Do you get offended easily?
Do you take other people’s actions/comments personally?
Does this result in your day being ruined?
I empathise because that was me also.
Whether it’s from someone you love or care about, or even a complete stranger, feeling offended is more of a you problem.
That’s the harsh truth I learned from talking in a session with a therapist – he said;
“You’ll feel less offended by others when you stop offending yourself”
When digging deeper into this, it makes total sense;
I bet you may have a tendency to be a people-pleaser,
your ego may be attacking you every moment it gets,
or you feel you have something to prove to others (which also means you have something you want to prove to yourself).
I get it.
Being a serial people-pleaser will get you nowhere in life – you constantly seek reassurance that you’re doing the right thing for others, however neglecting yourself and your wants in the process; leading to feeling resentful of the situation or even the person you’re helping.
Allowing that voice in your head to attack you is a serious problem too; your ego may be constantly trying to reinforce the fact that you’re “no good”, “not worth listening to” or even worse, “you’re not worth anything”.
Learning to disidentify from this anxiety-inducing, judgemental self story our egos have created about us will help on our way to not feeling so offended by others, and in turn, learn that;
Others’ judgements are only reflections they have on themselves.
Yep, so the next time a stranger scowls at you or is rude to you in some way, reframing your brain to think of something along the lines of,
“I bet they’re having a bad day”
or
“wow, they must feel terrible about themselves”
then shifts the judgement back towards them, helping you to break free from feeling offended.
It’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it? Feeling offended…
Your stomach drops, your temperature rises, and anxiety floods the body.
However, by reminding ourselves that;
Others’ comments, actions, and therefore judgements are none of our business; and whatever they’re going through, they need to take ownership and deal with it themselves as it’s not a reflection on us or who we are as a person
we will begin to live in more of a peaceful state of mind – not worrying or even wondering what anyone else is thinking about us.
How liberating.
If you feel offended by others because it feels like they have the wrong idea of you, does this really matter anyway?
No, not really, because if we all went through life worrying about how people viewed us and our actions, we’d probably never do anything.
Why do we care so much about what other people are thinking?
Why do we put ourselves in a box of what society deems as normal, even if it’s not how we want to live, through fear of judgement?
I’ve done this for so long – and it’s caused me nothing but suffering.
There is no right way to live life;
you don’t have to own a home to be happy,
you don’t need to have kids to be happy,
you don’t need to climb a career ladder just to make others happy, while you’re struggling with anxiety and burn out.
Your life is yours, so whatever your dreams are, take the plunge and give them a go, because before we know it, we’ll be too old and incapable of doing anything – this is when we will regret not giving a shit about what other people may or may not think.
Your mind may be holding you back from trying something new; this needs to be explored further within yourself.
However if you’re not doing something through fear and worry of what others may think; it’s time to not give a flying fudge about that anymore.
The next time you catch yourself feeling offended, check in with yourself to find out if you’re doing the work to;
- Disidentify from your ego’s self story
- Be mindful of how you’re speaking to yourself
- Serve yourself a huge dollop of self compassion
In time, you’ll find you won’t take the ego voice inside your head so seriously any more, which in turn, will help you not to be so serious all the time and actually be present and enjoy the little moments in life; not worrying about what others are thinking of you.
It is possible, I promise.
