Episode #138

Don’t Take It Personally!

People can sometimes hurt your feelings.

But how can you know if it was you taking something personally that wasn’t meant that way at all?

How can you manage these feelings when they rise up?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I share with you some simple CBT suggestions for not taking things personally.

Click to listen now!

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie from My CBT podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So thanks for being here. I always appreciate you guys listening, and I hope you're all doing well. I do want to take a moment to just shout out that I have been having so much fun watching the Olympics. Actually, my shout out is to the Olympians. I don't know if anybody listens to me, the Olympians. But if you do, I just love, of all the countries, just watching this drive and this determination and just feeling the joy with them when they do well and they win a medal and the camaraderie they've shown. It's just been a super fun Olympics. I don't know if you guys have been watching as well, but I've been staying up way too late and not getting all my work done because I'm like, Just one more event, just one more event. Anyways, it's just been Really hard warming. There's so much stress I know going on in the world, and the news is negative, and I try to stay away from that.

It's just been nice to watch something I find so positive and uplifting on a daily basis. I just want to share that with you guys. So if you are watching, I hope you're enjoying, too, and getting something out of it. Just taking it one step at a time, starting over when you have to. It's not about being perfect, but being good enough. And just thinking about everything they've gone through. Just hearing their stories, that's the other part. Just hearing the stories and where they've come from and what they've had to overcome to get to where they are and being the best is just joyful and really invigorates just my soul to do the things that maybe I've been putting off to do. So I just wanted to share that with you. It's been my happy place in the last couple of weeks, and I know I got one more left. So there's just a lot we can take from watching people overcome obstacles, right? And really be able to celebrate their joy with them. Just makes me smile. So I wanted to share with you guys a really great email I got, and I'm sharing it because it relates to the podcast for today.

But it's just a question I've had a lot of people ask me about in therapy. So I thought, well, I'm just going to share this one, and hopefully you might find it helpful as well.

So this is from Crystal. So she says,

“Dear Dr. Julie Osborn,

Hello. I love listening to your podcast every day. I exercise regularly now because I listen to you. So that's wonderful. My question is, how do you go to social gatherings with people and not have to drink alcohol. I'm 50 years old and I still feel peer pressure in social gatherings. How pathetic I know. I really don't like the way I feel when I drink at all, but people think I'm not having a good time if I don't, and I usually end up drinking, so I'm not asked again. It makes me feel so helpless. Then I don't want to go to social gatherings. My husband does like to be social. Any tips on what I could say? Thank you for your time and wisdom. I admire your work so much.”

Sincerely, Crystal”

So thanks, Crystal, for that. I responded to her already, but I just wanted to share with you, again, because this comes up a lot, a lot of this peer pressure to drink.

So a few thoughts I have about that is my first one, as I always tell people, is people that are drinking, like people to be drinking with them. And this hot thought that they put on you, that you're not having fun unless you're drinking, is a hot thought. Lots of people don't drink and have a great time whatever they do, wherever they go. And drinking doesn't have to be part of the fun. But they feel this pressure and they don't feel confident enough to say, No, I'm good. I don't drink. I'm having a great time. Thanks anyways. So that's one thing you can say. I've told some clients, we've come up with saying just that, thanks, I'm focusing on my health right now and I'm not drinking. If you really need to and you don't feel confident enough to speak up, I just say, get a glass of water, put some lemon in it in a straw and tell people you're good, and they'll think you have a little something that you're drinking. Or just go get just some drink to have in your hand, soda or ice tea or whatever you want to drink, and just tell people like, Oh, I'm good.

I got something. Thank you. Thank you anyway. So I hate for it to hold you back from going out and doing things and not letting other people project their... Maybe if it's their insecurity or them being uncomfortable. I think sometimes when people know that they drink too much, that then they end up projecting that onto you like, Oh, you need to have a drink. You need to have a drink. Because then in their mind, it's okay that I'm drinking so much. It could be a lot of different things. I know I'm making assumptions on what other people think. But to be honest with you, if you're honest with yourself and if you honor yourself and just say, No, thanks, I'm not drinking tonight, people tend to leave you alone. You don't have to be uncomfortable. But the more consistent you are with speaking up or saying, No, thanks, I don't drink. You don't drink. Why don't you drink? I have my days and I'm over it and I'm not interested anymore or it doesn't make me feel good, or whatever reason you give. It's not that you have to be completely honest with these people that are putting pressure on you, whatever you want to say, but don't give in and drink because then you're really giving into other people's peer pressure and you're not honoring yourself.

So your hot thought could be that, If I don't get a drink, they're going to keep bugging me. They'll judge me. They won't like me. Those are just a few that come to my head that I could imagine could be going through your head. Those are all hot thoughts. And again, you don't want to ever make a decision based on how you feel or how you think other people feel, but what is best for me. It could come down to a lot of things. I know a lot of people try to eat healthy. A lot of people are on diet, want to lose weight. People push the dessert. Oh, come on, just have one cookie, it won't kill you. And you got to really be ready to know what to say. So that's where I talk about having an action plan, which is a CBT tool, which I love, which is thinking about before you go into a situation. So if you know it's going a lot of food and there's certain things you're not going to eat, right? You're going to stick to your diet, say, or a lot of drinking is going to go on like we're talking about.

Come up with what you're going to say before you get there. I always say hope is not a plan. Don't hope no one will bother you. Don't hope no one will push you to have a drink. Decide, what am I going to say? That's what I do with my clients. Let's come up with, what are you going to say if someone's pushing you to drink or with the food? Or if your family event and your aunt is, Come on, honey, eat a little more, eat a little more. There's some more macaroni salad or whatever it might be. And you're like, That's just really not on my diet right now. I'm trying to be healthy. Whatever it is you want to say and be a broken record. A broken record is a tool where you literally repeat the same thing over and over again, just like a broken record, right? You don't have to explain yourself. You're not saying something in a language they don't understand. You say no means no means no. So come on, eat a little more. No, thank you. I'm on a diet. No, thank you. I'm trying to be healthy. I'm watching what I'm eating.

No, thank you. Thank you. But I'm trying to be healthy and watch what I'm eating. You literally say the same thing. And let me tell you, when you do the broken record and you do it over and over again, no matter how many times they push, they will eventually stop. But as soon as you start trying to explain yourself differently, you've lost the conversation. I tell parents, when they say no to their kids, no is no. You can give them the reason the first time, but as soon as you try to explain the no, you've lost the conversation. And then it goes on and on, and then that's where people give in or they feel manipulated, and they're like, Okay, whatever. So the broken record is a really good tool that's part of being assertive. But I think having a plan ahead of time and knowing what you're going to say, what you're going to do, what's your action going to really decreases any anxiety you have, and it's a way to honor yourself and setting healthy boundaries with other people. So if you're like my listener and you're not going to places because you're worried about people asking you things.

Use your tools. Identify what your hot thoughts are. Do a thought record and look for the evidence that supports it. It doesn't support it. Come up with your action plan. What am I going to say when someone's pushing a drink on me? What What am I going to say when someone's pushing dessert on me? And then just walk away. And my listener happens to be married. So if you are, do you have a partner with you or you're going out with a friend? Or if you have somebody, just talk to them about it before and say, I'm feeling a little bit of pressure. This is what I'm going to say. I could use your support if the person keeps saying something to me. Sure, they'll be like, Sure, no problem. Let's have a plan so we don't have to worry about us. We can go out and have fun. The point is being out, having fun, being social, you guys doing things, getting of the house, connecting with other people, enjoying your life. You deserve that. Don't let other people get in the way. Which takes us to my podcast for today, which is not taking things personal.

So I found a great acronym, or not found, I heard a great acronym of a client of mine. We were talking and she's like, Oh, yeah, I have my Q-Tip up here on my computer. I look at it and I'm like, Well, what's that for? And she says, Oh, Q-Tip, quit taking it personal. And I'm like, I love that. I've never heard of that. Nobody shared that with me. I've never heard that before. So I'm getting a Q-Tip out now and I'm putting it by my computer. So it's just a reminder to quit taking it personal, what other people say or do towards you, about you, how they act around you. We all take it personal, and it can really mess with our heads. And we need to be aware when we're doing this so we can change it. So if you do personalize something, it means you're taking responsibility for events outside of your control and/or you're interpreting external events as being directly related to when they're not. It can lead to feeling guilty, shame, and adequate. For an example, say you have a friend who cancels plans, you could personalize a situation by thinking, They must not like me, rather considering that they might have other reasons for canceling.

If they don't give you, Hey, I can't make it, and they don't give you a reason at that time, you could be thinking that. That makes you feel bad when you're making assumptions, you have no idea what's going on. We want to be able to first identify like, Oh, yeah, you know what? I'm personalizing this, and how can I use this with my CBT tools? Again, the first step is to identify that that's what's going on and to recognize when you're personalizing a situation. You want to pay attention to your thoughts. Obviously, notice if you are feeling those moods I mentioned, feeling guilt, shame, inadequate, or other thoughts, to say, Okay, what am I thinking? I'm thinking this is about me. And notice when you're taking responsibility when it's really not about you and you haven't done anything. So that's your first step as always. We notice our moods first. Why am I feeling guilty? Because this person canceled on me, right? Or shame, like there's something wrong with me. I'm not good enough. Versus like, Okay, let me find out why they canceled, or whatever reason they gave me, I'm going to believe them and not think like they're lying and then personalize it towards myself.

So that's your first step. Am I personalizing the situation? And then, as always, we want to examine the evidence, right? So once you identify whatever your how thought is, look for the evidence for and against it. What evidence do I have that the situation about me? Are there any other explanations for this event? I'm going to find out if I'm not... This is hopefully a good friend, say. This is someone I've done things with before. This is someone that really pursued to hang out with me. So what's going on that they canceled it if they haven't given me a specific reason? And again, even if they do, I've had a lot of clients, but, Yeah, well, they said it was this way, but I don't really believe them. I don't really know where you can go with that. If If you're going to choose not to believe them, that's on you. If it sounds like a weird excuse, it's still about them. Whatever the situation is, it's not worth personalizing. And you want to really look at the evidence to help you balance that out and see that even though maybe I feel uncomfortable or I'm thinking this is about me, I don't have enough evidence to know that.

I don't have enough clarity on why they cancel because they didn't give me enough reasons. I haven't had a chance to talk to them. The reason they give me, even if I think it's lame, it might be their reason. There might be something going on I don't even know about. They're not willing to share with me. So there's lots of evidence to show that it's not about you. So that's where you can use that. So we're identifying our half thought. We're really doing a thaw record here, right, you guys? And then we're examining the evidence, and then we're challenging the thaw, which I just did, right? Because after you get your evidence, you want to challenge the validity of your personalizing what's going on, and look at alternative explanations that don't involve you taking unnecessary responsibility. Then we reframe our thought, right? That's the balanced thought or the alternative thought. The balanced thought is where we're looking at what evidence may come up that supports my hot thought and doesn't support it. And my alternative thought is looking at all the evidence and coming up with a new thought that. The new thought might be that, although I'm unsure really why they canceled.

I'm going to talk to them more when I get a chance, but I'm not going to take it personal right now. That's your alternative thought. And that allows you to go on and move forward, and maybe respond saying, Sorry, we can't meet up. Let's talk soon. Let's see if we can reschedule. So that's you taking responsibility for how you're handling it, but not taking responsibility for why they canceled on you, if that's the example, and now personalizing it. Another one, which I know I've talked about in other podcasts regarding personalizing other behavior is, say you work in an office and your friend walks by you, you say, Hey, good morning, Sue, and Sue doesn't even respond. And you start thinking, Well, she's rude. I'm not talking to her again. I thought we were friends. What's her problem? Oh, my God. Is she upset with me? Did I do something wrong? There's the hundreds of hot thoughts going through your mind, right, in a split second. Thirty minutes later, Sue comes up to me and is like, Oh, my God, Julie, I think you were talking to me earlier. I just had a horrible car accident on the way in.

My head's spinning. I had to call my insurance company. I'm so upset. I'm just like, I can't afford my deductible. I don't know what I'm going to do. And now what are my thoughts? Oh, my gosh. So glad she's okay. I understand she didn't hear me. What can I do to help? Are you okay? Do you need a ride home? Does your car still run? What happened? I'm going to sit with her and make sure she's okay and see if I can help her make any phone calls or do whatever she needs to take care of the situation. So in a moment, I'm ready to end a friendship because I'm personalizing that she didn't respond to my hello, good morning, until I really find out what's going on. This happens all the time. All the time. And it doesn't help anybody. It hurts me. It hurts the other person. People stop having friendships because they make assumptions on what the other person is thinking or doing or why they're not responding to you the way you you want them to. It can get very ugly, very quickly. And we have to take responsibility that we're going to have that moment of personalizing, right?

Why is this person treating me this way? Or whatever is going on. That's okay. Again, we all have our moods. We're all going to have our negative moods. We want to notice them as quickly as possible and not go down that black hole of feeling bad, thinking it's our fault, spending way too much time figuring out what we did wrong when we didn't do anything wrong, instead of having others take responsibility for their behavior. And that the majority of the time, sometimes there are conflicts, obviously, and people don't communicate well and tell you maybe you said or did something upset them. But majority of the time, it's their issue, and it's their behavior, and it's not on us. So some things you can do other than your thought record is maybe start keeping a journal and write down situations where you notice that you're personalizing. You may see that this is a real pattern that you have that you didn't even know because you're always thinking it was your fault. You might be like, Wow, you know what? I'm doing this all the time. I'm taking responsibility for other people's behavior, and that's not benefiting me.

That's not serving me. It's not helping my relationships. It's keeping me quiet. It's not helping me communicate better. It's not helping me have authentic relationships that I want to have because I'm just trying to fix a problem that I'm assuming is a problem I don't even know what it's about. How can I fix something if I don't even know what the issue is when there might not even be one? Just hearing me talk out loud, you can see how silly our thoughts can make us feel like just in this whirlwind and just ranks up our anxiety and feeling, again, shame, not good enough, could trigger the core beliefs. It just can go all over the place. We also want to practice some self-compassion. You want to be kind to yourself and recognize that everyone makes mistakes regarding how they interpret things. Not everything's within your control. Most things aren't, right? We cannot control people, places, and things. What we have control over is ourselves and our choices. Having a little self-compassion can help you reduce any feelings of guilt and adequency when this stuff comes up. Like, Okay, I know I personalize things. Part of that is reframing your thoughts, right?

It's like, why do you personalize it? Probably because you're a really kind person. Probably because you're really mindful that you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. You don't want to be rude. You don't want to insult anybody. You want to make sure you didn't do anything wrong. It all comes from a good place. But when you do that all the time to a fault, you end up taking on everyone else's feelings and behaviors, and that does not work. That's not going to make you a happy, confident person. And it's not going to allow you to be the person you want to be, which is being authentic and being open and honest. And to have a really healthy relationship, you have to know how to communicate and say, You know what? I'm personalizing you canceling. Is there something that I did do? Is there something that Or is there something we need to talk about? Is there an issue here you're not sharing with me? Or can you tell me why you canceled? What came up? That's having an authentic relationship. That's being that's being aware, that's being self-compassion towards you, even towards your friend, that's using your assertion skills, that's identifying your hot thoughts and talking through them.

All your tools. You can see I'm sharing a lot of different ones that I've talked about in the past that can really help when you're personalizing other people's behaviors. So of course, doing the thaw records, again, just repeating myself here, but doing the thaw records is something you want to do for the rest of your life. They can work really in any situation situation. And I say that because you're always going to have thoughts regarding situations you're in. Remember, we got 80, 90,000 thoughts a day. We have way too many thoughts, and most of them are hot. So doing the thaw record, and I call it a thaw record when I use the mind over mood book. I know a lot of you guys also have David Burns' book, Feeling Good, Feeling Great. His is called the Daily Mood Log. They're both wonderful. They identify your moods. They help you rate them. They help you write down what your automatic thoughts are and identify what your hot ones are and challenge them. Those are my terms I use. Again, using the mind over mood book is my primary book. But you want to really practice those because then they become automatic and you don't have to write them down anymore.

Right in the moment, Okay, what am I thinking that's making me feel uncomfortable here and being identified that hot thought? What am I thinking? Because my behavior is taking it personal. Another exercise that's great is just practicing some mindfulness, so you can stay present and avoid jumping to conclusions about others behavior. So being mindful can help you observe, Okay, what am I thinking? Without immediately reacting to them and not getting attached to them. This is what I'm thinking. It's just my thought. And it also will pass. And I'm not going to jump to conclusions right now. I'm going to take a moment and I'm going to either do a thought record, maybe take a walk, think this through. How do I I want to approach the person because I'm not sure about what's really going on. You can also, which I've talked about but didn't use this word, do some role-playing scenarios. If you have a therapist or a friend, you can practice responding to situations without personalizing them. You can talk to someone about, What do you think happened here? This is the situation. Doing the role play with somebody or even with yourself is doing the action plans.

What am I going to say when this comes up? How am I going to respond when I'm in this situation? Even being really honest with your friend going, I'm personalizing what's going on. I think this is really about me. Can we talk about it? So if you can role play that with someone that you trust or say, again, you have a therapist, when you bring this up to whoever it is that you need to talk to, you're going to feel more confident. You may still feel a little anxious because that's normal. It might be uncomfortable, but it's not going to be overwhelming and getting in the way. So I'll give you another example. So say you have a colleague that doesn't agree with what you're saying on a program, say that a project is the word I'm looking for, sorry, that you're working on in the office, right? And instead of thinking, Oh, they think I'm stupid. I'm not smart enough. Their ideas are better than mine. Again, that's a place to really be mindful. When you're in a meeting like that, you're I'm not going to just address that in the meeting with lots of other people.

That's where you want to be mindful and be like, Okay, this is this person. Is this their normal behavior? Is this new? I'm going to take time to think through What did I say? What did they say? Why don't they agree with my idea? And then I'm going to find time to say, Hey, can we meet and sit down and talk about what happened in the meeting? And really say, I want to take a minute to share with you what I'm thinking and hear more you have to say. And maybe we can find a happy medium or I can even understand where you were coming from. I tend to take things personal, if that's someone you can be that honest with. I tend to take things personal, and I really wanted to talk through this. So It can be really empowering, right? You can hear just as I'm talking, I feel more empowered. Like, Hey, this is maybe something I do do by taking things personal. I'm trying to work on that. It was an uncomfortable situation. Can we talk through this Oh, okay. There's so many times that I find out the story behind the situation, and I'm like, Oh, that makes sense.

This has got nothing to do with me. I didn't even think of that. I had no idea. And I can just let this go. I think it just happens way too much in our society that we all make these negative assumptions, personalize other people's behavior, feel horrible, get into our heads, get stuck, and then you find out what really happened, and you're like, Oh, that has nothing to do with me. I didn't understand. I didn't even know that was going on. I'd say, overall, people just really don't communicate well. People keep a lot of secrets. People don't want to share things. People worry they're going to be judged. And then what you end up doing, which I say a lot, is you end up creating what you fear most. So by not sharing, and I'm not saying to tell everyone your life's story by any means, but sometimes you're sharing a little bit. Helps give people a different perspective, understand what you're going through. You're not feeling alone, and you don't create what you fear the most, which is people judging you and thinking terrible things or personalizing. Or what you could fear the most is you're going to make someone angry.

Sometimes people do get angry thinking, why do you always personalize everything? Why do you think everything's about you? The world's a big place. It's not all about you. People are busy doing, going, dealing with things. And it's really nice to have somebody in your life that even if they do personalize, can share that with you and say, I'm feeling a lot comfortable? Did I do anything to upset you? And they're like, No, I'm so glad you're in my life. I can talk to you. I got this other stuff going on. I haven't had time to talk to you about it. I haven't had time to process it. I don't know how I feel about it. It's something I'm reacting to. There's There's just all these layers and layers and stuff of things going on. And that's where you want to get curious with other people and ask questions. My family sometimes teases me that ask a lot of questions, but that's just part of my work and how my brain works. But I can tell you, most of the time I'll ask certain questions. I have people say, Oh, that's a good question, because they didn't think about that, right?

Or I'm just getting curious and I want to understand why this and this happened, even if it seems like a weird question or it It doesn't seem like it's important. Sometimes they can explain to me what's going on. And then I'm like, Oh, okay, this doesn't have anything to do with me. Think about your own life, right? You probably have so much going on. You probably have so much on your plate. Different people in your life you're dealing with or issues your family has or issues you're dealing with or health problems, whatever it might be, not everybody knows everything that's going on in your life. So then when you all of a sudden have to cancel, right? And you're like, I hope they don't take it personal. I need to just explain myself a little bit. Or if I'm taking it personal, they're canceling, Hey, is something going on? Is there something I can talk about, something you want to share with me? If somebody keeps canceling over and over again, then you can decide, Is this somebody I want to keep making plans with? But being mindful, being present, being able to say, I know I haven't done anything wrong.

I'm okay. I'm being a good friend. I'm being a good partner. I'm being a good sister, kid, whatever role you're playing. Most likely this is something that's going on with them. I'm going to reach out. If they don't reach out back, I can move on. If they do, we can talk through it. But I need to be able to say, This is something that I'm personalizing. It's not me, and I need to move forward and let it go. And once you can recognize this in yourself more, maybe you can even help other people in your life saying to your partner, Hey, honey, I think you're personalizing this. You need to find to have more about it, or to your kids if they're upset with their friends, right? A lot of things go on, especially when they're teenagers, right? Personalizing, a lot of emotions are coming up. Teaching them how to communicate, taking a moment, not personalizing everybody else's behavior. So again, once we can master our CBT tools, we can really use them to help others in our lives as well, which is why it can just go on and on and on. We want to pass this on to the next generation so we can all be healthier, emotionally, mentally and physically, spiritually, be able to say, Hey, what are my thoughts that are making me feel this way, behave this way, and be able to change and just do better and feel better in our lives?

So I loved when my client brought up the Q-Tip. And again, I know I've gone over these things in other podcasts, but it's good to repeat things sometimes so it gets stuck in our heads a little more in a good way. And to be able to take out a Q-Tip and put it somewhere that you can see if you'll find that helpful to say, Quit taking it personal. I'm okay. I'm doing the best I can. I'm going to work on making this better with this person, or maybe I need to walk away and give them time to reach out to me if they choose to. But it's not about me, it's about them. And that's my truth, and I can feel good about that. And refocus on other things that are going on in my life and things I want to work on. But knowing also I got all these great tools that I can always rely on so I can be present, practice mindfulness, practice my thought record, and be able to feel more in control over how I'm reacting to things. So I hope this was helpful. I hope it made you think a little bit.

I hope you're able to come up with some examples of your own about how maybe you personalize other people's behaviors and how it's not serving you and how you want to change that.

So as always, I appreciate you being here with me.

You can go to my website at mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com. A lot of more great resources there. I got my blog, got newsletters, got some videos. You can find my merchandise there to help you along your journey.

So have my mantra all over the place because you want to remember to make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.