In the interactions and relationships we all find ourselves in, things are done by others to us that not only hurt, but really damage our lives. And we take it personally…. After all, shouldn’t we, as it was specifically done to us?
Whether it’s with family, friends, coworkers, a boss, neighbors, lovers, a spouse, or even people we randomly seem to encounter in this world, we have all had harmful things directed at us: verbally, circumstantially, and even physically.
Since what we’ve been through in these instances is often quite intense, and sometimes changes our lives for the worse, we internalize and personalize it. And why wouldn’t we? We are the victim; it wasn’t done to someone else. No matter how together or strong we perceive ourselves to be, personal attacks on us do hurt – and even debilitate our lives, as the pain we experience often changes the course of our lives irrevocably, and sometimes, permanently.
Yet, as intense as all of our pain and suffering feels when people hurt us, what would you think if I said something completely surprising to you, which is that it shouldn’t be looked at as being personal? This doesn’t mean that our feelings don’t count, and how we feel should just be disregarded and trivialized; rather, that we begin the healing process by beginning to depersonalize what has happened to us.
We start doing this by first looking at these dynamics from a spiritual and metaphysical perspective, where what we’ve perceived as being done to us with deliberate, malicious intent isn’t really what it seems to be and is far different than we’ve always believed. We need to now look at the real spiritual reasons why people do the things they do and learn what that says not only about them, but also, about us, and ultimately, how we can now heal our lives.
It’s not personal – They’re just being who they are
Everyone always and only behaves at their own level of consciousness and spiritual level of understanding.
Others don’t act according to the way we want them to; they’re just being who they are. From a spiritual perspective, that’s all a person is capable of being. When you’re violated by someone else, though, it certainly feels quite personal as it was indeed done to you, yet in many instances, it has very little to actually do with you.
Think of when a mob hit-man carries out gruesome, cold-hearted murders against specific individuals. When he speaks of these egregious crimes, you’ll hear him dispassionately state, “Hey it ain’t personal. It’s just a job I’m doing, okay?” This same principle often applies to the various levels of abuse that people do to others.
With Gerald, it was never personal, either, even though he has caused a lot of people a great deal of pain throughout his career. Gerald’s a forty five-year-old man with a huge, selfish, narcissistic ego, and enjoys stepping on people to get ahead, especially in the workplace, which he has done most of his adult life. It’s all a game of sport for him, and he does it on purpose to feel superior and win. What I’ve just described here is Gerald’s actual level of spiritual understanding; therefore, it’s exactly how he will behave.
When he took a new job in a large company in 2002, he looked at his various coworkers and assessed who was in his way of advancement. “How do I get ahead here?” he coldly asked himself. He soon set his sights on his female coworker Brenda.
He pretended to befriend Brenda as a sincere gesture of affection, which allowed Gerald to get closer to Brenda, but it was only done in order to perceive her professional weaknesses. He then exploited them by stating negative things about Brenda’s workplace performance. Since he ingratiated himself into Brenda’s life and could see both her strengths and weaknesses, some of the flaws he pointed out about her were true; however, he exaggerated them and tried to use them against her. Slowly but surely, it worked. Eventually, the overall opinions of Brenda went downhill in the workplace, and consequently, she was demoted. Gerald was then given her position.
In this instance, it would be clear to most of us that it wasn’t personal on Gerald’s part against Brenda, as he just coldly and calculatingly wanted to get her out of the way so he could advance. Brenda could have been anyone in the office; she just happened to be the person who had the position Gerald wanted.
And of course, Brenda took it personally as we all would have: “That rotten liar cost me my job and all the while, he played me like a deck of cards. He never liked me at all – he just set me up to sucker-punch me. I hate Gerald’s guts and hope he gets what’s coming to him!” Brenda fumed. Certainly anyone would feel great empathy for what Brenda went through as it was devastating to her. Yet, in reality, it still wasn’t personal. Gerald was just being who he is.
That doesn’t mean that it all just stops there in a cut and dry fashion. Gerald created a tremendous amount of negative karma by what he did to Brenda – and he will have to deal with that whenever the repercussions of his actions come back to him – and of course, they will. Through Gerald’s actions, the course of Brenda’s career and even her life, for that matter, where altered in a damaging way. In this instance it wasn’t a karmic situation, or something that was Brenda’s fault; Gerald just went after her without valid cause.
Thankfully, in time, Brenda recovered and eventually moved forward into a new career that was good for her, yet the episode with Gerald took her years to come to peace with. She did that by coming to realize through time that it wasn’t personal, which helped her to separate herself from Gerald’s actions, and realize that it was all about who he is.
Brenda was attacked because she was in the way; however, others are victimized for a different reason. These people are attacked simply for who they inherently are.
We are a mirror to others
Often, we hold up a mirror to people by simply being who we are, and reflect to others how they already feel inside.
We unknowingly trigger other peoples’ issues, prejudices, fears, emotional attitudes, preexisting viewpoints, and even in extreme instances, hatred. When we are attacked in these ways, it is because we are the mirror to others – and they don’t like the reflection they’re seeing.
Ahmed is a twenty-two year-old Muslim man who happened to move onto a block of a New Jersey neighborhood in late 2007 that lost several people in 9/11. Because of that terrorist attack, a strong Anti-Muslin sentiment had developed on the block in recent years. When Ahmed moved in, the threats were immediately launched against him by his neighbors with these types of taunts: “Go home terrorist! Are you gonna blow me up too? Terrorists not welcome here! We can kill, too!” These are the type of horrific things Ahmed heard on a regular basis.
However, Ahmed was simply studying to be a doctor, and was not even remotely a terrorist. In fact, he felt terrible for the victims of 9/11 and did not identify with the attackers in any way, shape, or form. Because of all of the fear his new neighbors carried inside based on what they had been through from 9/11, Ahmed mirrored and triggered what they already felt, which of course, wasn’t Ahmed’s fault. Even though they victimized him in what seemed to be an utterly personal way, it had nothing to do with who Ahmed really is. They didn’t know this young Muslim man or try to understand him; once their fears were engaged, they lost their ability to be objective.
Predictably, Ahmed took it personally at first, was angry, terrified, and felt that he had to move for his own safety, which he did after about six months. As with Gerald and Brenda, the situation between Ahmed and his neighbors was not karmic. It was also not based on the law of attraction (where Ahmed would have attracted this treatment back to him because of how he felt about himself from within), but was a matter of Ahmed unknowingly serving as a spiritual mirror to the people in his environment. From a spiritual point of view, the neighbors were supposed to use this experience to rise above their fears and learn to accept Ahmed; however, they didn’t deal with it from a higher spiritual perspective, as they drew upon the fears, prejudices and the buttons of the lower self.
Ahmed learned to not take this personally, and was able to let it all go, which took tremendous spiritual courage on his part. It paid off, as he relocated to another state and successfully continued his studies in medical school.
So if this wasn’t a case of who Ahmed is as a person, then who is it about? Is it just the way things are in life, or is there a real spiritual reason that explains such a disparaging level of injustice that so many of us have experienced, where we’re treated badly for nothing more than who we are?
It’s not about you – It’s about them
It’s spiritually about the persons doing the attacking and not about those who are being victimized.
When people get attacked for who they inherently are, it’s usually due to race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. It can also be about more insidious societal things such as height, weight, financial status, social upbringing, whether we’re perceived as attractive or not, etc.
The abusive actions of people reflect on who THEY are, their level of spiritual understanding, and the values they hold, even if it’s hidden from public view. (Often, people don’t openly and flagrantly flaunt their prejudice and hatred of others). Yet, when someone comes along who reflects and triggers those issues in others, what happens is a reflexive, knee-jerk reaction. And the victims of such abuse often take it quite personally and ask: “Why me? What did I do? I didn’t do anything to deserve this!”
Then, there are also those times when the attacks we receive are not by strangers at all, but by someone who is at the opposite end of the spectrum, such as those who are deeply connected to us in our daily lives. Shockingly, this form of abuse can come from a family member, friend, or even the person we’re in love with.
Because of our intimate connection with them, we invest deeply into the situation where we’re compelled to hang in there and make it right, even when we’re being treated badly over a long period of time. We convince ourselves that if we just love that person a little bit more, things will most assuredly work out in the end.
Your love won’t change them or the way they treat you
No matter how much you love a six room house, it won’t ever turn into a mansion.
When we love someone, especially in a romantic way, we are hardly dispassionate about our decisions and how we view the relationship. This is why such an ancient cliché as Love is Blind has been relevant throughout the ages, because we close our eyes to the spiritual truth when we’re in love.
When we’re treated badly and even abusively by someone we love, we take it quite personally; yet we hope for things to get better as a way of healing the situation. And when the negative treatment we receive continues and even escalates, we often make it our crusade to not only heal the relationship, but to fix the other person. Our entire identity and self esteem becomes personally wrapped up into getting the other person to change and love us in return. After all, we didn’t come this far to fail and lose in the end.
However, it doesn’t matter how much we love that person and how much we’re willing to fight for the relationship; it doesn’t change their level of consciousness and spiritual understanding. That is who they are, which clearly reveals how they’ll behave toward us.
Pete’s level of spiritual understanding is that all women are rotten; therefore, he has always treated them badly. It can certainly be explained: his mother was a self absorbed, mentally unstable egotist who squandered money on alcohol, and often left Pete without food. His mother’s actions don’t justify how Pete (as a grown man) treats women; they merely reveal where it all originated from.
On the other hand, Elaine is a woman who has always felt bad about herself, and has carried terrible self esteem within her, largely because she was mentally abused by her father growing up. This all revealed itself through the many abusive romantic relationships Elaine had been in throughout her entire adult life, where she always believed that she could help to heal the other person with the hope that they would then love her in return.
So when Pete met Elaine in early 2004, there was instant chemistry between them. This was a relationship that was based on the law of attraction: Pete wanted a woman to treat badly, while Elaine felt that she deserved to be abused, where she believed that she would be able to heal the the other person as a way of validating herself as a women.
Within a few months, Pete started becoming emotionally abusive by telling her she was fat while they were having sex. Elaine didn’t fight back, but thought to herself that Pete had a terrible mother, which explained why he was making “fat” comments, and she convinced herself that if she just kept loving him, things would change for the better.
Then, Pete told Elaine that he was sexually bored with her, and had to see other women to satisfy himself as a man. Elaine thought that he just had to go through this, based on how bad his mother treated him, so Elaine tried to do more kinky things in the bedroom, to keep Pete “satisfied,” and even tried to show Pete more and more how much she cared for him. She told herself that her love was stronger than his issues, and that good would triumph over evil if she just kept believing.
Of course Elaine took all of this personally and it made her self esteem even worse. She felt utterly inadequate as a woman, because she was unable to “satisfy her man,” yet her solution was not to leave Pete, but to keep reinforcing to herself that she could change him for the better.
And to most of you reading this, I’m sure that your advice to Elaine would be, “Get rid of that loser and move on!”
However, Elaine was emotionally hooked on Pete, and in fitting with the time-tested cliché, Elaine was blinded by her love. Since she refused to cut her ties with Pete, he became worse and by early 2005, started hitting Elaine on a weekly basis whenever he was in a foul mood. At this point, it wasn’t just that Elaine took the abuse personally as most of us would; her entire self image was based on fixing Pete, and that he would then love her.
At this point, we’d all be pleading with Elaine to dump him, go into therapy and heal her life: “Wake up and smell the coffee Elaine. You’re in denial. Get rid of him!” would be our strong assertions. Once again, Elaine hung in there, except now, she was digging her heels in even deeper. She stayed with Pete for six long, hard years, where he cheated, while emotionally and physically abusing her. Through all of this, Elaine kept trying to rescue him, while excusing his behavior because of what Pete’s mother had did to him as a boy.
When it all stopped, it wasn’t because Elaine had woken up either; Pete beat her so badly in late 2009 that the police intervened and arrested him. After a month in the hospital, Elaine recovered physically, yet she took it all so personally when the relationship crashed and burned.
Even though Elaine felt that she failed as a woman because her love was unable to change Pete and the relationship for the better, again, the abuse really wasn’t personal at all on Pete’s part. It was based on the law of attraction where the slave driver (Pete) needs the slave (Elaine). This doesn’t mean that Elaine should be judged; it’s just that how she felt about herself inside is what drew her to Pete and helped bring him into her life in the first place. Unfortunately, Elaine wasn’t willing to work on herself to heal these issues, but instead, she deluded herself into believing that she was on a sacred crusade beyond just her emotions – in her mind, it was a spiritual mission of sorts. In Elaine’s mind, it was her divine destiny to save Pete, and ultimately, rescue him.
It’s “Playing God” to try and fix them
The pathway to hell is always paved with good intentions
It’s not spiritually correct, or helpful to anyone concerned for us to take on someone else’s baggage and make it our own, all as a way of “Playing God.” Not only is it spiritually impossible, it brings us down.
What Elaine had been trying to do in her relationship with Pete was nothing short of playing God by attempting to pull off the spiritually unattainable: be strong enough to hang in there, shoulder the abuse and take it, make her love so powerful that it would heal Pete and save him. Finally, as if the gates of heavens had opened, Pete would ultimately love her in return.
And as sad as what she went through is, it’s egotistical for Elaine (or any of us for that matter) to think that we can, should, and will be able to “fix” other people. Regardless of how much we’re in love with someone and how noble we perceive our motives to be, the other person has their own karma, dharma, life path, individuality, baggage, ego, and freedom of choice. Those things are not like a broken car that can be pieced back together through our willingness, tenacity, and belief in them. Everyone’s spiritual make up is unique, irrevocable, sovereign, and must be respected. Not only should it not be interfered with by another (even someone who’s deeply in love) – it can’t be.
It’s like a good intentioned soul who walks up to a wild, stray dog, looks up to the heavens and declares: “I love this dog as it is created by God. It is an expression of pure, divine love and I see it as perfect in all ways!” As the person bends over to pet and feed it, the dog simply bites them, because that’s what those type of dogs do – and once again, it isn’t personal.
It doesn’t matter what the good intentioned soul believes; the dog bit them because that’s the spiritual level of consciousness it is at and how God truly created them — and nothing we do will change that fact.
It’s the same thing with human beings, albeit that people are more complicated. They still behave to their level of understanding and not to the level which someone else wants them to, regardless of how God-like our motives seem to be.
We personalize the situation where we let our ego take control, because playing God is a way of dramatically attempting to boost our own self-esteem and show how powerful we can be. In our own minds, if we pull off the impossible and fix the other person, we in turn also become instantly healed. Both people’s issues and baggage are instantly redeemed – and everything magically becomes okay.
Yet, even though our feelings are sincere, we set ourselves up to fail every single time, as what we romanticize in our minds won’t happen. It’s our egos leading the way when we try and play God by saving others, and not our true spiritual nature that’s in control. And when the situation falls apart, it can devastate us, as we thought we were strong enough to make it all work out in the end.
Besides letting go of the need to be the rescuer, we need to realize that it is not our fault that we couldn’t “fix” them – none of us can. No matter how hard we try, it’s like the old analogy of hitting our head against the wall: the harder and longer we do it, the wall still won’t come down – it’s only our head that gets damaged.
That still doesn’t often help to give us the clarity we need to heal our lives, because we’re caught up in our emotional hurt, what’s been done to us, and the terrible feelings of inadequacy we experience when things don’t work out as we planned. It wears us all down, where we throw our hands up in the air and shout: “Life just isn’t fair!”
Is life fair, then?
When we look at the pain and suffering we’ve all incurred, it’s easy to give up hope and resign ourselves to the belief that life isn’t fair. When we hear about a woman being raped, or someone in their prime taken out of this world in an instant by a car accident, as well as those who always seem to play by the rules who never get rewarded, it would be understandable for any of us to think that life just isn’t fair
However, that is from a human perspective and not cosmically true. No matter what happens here on earth, in time, and through the immutable laws of the universe, everything, without exception, always ends up being fair – and that may take years, decades, even lifetimes. We may not see justice with our own two eyes, but yes, it ultimately happens, without exception.
Sometimes the situations we experience are karmic, and may seem unfair on the surface; yet that’s because we’re not aware at the time of the past life implications and spiritual agreements. If it was karmically agreed to that a child was to die at the age of fifteen, it will happen, no matter what is done to prevent it. And yes, it can be looked at as tragic. Yet, as hard as it is to hear, if it is karmic, it was supposed to happen.
There are also those who spiritually come into this world and agree to hold up a mirror to others, and that is not an easy calling. However, if it was spiritually agreed to by them before they incarnated into this physical lifetime, it is fair. Think of a soul who agreed to come into this world as a woman a hundred-and-fifty years ago to crusade for women’s rights, such as equal treatment under the law and the right to vote.
That woman would be here to hold up a mirror to society, and certainly she would experience the difficult repercussions of such a calling, and yes, she would humanly take it personally and have to learn to deal with that reality. However, if she chose that calling, it is fair.
With all the possibilities of why and how we take things personally, we begin the healing process by first trying to not personalize what has been done to us. When someone who chooses of their own free will to do negative things to us, it creates bad karma for them. Yet, we need to try and release the personal pain, forgive them, wish them well and simply be through with that energy and the fallout of the experience.
When we’re a mirror, we can’t always help how people will react to us, as it is not our fault, but we must still love ourselves, regardless of how others see us.
Trying to save others is always a no-win situation, where we plummet into the pavement when the situation blows up in our face. We are not God and shouldn’t let our egos delude ourselves into thinking we can play that role.
Whenever we attract someone abusive because of how we feel about ourselves, it’s important to not take it personally when they hurt us, but use the power of divine love to heal who we are – and that means we won’t keep bringing in that type of person into our lives.
When it’s karmic, that is moist assuredly complex, yet we can keep making the journey of depersonalizing what has happened in the best way possible.
There are so many reasons why people do what they do to us, how we internalize it all, our desires to rescue, save, even “Play God, and the decisions we make as to how we’re going to deal with ourselves and other people we will continue to encounter in our journey. And there is one thing that always remains that we must act upon: no matter what, work on healing your life! That is the cornerstone of our spiritual growth and unfoldment.
You can have a private consultation with me, personally tailored to fit your questions, needs and concerns. Just click the link to begin.