Shero Cafe Podcast

030 2nd Agreement: Don't Take Anything Personal

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Debbie:

Hello everyone.

Deborah:

Hey y'all, we are back today to continue our discussion about the four agreements, and today we're talking about the second agreement of not take anything personally.

Deborah:

A thought comes to mind of one time when you took things personally. All of us have experienced that right. All of us have even experienced something when we've taken something personally and we find out later that it wasn't even about us. So there's a lot of things that come with that, and it's an opportunity to have an awareness of you, know your actions and other people's actions and words, and just really allowing them the space to emerge however they may need to emerge, without you taking them personally or even having an opportunity to address them directly with that person, that situation, and allowing yourself the freedom to gain more clarity and to alleviate or how do I say this, debbie? What am I thinking To allow yourself not to suffer, you know. So there's so many ways that we create these situations for ourselves, that create the suffering within us, that we can allow us, through self-care and self-love, to move that suffering away and increase our resilience. What do you think?

Debbie:

Well, that last part is definitely about the self-love and self-care, definitely the antidote. But you and I were raised really differently. Coming up and you were saying I'm sure we've all had the experience where we took something personally and like the experience, that's my entire life. It's like I thought everything was personal. I was always I mean, I was always in like fight or flight mode and if somebody said anything when I was growing up, I either felt like I needed to fix it or I needed to like fight them about it. Right, like, why are you doing that to me? Kind of stuff.

Debbie:

So this chapter for me when I read the book a long time ago, was just this huge eye opener about like wait a minute, what do you mean? Don't take it personally, because it feels so right and it under it. It's taken decades to get to a place where and I still do it Somebody will say something or do or don't do something like um, maybe they're supposed to show up to pick me up at a certain time and they just don't, for whatever reason. It slipped their mind. And I not today. Today I would just pick up the phone and like text them like well, what's going on, you know, but there was a time when it would be like I mean, I would go in my room and cry and I'm not talking about as a teenager. I would be mortified that this person tricked me or and it was all in my mind and the book talks about, he talks about it as as soon as you like agree with something or someone says or does which to me, them not showing up would have been the agreement that I'm agreeing with, I must be terrible because they left me or whatever it says. The poison runs through you and you're trapped in the dream.

Debbie:

I've come to realize that at that moment there's chemicals that are released, because our brains absorb chemicals and they release chemicals. They'll absorb and release, and that's really all our brains do chemicals and they release chemicals and absorb and release. And that's really all our brains do. And just how unbelievably draining. That is Right. I thought. Well, I didn't consciously think it, but it turns out that when I make everything about me, they did this to me, they said this against me. They didn't whatever. You know that it's all about me and that's the ego or fear I know a lot. For me it was fear talking. There was definitely self-doubt and old wounds and those just permeated my life. When I read the book again the first time, so many years ago decades I could comprehend the words, but I couldn't quite figure out how how to change the sensations I was feeling when I was going through this personal thing.

Deborah:

So I guess one of the things that keeps coming to me, you know, is saying you can't figure out. You couldn't figure out how to change these sensations that you were feeling and I, my experience, was that it was just like any of our self-care practices. It was like a practice, self-care practices. It was like a practice, right.

Debbie:

So if you did self-care, I mean truly, even at my age, you know mid sixties I don't really think I practiced self-care until I was over 60.

Deborah:

Yeah, I mean. But again, you start where you are. That's the point that I'm making. You know where you are is where you are. And I had a lot of situations where I, after I read this book and had this awareness of how me taking things personally were affecting my reality, where I could then take that awareness and now, when those things happen, moving forward, I could say, oh, okay, let's take this, let's step back if I'm not taking this personally. Um, what is the possibility in this situation? What is um? You know what is another um? You know what is another um story that could be around this? I, I I'm gonna give you an example.

Deborah:

Okay, so I had a friend and um, it's a couple that I met and that I, we used to hang out all the time. We used used to go to dinner, we used and this is when I was single. So they were really very, very important to me in my life and I just loved them to death. And then, when COVID hit, all of a sudden, every time I called them, they wouldn't call back or they wouldn't, you know, or it just seemed like, oh, oh, my god, every time I tried to get together, they, you know, they can't, they're not feeling well and and whatever. And so then I quit contacting them, you know, and they'd quit contacting me.

Deborah:

Well, one day, and it hurt and I was making up all of these stories about you know. Oh, they told me to get the COVID shot and I waited. I wanted more information. So they're mad because I didn't do that. I create, oh, I should go to Hollywood, I can create a script like nobody's business, yeah. And so then at one point something happened and I called them and said, hey, what's going on? And it turns out he had cancer and she was sick and they did not have the bandwidth to deal with anything else. They both got I don't remember if they got COVID or not, but then there was a reason that had absolutely nothing to do with me. They were missing me and I was staying away from them because I thought they didn't love me anymore.

Debbie:

Oh, we should pick that apart. I mean, I don't know how far we'll go on this episode, but there's so much there because, as you're saying it, I can actually feel myself going. Well, why didn't they share that information with you? Right, cause I take everything personal Right, but, of course, in practicing, now that I'm older and wiser, practicing that, oh wow, I just realized. Not making assumptions is the next degree grieve it.

Debbie:

So let's use that scenario for next time as well. It is incredibly painful to think you know the answer to something when you don't, and take it personally, thinking that they or he or she, whatever has something against you when it's got nothing to do with that at all. Right, I have my daughter-in-law. I really care for this person a lot and I want to talk to her and I will like call or reach out in different ways and I don't get the response I'd like to. So I feel like, well, maybe she doesn't really like me. She's just being nice to me because she's married to my son. You know all these different things. I feel like I have to walk kind of a fine line because on the one hand, she is my daughter-in-law, but on the other hand, I can think of her as my friend, like if, for some reason, they would split which I couldn't, I can't see that because they're so well-suited, but if they did split, I would still like to keep in touch with her, like that's the kind of person she is. And they've been together like 12, 15 years, whatever it is, cause you know, there's dating and marriage involved. Okay, so they've been together quite a while, but I just found out the other day that, as a millennial, she can't stand talking on the phone. I didn't know that she's like I don't, because she told me a story about somebody else that is older than me that likes to give her information like a mentor. She she's gives her information but wants to tell it to her on the phone as opposed to text it to her. And my daughter-in-law is like you know, so fine, I'll get on the phone with her and she'll tell me something. And you know, there I am on the phone with her for like 10 minutes when she could have just texted me a line, and I'm like 10 minutes is a big deal to you, oh my gosh, you know.

Debbie:

And what I found out was she will get on the phone with me periodically, right, when it can work for both of us, and she gets on the phone and we'll spend an hour, hour and a half and she does that because she loves me yeah, that I matter to her, but because she wasn't getting on the phone as often as I would like to, I was taking it that she wanted to push me back Don't get too close. All that when in reality she's like giving in if you will, or or coming closer to what I'd like, because she does care about me. When I realized that, it really changed everything. But I went through my own little hell that's what Domingo Ruiz calls it your own hell. I'm trapped in the dream of I've made an agreement that she must not like me because she doesn't enjoy phone calls like I do, and so it's just actually amazing. So that brings me to the point that I wanted to cover, which was nothing.

Debbie:

That other people do is because of you, it's because of themselves, and this was kind of a good story, right. Once I realized what she did and didn't like, I was able to like oh, wow, okay. But there's so many times when, like your friends that didn't call you, it's it, it it's got nothing that they did is because of you, it was because of themselves, and their point of view comes from, like when it does happen, where it feels like it's against you. It's like like, they're like oh, I don't like what she's wearing, or whatever. That comes from all of the programming that they received growing up. Right, if you think about that, each human being is walking around with billions of bits of information that was downloaded into their brain for the, however many decades old they are, and we're all walking around with a variety of different billions of bits of information and I'll just say something I say all the time I do not know how the human species has survived.

Debbie:

I just don't know how we have survived, because we are similar, right, like the color blue. We can agree that a certain amount is the color blue, but once it starts going out that, no, no, that's more green or that's more whatever, and but the parts where we do agree, oh well, see we agree, and then we agree that we agree and it gets complicated. But we're trying to say, if we don't take things personally, it really simplifies.

Deborah:

Yeah, and it also. I guess that you know the one thing that I keep coming to mind. It may or may not apply in this situation, but you know, the thing about what that person thinks of me is not my business, you know, it's none of my business. So if you think you know, and I have friends that think different things about me, and I don't give a damn Excuse me, I don't care, you know, because you can think whatever you want. You may or may not know me well enough to know that we have a relationship relationship, but if I keep getting uh tweaked about that person, not knowing about you, know, or what they think about me, then it doesn't allow me to present authentically, it doesn't allow me to. Well, why are you saying not allow you? It's, it's, it's well. I'm not saying not allow me. But if I'm worried about how, well, because that's what me.

Deborah:

But if I'm worried about well, because that's what I'm saying, if I'm worried about what they're saying then, I'm responding to that, then I'm responding in a way that's not authentic because I think I don't want them to whatever. But if I allow myself to stay with myself, know what I know about myself, then what they're saying doesn't mean anything and it doesn't mean anything to our relationship.

Debbie:

Right, there's an interesting little thing that I would do with my clients, because we do grow up. We, most Americans for sure, grow up. We blame ourselves. We most Americans for sure, grow up. We blame ourselves, we take responsibility for so many things. We think we need to act a particular way, depending on political, religious, all that. Whatever family we grew up in, we feel this obligation. We did it out of preservation and survival growing up, but then we had to. Well, we brought it with us and as we brought it with us into adulthood, it's like this habit that we've gotten so good at.

Debbie:

It's like the nuance if we're with someone, and the nuance is they're, you know, doing more triangles than squares. I don't want to use left and right because that might get misinterpreted it, but it's like if they're just like talking more about triangles, we start talking more about triangles too, because we want to belong and fit in. And if they're not talking about triangles, they're talking about squares, which we are against squares or whatever. Then we want to step away from them because it's uncomfortable, but we don't know how. So we people, please, we maybe over-explain things, we might avoid them, but what? What toll does that take on us when we're over-performing, so that we don't have to be. Would you use the word authentic? Oh, I love that, so that, because being authentic is threatening to a lot of people, not not just to themselves but to the person they're being authentic with. So it can be so.

Debbie:

To get back to the, the, my, the, the clients I seem to really get clients that have a lot of challenges with self doubt, self sabotage, challenges with self-doubt, self-sabotage, fear, and trying to help them get to a place of understanding about taking things personally or not. I asked them you know about some of their limiting beliefs. You know I'm not enough. You know I don't matter, I'm not special, nobody cares. You know these are very, very typical. And I ask them how do they know that that is true? And they say because how I feel? And I ask them I go, well, what if I really sincerely think that you know I'm going to say something crazy here? So you know, I know it's off and everybody that's going to hear it is going to know it's off.

Debbie:

But if I say something like you're the scaliest blue dinosaur I've ever seen, like I hate scaly blue dinosaurs, for some weird reason there's no emotion to that. They don't identify with it. There's not a rise of their respiratory, their parasympathetic system or anything. And they just kind of stare blankly at me like what are you talking about? And I'm like that is not taking it personal, that feeling right there where there's not a reaction to what's, to something that I said, and they're like, well, that's all well and good, but I don't think I'm a dinosaur or blue or scaly or whatever, but I do think I'm these other things too much, too little, you know, not enough in one way or another.

Debbie:

So, help, trying to help them experience getting to the back, to that place of allowing those words that other people say, because why does that other person get to have the say-so of who you are, right? Who decided you're not important, right? Well, somebody said something to you when you were younger and it could have been for no reason. That made sense to you now. Like if a child's jumping on the sofa or the bed or around the house and being loud, the parent has a headache and yells at them. You know, stop doing that. You're driving me crazy, right, if the headache was the real reason, but the words, you're driving me crazy. There's an indication and a child can't go well, maybe mom doesn't feel well right now.

Debbie:

The child is going to say I am wrong, what I did was bad. I have to act differently, mostly out of survival, because maybe mom yelled and I don't like. Differently, mostly out of survival, because maybe mom yelled and I don't like that, how that feels, or maybe a person gets, you know, lashed out or whatever. So we have to. You know, as parents, we should be really careful about the words of what we speak to our children, but also in our relationships. How are we speaking to loved ones, co-workers, other people in our lives, so that not only are we not taking anything personal, but we're speaking in a way where, like from the first one, we're being impeccable with our word. So make sure that those words that are coming out are also being positively impactful to the other person.

Deborah:

It leads you to a place that allows you to be open and not, you know, because we have that barrier up automatically. You know, okay, this everything in the world outside of myself is personal and I have to decide to what degree. And so by having this open and not really with the mindset that nothing is personal, then you don't have to fight against it. You can allow that freedom to just be, to be healthy and to feel everything that is going on around you isn't necessarily a a reflected or reflection of you well, yeah, absolutely it.

Debbie:

It, the challenge comes in because our, our brains, or our minds it's like he says they live in more than one dimension. I, I understand a hundred percent what that means, but it's like the brain can talk and listen to itself. And I had that experience, like I did not understand what that meant and it wasn't because of reading it that this happened. I just remember, like the law of attraction, right? Like I wanted to think my way thin, okay, I wanted to just proactively say affirmations or whatever and not really change any habits of my life, right? So let's just, I don't want to use a number, but let's just say I wanted to lose like 10 pounds.

Debbie:

So I decided I was going to write that out, I weigh this amount, and I was going to stick it on the wall so that I would say that a lot, right, I would just remember to repeat this affirmation, I guess, or this saying but what I wrote was I weigh this amount, you can do it like cheerleading for myself, this amount. You can do it Like cheerleading for myself. And I wrote you can do it, exclamation point. And I went who's calling me? You? Who's? Who? Just said you can do it Like, where did that come?

Deborah:

in.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, but that, yeah, but I no, I did not know. I did that. Was it the observer, like who? I was just trying so hard to understand where that came from, because I had never heard about this next part that he talks about, where for me, that was just two voices and they were both kind of in agreement. Right, I'm going to do it, you can do it. Right?

Debbie:

Like there's this agreement there, but there's thousands of voices that are back there in our heads and sometimes they're kind of all speaking at the same time and it's like they're talking, they're bartering, they're bantering. Some of them have similar points of views and others have very different points of views, and sometimes those aren't compatible with each other. So then what do we do? That's when we're stuck. We're like, oh my God, I don't know what to do, because, on the one hand, if I go this way, that's correct, and if I go this other way, that's correct for somebody else, but maybe it's for me, but it's not. It's like it just, it's like this confusion in our mind until we learn how to kind of settle that down, step back away from it and begin to learn what is the truth for ourselves, because all of those voices are not. They're put there like downloads, but they're not really ours.

Deborah:

Yeah, and and again, I I'm, you know, being a self-care coach. You know, one of the things that I focus on for my clients are actions that you can take to get there Right. And so, like one of the things that I always um that that stop. We've talked about this many times, you know. It's like how do you stop those voices? How do you stop that self? You know, beating yourself up or thinking, oh, this person thinks this and it's just a forward thing. You stop, person thinks this and it's just a four word thing.

Deborah:

You stop, you take a breath and you were talking about those two voices, right? You observe, you listen to those voices. What are they saying? Is it true, can it not be true? And then you come up with how you want to proceed, based on the information that you have and based on staying with yourself, and then you proceed. So that's how you get out of that. You know, okay, there's, there's, there's whoever's in my head talking here, talking here, talking here, stop okay, let's look, we're gonna, we're gonna do a little shop here, talk shop here.

Debbie:

Seriously, is it sort of like a bunch of teenagers are arguing about stuff and then the adult inside of you says hang on a second. You guys need to quiet down because there's a decision that needs to be made and I'm going to make it for all of us essentially, or in our all of our best highest good or whatever I mean.

Deborah:

I'm trying to find a a way to you know, you know the what, I, the way that I look at it, using that analogy that you used um, I think if you're saying the adult in the room is saying, okay, y'all stop, I'm going to make a decision is kind of corporal or kind of. You know, it's not the collaborative way that I would like to make any decision that I'm making, but like a talking stick, right, so you stop.

Debbie:

Okay.

Deborah:

And then you let this young person that has an idea talk. You let this young person that has an idea talk, this person. And so then you are able to stop and allow those ideas to emerge, and then they come to you freely. You can take all of those into consideration, and not maybe as the adult, but as your true self. Then you can proceed with the input of all of these other people, and it can happen in a split second.

Debbie:

I like that I don't think about that because, again, we were raised differently or you've been practicing longer. Sometimes I'm still in the director state, you know, like hold on a second. But I really like that because if I wasn't the highest ranking one, I would want to be able to have my input and that just feels like a very fair way. Plus, how? How is that not self-care and self-love? Because we're allowing each part of us to speak right and they might be in at odds with each other but they still get to say like I want to go purpley and I want to go green and I want to go yellow, but then it turns out that you know, heading orange is the best way to go, and but they all got, all got to have that. I like that a lot. I would have never thought to describe it that way, but I really. The talking sticks are really really good. Visual, really good one. So thank you for that.

Deborah:

Anytime I know, but I do. I do believe that that that is what's going to allow us, as a person, or as a people or as humanity, to have the space and the awareness to connect with each other, without all of these preconceived notions and all of these things. And when I was talking about all the talking sticks, every one of those people in that circle are wanting what is in your best and highest good right. Those are parts of you that are coming forward saying, okay, I think I'm doing the best. I think I'm doing the best, and some of them have been created out of agreements that you didn't make but just happened to be there. And this gives us a choice to move forward in a way that allows us to be more resilient and more free, because we can step forward with who we are.

Debbie:

Yeah, it makes. It makes coming up with a decision a lot easier. You know, there's so many people outside of us that are trying to tell us what they would like for us to do, because that will make them feel better. Right, you get what I mean by that? Right, I do. And, um, I heard a statement and it was this really interesting thing, because when we're not 100 sure and I'll say 100, but very sure about who we are, when we're not comfortable yet being authentic, when we're not yet at a place where we can determine quickly whether that person is saying something that is in our best interest or isn't in our best interest, and we feel a little challenged.

Debbie:

There was a statement or, I guess, a question, I don't know. It's like. It says would you take advice from that person? Right, so there's somebody like they're saying all their stuff. You might agree with them, you might not. You're like, you're not sure, so, but it's like if, if you're not sure that what they're telling you is in your best interest, the question is would you take advice from that person? And if the answer is no, then don't take their criticism either.

Deborah:

Ah, yeah, absolutely.

Debbie:

So that's the. Don't take it personal. So you're listening to somebody and you're like man, I wouldn't take advice from that person. And they say, like you know, you're not a good person because of this or that, or I don't like the clothes you wear, or whatever. Why would we accept their criticism if we wouldn't even take their advice? And I was like that is powerful, that is powerful, so that for me I feel like that wrapped up this chapter. For me, it was so good, it was such good chapter.

Debbie:

I really, really appreciated the information I did get a lot out of it.

Deborah:

I got a lot out of it. Yes, so next time we're going to be talking about, uh, the third agreement the third agreement.

Debbie:

Agreement is um make no assumptions yeah, don't make assumptions.

Deborah:

So I am looking forward to that conversation, debbie yeah, that's another one.

Debbie:

But yeah, I assume stuff all the time it is practicing shifting that. Yes, and it's a practice for sure. So well, you guys, we want to thank you for all the loves, likes and comments. It really means a lot and always.

Deborah:

We invite you to love and care for the Shero in you. Bye y'all.

Debbie:

Bye.

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