QTIP: Quit Taking It Personally
One reason our conversations with people who disagree with us are so contentious is that we take their comments personally. If they don’t agree with us, we think they’re rejecting us! Not just that they’re rejecting our point of view — but they are rejecting our very being. That makes us view their point of view as an existential threat.
But you are NOT what you believe or even what you think. You are a much more complex being that has a heart at its center.
Their beliefs have nothing to do with you. Their beliefs arise out of their worldview. They come out of how they were raised, what their life experiences have been like and what their personality characteristics are. Your world was probably very different, which led you where you are.
The fact that they don’t agree with you — even if you interpret that as them rejecting what you’re saying — doesn’t have anything to do with you.
That might be hard to believe given the verbal attacks that go on, including name-calling. But our differences really aren’t personal. Not at their core.
I’m not the only one saying this. Spiritual teacher Eckert Tolle calls the idea that our disagreements are threatening to us a delusion, driven by the ego. He says that there are two ways our political polarization could end, either in actual conflict or in a change in our thinking.
I vote for a change in our thinking. Be one of the first to recognize that another person’s thinking is not a threat to you.
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I so enjoyed this article. Every word resonated with me. I have found that it is also challenging to change another’s point of view, opinion. So, now, I just spend more time listening than talking.
Robert Franklin says that integrity is the seamless integration of values, intention, and action. The trick one must master is letting our lives speak our truth powerfully with integrity and without rancor. Another person's thinking may not be a personal threat, but it may threaten our communities. Intentional lies, propaganda, unsupportable beliefs about reality (climate, vaccines, etc.) are all breaches of personal integrity - actions in bad faith. It takes a saintly perspective to see the Divine light in those whose lack of integrity threatens us.