4 Things to Remember When People Are Mean, Rude, or Unkind
How to take things less personally and move forward.
It’s going to happen — at some point, someone will say something to you that is rude, insulting, or totally out of line. Or, they may do something that is completely inconsiderate — cut you off on the freeway, ask you to work over the weekend on Friday at 5pm, or simply ignore you.
Many of us have a difficult time dealing with these situations. Whether the offending person is someone we know well or a complete stranger, we first feel a sense of the surreal (did he/she really just do/say that? To me??). Then we might feel our body tense up, our face get hot and our heart start to pound.
Many of us carry these feelings long after the event, or even after an apology, which ends up costing us time and energy. What can we do to minimize our frustration in these situations?
It’s OK to feel anger when we’re treated unkindly. But carrying the anger for too long is not healthy. We have to learn to moderate the thoughts and feelings that arise when we feel like we’re being attacked.
We tend to take things personally — we react as if the other person is treating us poorly because they see us as weak, vulnerable, and someone that they can take advantage of. We’re often too caught up in the moment to realize that not everything is about us, and we don’t need to take everything personally.
Here’s four reasons why we should almost never take harsh words, deep criticism, or inconsiderate acts personally. Much easier said than done —it’s almost impossible to never take anything personally. But the following tips can help us be aware of our thought patterns, shift our perception, and lead us toward taking the high road when someone disrespects us or gives less-than-constructive criticism.
Remember That Almost Nothing Anyone Does Has Anything to do With You As a Person.
Whether the person being rude is a complete stranger or someone you’ve known your entire life, chances are, they’re doing what they’re doing to meet their own needs, and their issue has little to do with you as a person (although it may seem in the moment like it has everything to do with you).
Humans are hardwired to prioritize themselves. When someone is angry, frustrated, or trying to prove something, they will often say or do things to release tension. For most people, this is not a conscious process — they are doing or saying things that, in their subconscious perception, will ease their anxiety, fear, or anger.
Dr. Tobias Egner, a professor in the department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University says that research suggests that prioritizing the self is automatic: “we can’t help but prioritize the stimulus that’s associated with ourselves…we reliably show across four experiments that you’re always faster to respond to the self-reference cue.”
Someone who’s being rude or inconsiderate to you does not take the time to think about how good of a person you are, how many people you’ve helped, or how genuinely kind you are. They are prioritizing themselves in that moment, and little else matters to them. Even if they do know that you are a great person or know you very well, they are still prioritizing their own needs in that particular interaction with you — maybe the need to show you how powerful or assertive they are.
So you can’t really take their actions personally — they are reacting in the moment in a way that they think will best benefit them, even if it’s at someone else’s expense. Remembering this may help create separation between their actions and who you are as a person.
Remember That Everyone Sees The World From a Slightly Different Perspective.
One can make an argument that there are over 7 billion versions of planet earth — one slightly different version for every human on the planet. This is not an exaggeration. We simply cannot experience the world in the same way that any other human can. Neuroscientist David Eagleman of Stanford University says “given that we all have unique genes and experiences, each of us is the sole inhabitant of our own planet…we never know what the experience is like in another person’s mind.”
We often project our feelings on others — thoughts like if I feel this way about something, he/she must feel this way too and I just don’t understand people…how could he/she act like this? stream into our minds all the time. It’s very frustrating — we see the answer, we see that this person should not act that way — so why don’t they understand? Why don’t they get it? The answer is, because they do not live in the same reality that you live in. The world you experience is not the same as theirs.
Some people are rude and try to make it personal by saying things like “I know you better than anyone” or “I’m your husband/wife/father/mother/brother/sister, and I know you.”
No matter how well someone thinks they know you — they never know you as well as they think they do. They may know a lot about you, but they do not have access to your life experience, your perspective, the inner-workings of your brain, or the things you keep to yourself. They might know very intimate details about you — but they still haven’t lived your life, seen what you’ve seen, experienced what you’ve experienced. They couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to be you.
Our thoughts, behaviors, and actions are the results of a combination of thousands of factors, many of which we have no control over. We didn’t choose our parents, our genes, or the neurons firing in our brain. We didn’t choose how we were treated by our elders, our siblings, our schoolmates. We don’t choose most of our experiences throughout our lives.
The reason other people sometimes can’t understand how you feel, can’t empathize with you, sometimes say rude comments, and often can’t control themselves has nothing to do with you as a person. It is a combination of many, many factors that have contributed to their current state of mind as a human being, including millions of years of evolution, traits which they inherited, and years of experiences that they had no control over. The way they’re treating you is not about you — it’s about them.
Remember That Nothing Anyone Says Can Harm You Unless You Let It.
It sounds cliche, but it’s true — we are capable of shifting our perception so that people’s mean words and actions do not harm us.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you shift your perception: Does this person really have everything figured out?
Do they have all the answers in life?
Is every action they take the correct one?
Despite what they may say, the answer is no. Humans like that do not exist. Remember that if someone is criticizing you for something, it doesn’t mean they’re better than you, smarter than you, or more capable than you.
While they are failing to consider your feelings, they are also failing to consider that they have dozens of flaws that could use improvement. They too make many mistakes.
We have far more control over our emotions than we realize. The classical view of emotion espouses that humans feel emotions like anger, sadness, and happiness, and that stimuli from outside events trigger these emotions.
Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, suggests that’s not the case at all: “In every waking moment, your brain uses past experience, organized as concepts, to guide your actions and give your sensations meaning…your brain constructs instances of emotion.”
In other words, we aren’t automatically programmed to behave a certain way when something happens to us. We can actively choose how to react to other people. Many practices, such as mindfulness, can teach us to be more aware of our thoughts and feelings so that they don’t have so much control over us.
This does not mean that we cease feeling upset or angry when someone is rude to us, or that we don’t feel emotions at all. It means that with practice, we can be more aware of our thoughts and begin to see them as just that — thoughts. Thoughts that can be challenged, and thoughts that can be incorrect. When we have this awareness, we can briefly pause and reflect before acting.
Remember To Ask Yourself if You’re Really Being Attacked.
Take a moment to ask yourself if the other person is really attacking you and your character, or if it’s just a a lack of consideration on their part. If someone cuts you off on the freeway — are they really attacking you? Or is it just that they didn’t take the time to consider you and your feelings?
If someone is criticizing you, are they actually attacking you as a person? Or are they frustrated about something else, and taking it out on you? Or are they attempting to shift blame onto you from something they’re insecure about?
Asking yourself if you’re really being attacked may help you keep calm and put things in perspective.
Summary
It’s not easy to stop taking things personally when people treat you poorly. It’s incredibly difficult. It takes focus and practice. One has to use these tools and others repeatedly before they sink in. We all slip up. We will most likely never be completely impervious to taking things personally. But if you put the work in, you may find yourself having an easier time overcoming rudeness from others, focusing less on how they treat you, and focusing more on your own strengths, ideals and goals.
