Have you ever heard or been told not to take things too personally? This was a conundrum of mine for many years, because I used to think, how can I not take things personally if they’re happening to me and my emotions get triggered by a personal interaction? On one hand I wanted to feel heard and seen, but on the other I learned that I needed to detach from certain situations to not lose myself in them.
In time I’ve come to understand that it’s the paradoxical quality of Consciousness that makes issues like these fuzzy for the mind. Because everything is personal and yet nothing is personal; at least not in the way you think.
The ego-mind gives you an individualized experience of life, but it also creates the illusion that you’re separate from your reality. Then when other people’s journeys touch yours, you expect them to perceive things from your experience, which is uniquely different from theirs even if you have things in common.
If you’ve ever watched a 3D movie, you’ve noticed that how it looks depends on whether you wear 3D glasses or not. If you do, the objects on the screen have more volume and depth, and some of the actions pop out, as if they were happening right next to you. Now, if you don’t wear those special glasses, the movie lacks resolution and things show fuzzy color-layered shadows. Spectators usually wear the 3D glasses, but if only half of the audience did, the other half would have a somewhat offbeat experience even if they were together watching the same movie at the same time.
This is no different than your personal relationships and interactions. From where you’re standing, certain things are sharp and pop while others are dull and blurry. Expecting everyone in your own life-movie to wear the same perception-glasses as you often leads to disappointment and frustration. Plus, your ego-mind identifies with the reactions of others to reinforce its self-importance (either as a victimized or a judging actor/player), making things feel very personal; they refer to your persona, the self-image you’ll protect at all cost, even if it robs you of freedom and joy.
Your soul is continuously trying to direct you to discover yourself—all of who you are and are meant to become—but the ego-mind takes every opportunity to trap you in a familiar, fixed self-perception. You may think you are this or that, this way or that way, and things and people should also be this or that way, but life is an infinite divine game and you’re a Consciousness spark in an ongoing process of expansion and growth.
You Are Infinitely More Than Your Ego
Any mental box, no matter how familiar, goes against your true nature and eventually turns constrictive. The more you resist change, both in yourself and others, trying to control life in any way, the more you’re bound to suffer. By the same token, the freer you become mentally and emotionally, opening up to new possibilities and the unknown, accepting people as they are, the more gracefully you’ll navigate and tune into the fluid nature of life—without judgment, fear, or guilt.
When referring to ego, one of my gurus used to say, “A few are like paper and burn quickly; some are like wood and burn slowly; and others are like rocks and take a very long time to burn.” How thick your ego is usually gets reflected in how much resistance you’ve developed toward experiencing life from the spiritual layer of your soul. That is, your ability to be fully present and at peace, to accept and enjoy life, no matter what may be going on around you.
Taking things personally is the exact opposite, because the ego feeds a sense of ownership and doership to maintain the illusion of control, often leading to arrogance or fear, and separating you from yourself and your divine potential. If you let judgments color your perception, dictating what is positive or bad or spiritual or selfish, and so on, you limit it to a small fraction of what you and your life can be. From this perspective, anything that’s not familiar triggers resistance and fear because it threatens an ego-based self-image.
You are work in progress, with infinite creative power. If you open up to experiencing life as a journey of self-exploration, fear (or any form of resistance) has no longer a place. Everything in your reality acquires meaning and purpose, because it’s pointing at what you need to learn about and heal in yourself. There’s none to blame, nothing to judge, no control to lose, because you surrender to the spiritual forces within that know better what’s best for you on your soul path.
When you embrace who you are, accepting all the good, the bad, and the ugly, and take full spiritual responsibility for your reality, the separation between you and others dissolves, and you become a vessel of awareness and love in service of yourself and the Divine in others. Then there’s nothing to take personally, for everything and everyone mirrors what your soul is showing you, to discover who YOU really are and what your unique path to Oneness is. So contact me today to get started on your journey to a soul-guided, 5th-dimensional perception of life!
© 2016 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
