It’s Not About You.

On a friend’s recommendation, I started listening to a podcast called UnF*ck Your Brain to Create Feminist Confidence hosted by former lawyer, Kara Loewentheil. Kara promises to teach you the skills to fix your unhealthy thought patterns and become your best self.

I skimmed through the list of available episodes and found number 22: It’s Not About You – How to Stop Taking Sh*t Personally. It sounded like a good place to start, so I hit play, and was very challenged by what I heard.

Kara argues that the way people treat you or respond to something you may have done or said has nothing to do with you. You are not the cause of their dislike, hostile attitude or rudeness, she says, because a person is only responding to their thoughts and feelings. Your actions toward that person do not mean you are responsible for the thoughts and feelings this person may experience. The person is ultimately in charge of them. They will think and feel however they do, making them the source of those feelings and thoughts.

The first time I listened to this episode, I did not agree. I offered a counter-argument, explaining that if my words or actions elicited someone’s thoughts and feelings, then I am responsible for how that person thinks and feels. But I could not let her perspective go.

I must have listened to the episodes a dozen times by now, and I finally got it. Kara was right. Even if something I said caused a certain feeling, that does not make me responsible for how that person feels. As Kara says many times throughout her series, “your thoughts create your feelings.” I may have said or done something to cause a certain reaction, but because we each create our own thoughts and feelings, I am not responsible for how a person thinks or feels. We all feel how we feel, and it cannot be helped.

So, Kara was right, and over the past couple months, I have tried to not take things so personally. When a colleague is snarky or rude, I remind myself that the snark has nothing to do with me because they are simply responding to their own feelings. And knowing that has been a real game changer.

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