Day 163 - A Year to Clear - It's Not About You

Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash

Lesson 163: It's Not About You

We all feel a rant coming on from time to time when someone has challenged us, abused trust, offended us or even neglected us. We allow anger or frustration to arise because that can be a natural reaction. Today we are to change the shift in how we react to those types of situations with a four word reminder “hurt people hurt people”. Anything that gets thrown to us may not necessarily be about us and is about the other person’s pain.

The only thing I can say that in regards to this lesson is that there will be times when someone has challenged you because you’ve done something wrong. I can say that this can occur at work and you’ve made a decision that doesn’t fit in with the business rules for instance, so therefore I think this type of challenge is valid. I think when you’ve stuffed up, there will be times when it’s about you and has nothing to do with someone else projecting their pain onto you – it’s a matter of recognising when someone else flinging their pain towards you and when you’re actually at fault.

I do also feel that sometimes there are times when I’m angry when it’s not someone projecting their pain onto me. It’s just a situation I get frustrated at and need to vent. This is not about someone flinging their pain onto me either.

Ok with that out of the way, there are times when I have felt the pain of others onto me. This usually comes out in a frustration and then projecting on or towards me. I listen because I care and try to understand the person’s situation. I try to reason and just listen. It doesn’t always work because that person’s frustration then becomes my own. Sometimes I vent out their frustrations and pain or it transforms into my own life. Sometimes I get angry at things and I’m not even sure why. This is why this lesson is valuable. I have to stop and think about whether what I am feeling is actually mine or not. Having to take a moment and think about it, is something I need to be more conscious of. It’s hard to do when you’re just going off on a rant, not realising that it might not even be your frustrations you’re going on about. Again, this takes practise but now we can be more aware right?

Did this lesson make you think about the pain you’re taking on from others and what you can do to identify if it’s yours or not?