“Someone else’s negative behavior is about them, their treatment of you is a reflection of their character, NOT YOUR WORTH.” Kati Morton

How often do you personalize or internalize other people’s behavior? This can come from the need to seek approval, to please others, feel in control, avoid conflict, feeling like you need to fix situations, or learned behavior from childhood where you had a big sense of responsibility, or learned behavior due to emotional neglect or codependency.

Regardless of the “why”, internalizing and personalizing other people’s behavior is exhausting and gets in the way of your own emotional development. Taking on someone’s emotions, behavior, or actions is a direct threat to your own self-worth. YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S FEELINGS, HOW THEY REACT TO YOU, OR HOW THEY TREAT YOU. REPEAT: YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S FEELINGS, HOW THEY REACT TO YOU, OR HOW THEY TREAT YOU. Learning and internalizing this is important for one’s emotional well-being and self-worth. You are only responsible for the emotions, behaviors, and actions of yourself.

It's freeing to leave the responsibility of how others treat you on themselves. Their behavior is a mirror of how they feel about themselves, perceive the world, or a demonstration of where they lack skills to cope. For example, a person who goes out of their way to hurt or treat another person poorly only shows where they lack skills in their own emotional development. If you can relate, I challenge you to imagine putting your arms out in front of you like a stop sign and not allowing those feelings into you. Toss them back and practice saying in your mind, “I’m not responsible for the feelings, actions, or behaviors of another person.”

With hard work, you can retrain yourself not to personalize and internalize the feelings, actions, and behaviors of other people. It will take a load off of you and open space for emotional growth and development. Because after all, you may not be responsible for how others treat you, but you can show them what you expect from them. Working with a professional counselor on this is highly encouraged as this work can go deep, requiring strong guidance and support. Give ALC a call, you can do this -- the counselor’s feelings are NOT included.