Counselor's Corner
Karyn Tercy, MSCP
Phone: 808-533-3000
Hours: 9a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or by appointment
E-mail: CCAcounselor@hawaii.rr.com
Hello, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the Christmas holiday.
The last Counselor’s Corner began with a discussion of the first of Don Miguel Ruiz’ The Four Agreements (“Be impeccable with your word.”) This column continues the discussion focusing on the Second Agreement.
The Second Agreement is “Don’t take anything personally.” Ruiz asserts that nothing anyone says to or about you is personal. This is a difficult concept for most of us to understand. For example, if someone calls you stupid, how do you not take that personally? The answer is that you must step back and realize that whatever someone else says to you is a reflection of that person’s opinion. Everyone views the world through the veil of his/her own experience. Thus anything anyone else says reflects his/her own experiences. It only becomes personal when you agree to take it personally. The person who calls you stupid is speaking from his/her opinion of what is stupid. That person may believe that anyone who fails an entrance exam is stupid. Albert Einstein, who discovered the theory of relativity and is considered by many to be one of the most intelligent people of the twentieth century, failed the entrance exam to ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Wikipedia, Albert Einstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Youth_and_schooling, accessed 11/28/08). Did that make him stupid? What someone else says about you and thinks about you have nothing to do with you.
This is a very difficult agreement for most people to make with themselves. It is a human reaction to defend ourselves when we are insulted, but this creates conflicts. If we can stop before we react, realize that what was said is someone else’s opinion, accept it for what it is, and go on, we will not invest energy in trying to prove the other person wrong.
Road rage is a recurring problem in Honolulu’s traffic. If we are able to realize that the driver who cut us off in traffic might be late for an appointment or just plain rude, we can resist allowing his action to affect how we feel the rest of the day.
By the same token, if someone tells us we are wonderful, that reflect the other person’s opinion. We may be wonderful, but not because someone else says we are.
We cannot control what other people say or do, but we can control how we react. Have a wonderful day and don’t take it personally!
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