Taking things personally or personalization

What’s the point of taking an external opinion or criticism personally? Does it benefit us in any way?

Personalization

We can often feel (or imagine) verbally attacked by others, or think that others look down on us, we may even think that they criticize some aspect of our life or behavior.

Personalize Everything that happens around us, every criticism and opinion, assuming responsibility for a negative fact when there is no basis for it, leads us to guilt. Deciding if what happened is due to our fault or our inability, even if we are not responsible.

This phenomenon is known as personalizationa cognitive distortion or error in processing information, which will make us feel paralyzing guilt, even when we have nothing to do with it.

We confuse influence over people and ability to control. We can influence people when we interact with them, but we cannot control them. What each person does is their responsibility, not ours..

What reactions occur when we personalize?

When personalizing facts or opinions, two different types of reactions can occur in us:

–Interpret the situation as a danger, because we are dominated by our ego and it feels hurt. Thoughts such as “they are laughing at me”, “why are they looking at me like that?”, “this is not like that”, “am I going to allow it?” will pass through our minds, and we will react with verbal aggression or feelings of hatred and resentment, regretting our reaction later.

-We will wear from our aggressor, identifying us with what they are telling us or what we interpret as criticism, attacking ourselves with thoughts like “that’s what everyone thinks of me”, “you give a bad image to everyone”, “I’m not worth it”. Messages that are all generalized and distorted, and the only thing they do is blur our worth and personal growth.

With these two types of reactions, we are only demonstrating that we present a lack or low self-esteem. We find ourselves prisoners of a tendency to interpret, believe and confirm our insecurities in the behaviors that others have towards us.

This, as we said previously, constitutes the phenomenon of personalization, the interpretation of the external by personalizing it, creating continuous and internal discomfort.

What can we do?

First of all, we must keep in mind that it is impossible that everything people do or say has to do in some way, whether positively or negatively, with us.

The best option is comprehension, understand yourself, stop at that moment and try to understand what we are directing at ourselves. It means giving ourselves at that moment the tranquility and mental clarity necessary to understand the situation, without the distortion of reality that we sometimes commit.

And allow ourselves to act calmly if in any circumstance we feel overwhelmed or attacked, being able to give an assertive response to the other person.

Perhaps a good strategy in the face of personalization is to take the situation as a new opportunity to get to know oneself, understand what aspect of what was discussed has interfered with our interior, and work with it if we believe it is appropriate.

Remember “Someone can put their finger in your sore and hurt you, but if you try to cure your sore, their finger will not bother you particularly” (Pedro Jara Vera)