The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

Don't Take It Personally

by The Reverend Richard R. Davis

UUCS 

Back in my student days I used to wait tables.  The friendliest place I worked was in a small Italian restaurant owned by a couple of really nice guys.  The food and the place itself were nothing to write home about, but I’d give the working environment a four star rating.   I really enjoyed being with the people there.

            One day before any customers had arrived I brought in a print of a painting by Vermeer (“A Woman Weighing Pearls”) to hang on the wall because I loved it so much.  The owners had said it was fine if I wanted to class up the joint a bit.     After I hung up the Vermeer near the kitchen, Ted the cook – generally a pretty nice fellow - began asking me exactly why I liked this painting so much, and I tried to explain.  His questioning became more and more intense and direct.  I was taken aback.  He continued to grill me on why I liked this painting so much, and under such pressure I became less articulate or convincing.   The cook’s temper came to a boil, and he more or less attacked me for being a pretentious cultural snob.

            This verbal assault was a bolt out of the blue.   I felt overwhelmed and defenseless.   I searched my heart and thought that although I did love the Vermeer – at least I had convinced myself that I did – perhaps I was being culturally pretentious.   I felt defensive and sheepish.  I took what the cook said personally, and I was sorry I’d ever brought in the painting.  I had been totally blindsided.  

            The words we speak to one another seem to have such power – to heal as well as to hurt.  Every once in a blue moon I get zinged like that by someone, and it’s like when Bambi meets Godzilla.  I can easily get crushed.

            Has something like that ever happened to you?   Have you ever been on the receiving end of the verbal slings and arrows that fly back and forth in this conflict ridden world?   What is this all about?

            I have discovered that one of the best ways to understand other people is to study myself.  One day not long after I had begun theology school I was standing in a long, slow moving line at the bookstore at Emory University in Atlanta .  I was still somewhat amazed to be attending this fine University.   Mostly, the student body is upper middle and upper class youth (except for the theology school), whereas I come from a very modest middle class background.  My single parent family always struggled financially to make ends meet on my mother’s earnings as a secretary in the civil service.     So I felt out of my socio-economic element, not to mention that I was anxious about beginning this exciting but stressful new chapter in my life.

While we were standing in line another fellow came up and starting talking to a friend of his who was standing in line right in front of me.   I decided that I didn’t like the looks of these two fellows - seemed like a couple of rich kids who had all kinds of advantages that had been denied me in life – “country club types,” I privately sneered.   I resented them for existing, and I stood there stewing in vile blend of hostility and insecurity, thinking to myself:  “This slick, privileged jerk thinks he’s gonna break in front of me.”  Finally, I boiled over and lashed out angrily at this guy who was stunned to suddenly learn that such a minor infraction as breaking in line was provoking so much hostility.   He quickly retreated to the back of the line, and I felt a hollow sense of vindication.   Deep down inside I knew that my reaction to his social misdemeanor was way out of proportion – I knew that my outburst had nothing to do with this fellow who tried to break in line and everything to do with me.  I projected all kinds of stuff onto this fellow who was really a complete stranger to me.  By the way, if by some miracle you’re here this morning, I’m sorry.  I hope you didn’t take my outburst personally.

            When I consider how I acted in this instance I believe it gives me good insight into how the cook acted when I hung the painting.  He, too, had his own baggage – his own fears, insecurities, resentments, and he projected this onto me.   I shouldn’t have taken it personally.

            But I did take it personally.  It’s hard not to do so in such heated moments.    And here I think that Sigmund Freud can shed a little light in some dark corners of the human mind.   Freud discovered that many people carry around a reservoir of unconscious guilt which can be easily stimulated by a comment from someone else, whereas the same comment will not affect another who doesn’t carry around this large reservoir of guilt.    Freud called this “moral masochism” – a habitual predisposition to punish yourself by feeling guilty for imagined moral failings.   In our culture moral masochism is more widespread than that common cold.  Some of us have it worse than others.    We tend to catch it in early childhood – but it’s only temporary.   Generally a case of moral masochism tends to linger only for about seventy to ninety years, depending upon your life span.    Here’s how to self diagnose:  if you often “should” on yourself (as in “I should have done this or that”) or regularly beat up on yourself for falling short of perfection, then you probably have a case of moral masochism.

We could have a long and interesting discussion on various theories regarding the origins of moral masochism, but not today.   Suffice it to say that what other people say to us is not really what gets us;  it is how we automatically, unconsciously interpret this and react to our own interpretations  that can do us in.   When the cook blasted me and when I blasted the fellow breaking in line we were venting our own frustrations, resentments and insecurities.  This had nothing to do with the person on the receiving end of the verbal blast.    But if we are predisposed to feel guilty, it can be easy to fall into the trap of taking such comments personally.    Really, no one else can make you feel guilty.  They can only push your guilt button.   You are the one in charge of whether or not that button stimulates the guilt.

Interpersonal communication is such a common fact of life that we rarely stop to consider what is really going on when one of us speaks some words and the other person listens.  There is a continuing and lively debate among communications theorists as to what really transpires when people talk or otherwise communicate with one another.    Most of us would simply assume that communication is like a mail delivery.  One person has a message – a package of meaning – and delivers this through the channel of language to another person.   The 18^th Century German philosopher Immanuel Kant looked long and hard into this matter and arrived at a completely different conclusion.  

Kant thought that when one person speaks to another they do not deliver a new message to that person, but rather stimulate latent thoughts and perceptions within another person – thoughts and perceptions that were dormant before the other person spoke.   And so, no objective package of meaning is passed from person to person when we speak.  Rather, one person speaks, giving expression to the meanings and understandings in his or her mind, and these words stimulate another set of meanings and understandings in the listener.  Usually, there is enough common ground in our private universes of understandings and meaning so that it seems as though messages are being passed back and forth.  But Kant said that this only seemed to be the case.  The thoughts and feelings that we may think another is giving us were already within us.  Their words only woke them up.    I think Kant was on to something here.

This may sound like abstruse communication theory, but it has very practical implications.   Consider an example.   During the early days of World War II a remarkable young Dutch woman named Ettie Hillesum was called in to be interrogated by the Gestapo.    An arrogant young Gestapo officer started yelling at Ettie and other Jews,  berating her for all manner of things.  Ettie was too wise and too centered take it personally.  She refused to feel guilty or inadequate or intimidated.  Instead she looked calmly at the young man realizing that he was speaking out of his own sad and twisted reality which had nothing to do with her.      She recorded  a private comment to this young man in her diary:  “Poor boy.  Did you have a fight with your girlfriend last night?  Is that why you are so confused and angry?  Or did someone hurt you a long time ago and make you feel powerless?  Is that why you are so trying to act so big and tough and powerful in front of us Jews?”

Ettie Hillesum knew that each of us speaks out of our own experience and understandings.   She knew that what others around us say or do, they do because of the understandings they have in their own minds.  

The Native American writer Don Miguel Ruiz has written about this in his book The Four Agreements.    He notes:  “Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you.  What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds.  Whatever happens around you, don’t take in personally.  Nothing other people do is because of you.  It is because of themselves.  All people live in their own dream, in their own mind;  they are in a completely different world from the one you live in.   When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.”

What a liberating insight.   I do know that whenever I have spoken in a less than charitable way toward another person it was not because of them.  It was because of me – because of my fear, anxiety, frustration and anger.  Likewise, an abusive spouse may claim that his or her mate provoked them to say and do hurtful things, but that is that really true?  I don’t think so.  We are each responsible for our own words and actions.  Likewise, we are each responsible for our reactions.  We can choose whether or not to take the things that others say personally.   Our points of view are personal to us.  It is no one’s truth but ours.   We don’t have the right to impose our reality upon others.

The Buddha recognized this point and was thus most respectful of others.  When he began to spread his teachings he never told his listeners to take what he had to say personally.  He never said “Believe what I say because I know it all, so I have the right to tell you what to think and feel.”   In fact, he made it a point to say the opposite:  “don’t believe what I say just because I have said it.  Test it out for yourself.  If it rings true for you, great.  If not, don’t accept my teachings.” 

The Buddha knew that when we try to impose our reality on another person we are violating the freedom and integrity of that individual.  Yet he also knew that we must to share our deepest thoughts and feelings with one another to build communities of meaning and purpose.  So he simply invited people to listen and reflect upon his words.   I have heard that there is a Buddhist monastery in Asia with the inscription over the entrance gates:  “One Thousand Monks.  One Thousand Religions.”  Each of us interprets life, and we create our own meanings.

That is our Unitarian Universalist approach to religious life.  We don’t tell you what to believe.  We are noncredal, non doctrinal, non authoritarian.   No one is expected to take another person’s theology personally.  Each of us is invited to have our own creative response to making meaning.   Which is not to say that we don’t share and profoundly stimulate one another.  We do that all the time.  But each of us must freely embrace our faith.   Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as Unitarian Unviersalists.  There are only thousands of people who embrace a Unitarian Universalist approach to religious life.

Above all, don’t take what others say personally.   People speak out of their own realities which are different from your own.  Which is not to say that you should ignore or dismiss what others say.  Only realize where this is coming from – they are speaking of  their personal vision, not yours.  There is a great freedom to be won if you can see this clearly.

Imagine that someone lashes out at you.  Then you can remember that this has nothing to do with you.  You may reflect and realize that you want to change a behavior or attitude that seems to trigger a negative response in them, but that is your choice.  If someone says that you are wonderful, remember that you are wonderful whether or not they say this.   Their thinking you are wonderful is a part of their personal dream, too.  Don’t take it personally. 

Don Miguel Ruiz notes that by not taking things that others say or do personally, we discover a freedom to avoid many hurts and upsets in life and avoid many conflicts that do arise when we take things too personally.     With this right understanding you can stay calm and centered while storms may blow around you.  You can gain a new freedom not to be bound to your fears and anxieties regarding what others may say or do.

But don’t take what I say personally.  Just consider this in your own heart and mind.   I am merely expressing some ideas that others have expressed to me, and this has helped me.   I hope they can lead you to more peace and joy, too.