedding week. To me, I've got my gorgeous friend Madison's wedding this week, and then I've got my cousin's wedding the week after I back to back. I am very much looking forward to it because I'm making a little weekend to it. She's getting married away and it's a far drive from Melbourne, so I thought let's just book some accommodation and it's turned into a little weekend, get away with my partner and another couple that we're friends with. So it's going to be a great weekend. I am also very much looking forward to my cousin's wedding, which is the following week. And I was low key stressed his whole time last year thinking that their wedding dates might clash or their hands dates might clash, and thankfully the planning angels were looking after me and everything has just been week after the week after. So it happened with their hands and now it's happening with their weddings. But my week this week is going to be booked and busy. I've got some exciting things coming up, which I will probably share more maybe come Thursday. I've got an appointment with my plastic surgeon, check up,

2:10low key bit nervous for that one. I'll keep you posted. I'm pre-recording this on Friday, new listening to it on Monday. So we're going into the weekend where we have Valentine's Day and we've also got the community walk on the Sunday. So I'm sure it'll be amazing. And if you are listening to this on Monday and you came to the walk yesterday, thank you. I love you. I'm anticipating that will be it will be great. I really am. So hi hopes. As always, we're going to waste no time today. We're going to get straight into it. That is really what's taking up space for me. I want you to think about what's taking up space for you. If you haven't today, do a little journal dump, grab out your notebook, maybe you're on the train or maybe you're walking or maybe you're on your phone or maybe you're in the gym, maybe you can't journal it out. But today, please promise me one thing. You'll make five minutes to get out your journal and just write down a brain dump, whatever's going on in your life right now. And even write a little gratitude list too. You'll feel so much better after you do that. But I really wanted to do this episode today because on the back of the first week or the first episode back for the year, we were talking about my ins and

3:12outs. And one of the ins and well, one of the outs that I had was to stop taking things personally and not take other things that people do to heart or let it impact me so much. And I feel like this is something everyone experiences at some point in their life or to some degree. You assume something is about you or you take it to heart or it really upsets you. And then maybe later you realize it had nothing to do with you. Sometimes you don't even get to that point of realizing it had nothing to do with you. But taking things personally is a universal experience, very normal, very common. And with social media, there might even be a rise in feeling that way. And what I mean by that is some examples that come to my mind, you know, you match with a guy on hinge and he hasn't replied to you in four or five hours. Immediately you're assuming that they're not into you. 30, 40 years ago, we didn't have hinge. Okay, there's a new way to feel that. Take that personally, feel that rejection. The same thing if you send a voice note to a friend and

4:18they see it or they listen to it and they don't reply for hours. You start replaying everything that you said. You think that something you said was wrong or maybe you know you walk into a birthday or an event and someone seems a bit off with you and you start thinking, oh my god, what have I done? Have I done something to upset them? Did I do something wrong? Or maybe you're just telling a story and someone interrupts you or cuts you off and instantly you're feeling straight away smaller or that you don't matter. And I wanted to do this because I wanted to just deep dive kind of why that happens to us and what to do instead. But I also wanted to mention before I get into it that it is normal. I can't say that clear enough. It is so normal to care what people think. There is a difference between caring and then letting it control you. And it just goes back to being human, to crave connection, to crave for belonging and to want to be a part of something.

5:18So I think naturally when someone cancels plans on you or maybe someone goes to you or someone seems off with you, of course you're going to take it personally. Of course it's going to hurt. Of course that might upset you. That is a normal reaction to something that is hurtful or upsetting. I don't think the issue is ever that we care. I never want you to think that you shouldn't feel uncomfortable emotions. I like all emotions. Not that I like feeling them but I don't think we should scrutinize or criticize a certain emotion even if it feels uncomfortable. I think the issue is not that we care. The issue happens or it can be an issue when we cross that line and we make it mean something bad about ourselves or that we internalize it or that we let another person's behavior then dictate our worth or dictate how we're feeling. And it just goes to show that it is our difference between caring and also connection and I guess outsourcing or having

6:24other people control your emotions or control your moods, replies availability. I also think elephant in the room sometimes people can be mean. Sometimes criticism is just criticism. Sometimes behavior is very fucking inconsiderate. Sometimes someone is hurtful. Sometimes someone is doing the wrong thing and it is not a neutral situation and you should absolutely be upset. I don't ever want you to gaslight yourself into thinking that you have to be, oh nothing matters. I don't care. I'm nothing can get to me. What are the ducks back? I'm just going to forget about it. No, like what I want is for discernment to be able to look at something and think, hmm, is this a pattern or is this behavior actually just poor or is this maybe a one-off moment that I am interpreting through rejection or hurt or panic disappointment? It might be another emotion that you're feeling

7:25or maybe the person is just being a fucking asshole, okay? And then the last point I want to make on this is that caring about what people think or taking things personally is not a flaw. I know that you might feel shame if you are someone who is a bit more sensitive or if you are somebody who takes things to heart, but I believe that those traits are positive and I believe that if you are someone who feels things deeply is more empathetic, is a little bit more sensitive, they're actually quite beautiful traits to have and if anything can then mean that you have deeper connections, it might mean that you are able to experience things on a different level compared to other people. It might also mean that you are more aware and in touch with yourself and in touch with what it is that you need or asking for things in friendships, relationships, things like that. But now that we've

8:25got that stuff out of the way, let's talk about why, why we take things personally. There is research that actually shows that social rejection activates similar areas of our brain where we would feel physical pain. So when something feels like you're being rejected or something feels like you're being excluded or someone has been mean to you or someone has hurt you, your body is reacting. It is not you overreacting or feeling crazy, it is just your nervous system having its response. There is also something called personalization bias. This is basically where we assume or our brain assumes that everything is about us. And I think for me the biggest example I have of this is I often get asked, especially in the gym, Adele, how do I feel more confident and how do I feel like you know not caring what people think about me in the gym and how do I have, how do I get past the nerves that I have to go in there and show up. And I'm always telling people no one actually

9:26cares, no one is thinking about you as much as you are thinking. But we have this thing called personalization bias where we are thinking people are thinking about us who make ourselves the center of our worlds. But in actual fact most of the time people are just busy being in their own world and worrying about themselves. There's also studies that show if you have grown up with some attachment issues, maybe you've been rejected in childhood or you grew up feeling that your love was conditional or like you had to earn it, your brain might be on high alert and acting out that in adulthood. So when something neutral happens, it is looking like almost and feeling like confirmation of that old fear. But the good thing is with that is that that is a learned pattern and anything learned can be unlearned. So again, don't have any shame in listening to this episode.

10:26Please don't make yourself feel bad about it. If you are someone who finds that you might ruminate a lot on what someone said or you might be replaying conversations with people and wondering if you said something that was wrong or maybe you're analyzing their tone, their facial expressions, their word choice to the point that it's interfering with your day. That might be a sign that you know, you're personalizing things more than the situation actually requires. And that is just information. It is just information. So if you could even just think about a time or a moment where you thought something was about you or you took it personally when it didn't need to be taken personally. Just to have that example fresh and front of mind that there are moments and times where you have taken it personally when it didn't need to be taken personally. And I think it has a lot to do with emotional regulation because emotional regulation is basically our ability to I guess manage our emotions and not let our emotions manage us. And the thing is we experience and can't experience so many different emotions

11:36and emotions can happen so quickly whereas sometimes maybe being able to look at things with a more neutral lens or logic can be slower and can take a little bit more time. So I think that can explain why sometimes things can feel so true even before you're able to check if it actually is. And the thing with our feelings sometimes they can override the actual evidence, especially if you are feeling something or someone has done something to you that feels lack rejection or trigger your rejection, triggers embarrassment, triggers insecurity, your brain wants to protect you. And prioritizes that over the facts of the situation or the evidence in the situation even if there's no real proof of you being rejected. It's just you feeling like you are rejected. Your body is

12:39reacting like you are being rejected. And when something like that happens that's why you might feel like you want to crash out or you spiral or things feel really overwhelming. Your brain is just trying to protect you even though that's not the fact of the situation. And I think we really do see this happen in our personal relationships as well when you are with a partner around your friends, around family, people that you care about, you are naturally more emotionally invested because you care about these people. You love these people. The more sensitive you can become to perceive shifts. And I'm not a stranger to this. I think my boyfriend is a very patient man, but even in my relationship sometimes I will take something personally and I'm still unlearning this, but sometimes I will take something personally when it's not personal at all and it might just be my boyfriend being busy or my boyfriend being stressed or my boyfriend having had a hard day at work. It doesn't mean that he doesn't care about me or love me or doesn't want to be with me.

13:39But it can hit the hardest in those relationships and in those dynamics. And I think there is a big difference between intentional hurt and perceived hurt, especially when it comes to romantic relationships because there is a huge difference between someone being mean, being rude, being disrespectful and also just being human. No one is perfect. No one is going to show up 100% of the time perfect in every way, shape or form. And not every miss call, not every distracted moment or every off tone is a sign that there's something deeper meaning going on there. But I think in those relationships that's when we need to be aware, is it a pattern? Is it happening consistently? Are you being dismissed or is it just someone clearly violating your boundaries? That is when it is absolutely intentional hurt, not perceived hurt. And I think

14:42boundaries matter as well. Boundaries are so important when we talk about this, not taking things personally doesn't mean that you were tolerating shitty treatment or poor treatment. Not taking things personally doesn't mean that you're going to allow people to walk alone, you are treated like shit. It just means discernment and asking, is this actually hurtful? Or am I feeling a bit insecure about this right now? Am I feeling a bit hurt about this right now? Am I feeling a little bit disappointed? I think it's okay to feel that primary emotion. I think it's when we attach a story to it in the second part, you know, that don't text me back. And it's because they don't love me or I'm not enough or they cancel plans on me because they don't care about me or you know, I'm not worthy of love. It's normal to want to be upset if someone cancels plans on you. It's normal to be upset if someone goes to you. I think knowing the difference can be really helpful. And I guess

15:44the goal with this episode and why I wanted to do it is because the goal is not to become unbothered by everything. It's to respond proportionally. It's to choose a way that you can respond that on as how you're actually feeling. And if anything makes your experience a little bit better. So, how to actually stop this? It does take a lot of emotional awareness. It does take a lot of looking inward, but that's okay. We love that here. We love our personal development. We love becoming self-aware humans. The first tip is to just take a moment to pause before you react. Now, you might be a feisty person. You might be a little hot headed. You might be someone who acts before you think that's okay. But there is so much power in taking a moment before you respond, before you react, before you do something. I know that there are especially certain emotions

16:44that might be more uncomfortable than others. You might have the urge to reply. You might have the urge to withdraw. You might have the urge to shut down. That's okay. That's the emotion talking. But asking yourself, what are you feeling before responding? Are you feeling hurt? Are you feeling angry? Are you feeling embarrassed? And remembering that your feelings are not always a crystal clear view of the interpretations of the world around you. And just with a little bit of distance and space for yourself, you can catch yourself before you act on anything. So having that moment just to take a breath, even if it's 10 seconds, and just pause and asking, what am I feeling right now? Then, what I want you to do is check for evidence. Look for the facts. Ask yourself what actually happened here. Ask yourself, am I adding any story to this? Am I feeling in any blanks?

17:54What are the facts here? What is the evidence here? Was there clear disrespect? Or am I building out of story? And I think it's not that, like I said, I don't want anyone to feel like you have to gaslight yourself. But instead of jumping to the most personal kind of view and lens of it, trying to look for a neutral one, if that is possible, if that is helpful in the situation. And I think reminding yourself, maybe that people are busy. People are stressed. People have a lot on their plate. People are distracted. Most behavior is actually about the other person's internal world, not a reflection of your worth or who you are. And I think I gave you some examples at the beginning. The guy that you match with on hinge has a reply in three hours. Instead of thinking that they're not into you, you remind yourself that people have jobs. People have friends. People

18:56have lives. Three hours is not rejection. And you put your phone down, you carry on, and you enjoy your day without spiraling. Maybe it's the friend that you sent a voice note to. They saw and didn't reply for hours. So you know that if there was an issue, you trust your friend and you know that your friend would come to you and talk to you about it. You don't rewrite the entire friendship in your head over a delayed response. The same that if you walk into a birthday and you feel like someone's energy is off. You remember that everyone is bringing their own mood into the room and you're just staying warm. You're staying normal. You're staying like you. It is obviously a skill, something that you build on like a muscle that you can exercise. And I think that's another thing to be patient in the process of unlearning and re-learning, especially if you have been someone who tends to take things more personally or default to that muscle memory, right? So we're trying rewire and challenge that and start that self-regulation. As I said, it's a skill. It is learning to

20:03sit with any kind of uncomfortable feelings that may come up without immediately responding. And it is also learning to separate the emotions that you feel from your identity. Just because you feel rejected doesn't mean that you are rejected. You might be feeling rejected because of someone's actions, but you are still loved and you are still worthy and you are not rejected in many other ways or other evidence or examples that you could search and look for. The more you practice kind of pausing and questioning your first interpretation of it, the stronger that that muscle gets. Okay, so here is something practical that you can use the next time that you feel this way or that you feel hurt, upset, rejected, embarrassed, angry. When you feel that sting, if a friend has pulled away or you haven't had a reply from the person you match with

21:03on a dating app or someone's canceled a date on you last minute, before you respond, before you react, before you pull away, before you say that it's because you're unworthy or that you're unlovable or that they hate you or that they don't care about you. Ask yourself three things, write this down. Ask yourself what actually happened. Keep it to the facts. Here, lay it out with what actually happened. Evidence. Facts. Cold, hard facts. Number two, what am I making this mean about me? What story are you telling yourself? What is the thing that you repeat in your head to yourself? Is it that you're not enough? Is it that you're not chosen? Is it that you're not respected? Is it that you're not valued? Is it that you're not worthy of love? Is it that, of course, it depends on exactly what's happened, but whatever story it is that you're making it mean about you, write that down. And then write down the third thing is there another possible explanation. Not even aiming for

22:08a positive thing aimed for neutral. Like I said before, keeping it balanced, keeping it neutral, you don't have to swing all the other way and over-correct, but keeping it neutral and seeing, can you look at it from a different lens? Can you look at it from a different view? And reminding yourself that having that pause and taking that moment for yourself actually stops the pattern and stops your brain from spiraling or stops you from crashing out or stops you from running with that story and having that drive you instead of you being the one in control. I also wanted to chat a little bit about ego because sometimes taking things personally isn't just about feeling our emotions or feeling insecurity or feeling other things, it can be our ego. And I think the best way to challenge the ego is to stay humble and fight against assuming that you are the center of other people's worlds, that you are the center of their mood, that their mood must be about us,

23:16their silence must be about us, their destruction must be about us. Most of the time it's actually not. People are usually thinking about themselves. People are worried about their own stress, their own lives, their own deadlines, their own insecurities, their own little world. And I think it's important to remember that you can be the main character in your story, but we're not the main character in other people's stories. And I'm not sitting here saying that you can't be the main character in your world or in your story. I'm just saying try not to think that you're the main character in other people's worlds or in other people's stories. There is also a layer of control when it comes to taking things personally. And sometimes having personalization or experiencing things and taking them personally can be disguised as maintaining control in a situation. I'll give you an example, you know, if I'm perfect enough or if I'm good enough or if I'm chill enough or if I'm

24:18whatever, then everything will be fine. Nothing will go wrong. So then when something does go wrong, someone cancels or someone pulls away or someone seems distant or someone says something, we think, wait, what did I do? What did I miss? What is it that I've done? How did I fail? How did I let this person down? Because in a way, in a weird way, it's like if it's our fault, we're still in control. If it's something that I've done, I'm still in control. But that can be really exhausting, really harmful, not helpful at all. And it's important to remember that you are not responsible for managing everyone else's moods, choices or emotional capacity or how they perceive you or how they respond to you. Sometimes things absolutely just happen because humans are humans, not because you deserved it, not because you slipped out, not because you didn't act a certain way. And it's important to, again, start to challenge that and push back with that so that you can rewire and

25:20change that pattern. And I think one of the things and one of the best and most favorite things I've learned in therapy is that I obviously want to show up as like a healthy, secure version of me. And healthy, secure people, it's not that they don't feel, not that they don't feel hurt, they do feel hurt, but they don't turn it into a story about them or something that means something bad about them. They think that hurt, not I'm unlovable or someone cancels plans, that's a bit rude, but it doesn't have anything to do with me. They think that's disappointing, not I'm not enough. And I think that's where it's important to watch. If you are someone who does take things personally to pay attention to if you are able to have a situation happen, but then are you being compassionate to yourself or are you starting to attack yourself? Are you

26:21being critical of yourself? Are you talking to yourself negatively in that moment? Again, if you are someone who defaults to that, start to challenge it, start to push back against it. And the antidote to being self-critical and hypercritical is compassion and being self-compassionate and talking to yourself kinder and talking to yourself in a way that you would talk to your best friend or your sister or your mom or somebody that you love, your kind, your gentle, your caring, speaking to yourself that way as well so that you can build that muscle and slowly start to rewire it too. So I am going to, I think I've riddled everything that I wanted to say off today. And I think if you take, which is one lesson or one thing from today, it's that sometimes some people can still be asked holes, but not every feeling needs to mean something bad about you or not every emotion needs to be something negative about who you are or your identity as a person. Just because some things

27:23might feel personal does not mean it is, does not mean it is something that you should take to heart or let impact you or ruin your day. If anything, I think it is a little way that we can be grateful for our brains who are trying to protect us, trying to keep us safe, trying to, you know, it warns us, we notice a shift in someone's energy, we notice a shift in their facial expression, we notice a shift in their energy, belonging has always mattered in our brains and just trying to keep us in that mode and keep us protected and keep us feeling part of something, community connected. But that's why it's so important to remember most of the time, people are not secretly analyzing you or trying to be hopeful or trying to be bad people, they might just be busy, they might be overwhelmed. And like I said, everyone is the main character in their own world. So remembering that at the same time and the best thing to do or what I have been doing and

28:25this has been, you know, working progress for me for a long time since I recognize started therapy when I was like 28, 27, 28, I'm 32 now. When you're feeling that way, when you're feeling triggered, when you're feeling like you want to take something personally, asking yourself, is this fact or is this whatever it is emotion talking and you will get better at it? The more you work that muscle, the more you train that muscle, the stronger it will get. All right guys, I am back as well, this year with the recommendations for the week. And I've got a very specific recommendation today. It is a Melbourne small business. She is a makeup artist, Danny Fisher, who bless, she's an angel on earth. She actually, she's done my makeup today at the moment. She did my makeup this morning because I had to shoot some things and I've got Valentine's Day dinner tonight. But she is a Melbourne base makeup artist who reached out to me probably about two or three weeks ago and I gave her a shot and I really love her. So I'm going to link her in the show notes because as someone who has a

29:28lot of friends that owns more businesses, as someone who works for herself, as someone who owns this podcast that knows word of mouth is the most powerful way to, you know, get your business out there or build customer, build customer, build customers, build up your own community. I understand how helpful that is and she was so sweet and every time I see her, it's just great. We yap the whole time and she does a beautiful job. My makeup looks flawless. So if you have a look at my Valentine's Day outfit, just know I did the hair, Danny did the face and she also did my makeup for Madison's hands, which was I think two weeks ago now. So yeah, she's done my makeup twice. So super, super, super happy with her. If you need her, she does like events, but I think she actually does a lot of bridal more like brides glam. I think she does everything. So yeah, highly, highly recommend her. But I'm going to love you and leave you here guys because I've got to get out of the studio and get myself home and get into my outfit again because I don't want to be late for dinner with my boyfriend. But I hope you had a beautiful Valentine's day.

30:32I hope that you felt the love even if you are single, even if you are someone that doesn't really care about about Valentine's Day. I hope that you still felt love for yourself. All right, guys, I love you. Be safe. I will see you and be in your ears, be on your screens, be in your car audio, in your headphones on Thursday. And make sure, please, you head to the show notes because we have a new link for the your safe space submissions. I really like the format and I really like what I've done this year. So jump in there. Have a look. You might feel inspired. You might feel like, oh, I want to write something to Adele. I can't wait to read them. All right, bye, guys. As an independent podcast, your safe space grows through word of mouth. So if you enjoyed this episode today, the best way to support me is by leaving a five star review on Spotify or Apple podcasts or simply sharing the episode with someone you love. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time. This podcast was recorded on Rurundri land. Always was always will be

31:36Aboriginal land. And that's it for today's encore. I hope you loved revisiting this one or if you're new here, I hope you're now deep in the your safe space archives because there are so many good episodes waiting for you. I'm still on my break, but I'll be back soon with brand new episodes and lots to catch up on. Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting the pod and I'll see you guys very soon.