I realize this phrase has made repeat appearances in the F*IT blog, but when we find something that makes us really think, it is well worth revisiting…
Make no mistake, this is a life mantra passed on to me from my Dad, and when he first divulged this wisdom, I thought he had lost his mind…
Don’t take my feelings so personal. 🤷♂️WTF!!!
At the time, I felt like I was an emotional person and baseball player, and I thought of that as being a strength. Emotions and feelings are what made me a great husband, father, son, teammate and ball player… That’s just who I was.
A few years later, my Dad passed away and for whatever reason, that phrase stuck in my head. As I wrote The F*It List, I read hundreds of books including many on Stoic philosophy. The biggest misnomer of the Stoics is that they are emotionless and live without feelings, yet Stoics are very emotional and experience all of the same roller coaster feelings you and I experience on a daily basis…
The difference is that the Stoics don’t take their feelings personal. They understand that it is human nature to irrationally react to our feelings, so they decide not to take them personal…
The Problem:
By nature, we almost always take our feelings personal, and typically, the ego will take over from there. We then will make emotional decisions and take emotionally driven actions in response to those feelings…
Human Crash Test Dummy Solution:
Always attempt to spiritually remove yourself from the situation and simply become a rational third party observer. Oftentimes, this will allow compassion and understanding to come in and offer a non-emotional perspective on our feelings and the overall situation…
Team Go Hard Task:
Bring it back. Next time you get caught by your emotions and begin to irrationally react to your feelings, just STOP. Close your eyes and go to your insular Tahiti and begin meditating on all of the things in this world that make you happy. Then go back to the situation and do everything in your power to emotionally remove yourself from the situation and try to understand the other person’s perspective and why they did or said what they did. This doesn’t mean you will agree with their actions, it just means you will gain a much better perspective of the overall situation.
-EB