When I started this journey with The Boy (not the overall, in the labour suite journey but the “from a dysfunctional place to here” journey) I devoured parenting, self help, self improvement, communication and a variety of other websites and books.  Almost every one of them had steps to being a better person/mother/parent/partner/wife/whatever and almost every one of them had

DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

as step one.  I have no idea what steps were after that because once I read that one I was stuck.  So I would head off and try to find someone else or somewhere else that would provide me with a magical solution that did not involve changing anything about myself.

New things to actually DO?  Fine, no problem
New things to say to The Boy? Again, fine, not a problem
New way to think about myself and other people?  NO!!!!!  There is nothing wrong with me!

At some point, I am not sure when, I realised that I was constantly hitting step one and running away.  No one else seemed to have a step one that would let me absolve myself of any part of the problem.

The simple act of noticing when I was taking something personally was exhausting because if truth be told, it was happening all the time.  Every day.  Several times a day.

It is that point in time when you look at a series of bad things that have happened to you and realise that you are the only common element.

Alas it is not as easy as saying “Right, I am going to stop taking things personally” because you are often 5 miles past personal before you even realise.  You have walked, more likely run into hurt feelings and the reactions they produce and before you know it everything is in chaos.

From that place of chaos we look back and the significant event is the one that happened BEFORE we took it personally, therefore it is to blame for the chaos (and more particularly the person who did the thing is blamed).  We manage to gloss over our own part in the process.

Not taking things personally takes work, each and every time.  I failed a lot.  I would realise hours and sometimes days later that I had done it.  And then I got better at it, and I failed less.  Even now I sometimes miss it.  I catch myself feeling “off” and more often than not I can trace it back to the moment that I took it personally.

It is in those moments that I need to remember to apologise to the other person because I didn’t hear their message, I only felt my own response.

It is in *those* moments that I connect a little more with the other person and I remind us both that we are humans, doing the best we can.