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Episode 418 – When we feel offended

• My friends – welcome
• I am grateful you are here
• Wednesday’s episode on silent treatment left me thinking
• And I thought about other moments when we feel hurt and respond with silence – not necessarily related to our partner or best friend
  • When we brew
  • When we fester
  • When we fume
• When something has upset us
  • The news
  • A stranger on the bus
  • A comment from a coworker
• And I thought about people I know that get offended easily
• Silence may not always be their response – in fact quite often its not
  • they lash out
  • they get angry
• But these are more of of those behaviors that waste time, energy and that shows that we are not in control over our feelings
  • Just like when we issue the silent treatment
• And since this is already a controversial week – as I mentioned on Wednesday – we may as well continue
• So lets talk about offenses
• What a waste of energy.
• I am sorry but I have to start right out with the truth
• The biggest problem I see with feeling offended is the incredible energy this consumes
• Its all-consuming and leaves us with little motivation for anything else
• Lets be very clear
• To feel offended is a choice
• It’s the same choice as laughing about a joke
• It’s a response to an outside event – someone said or did something – you laugh or you decide to be offended
• You may think it’s just a reaction to someone or something – and it is
• But we are ultimately responsible for our reactions – which brings me back to it being a choice
• Think about these statements –
  • “I can’t believe she said that to me,”
  • “He owes me an apology,”
  • “I’m so pissed that they thought that of me”.
• I could turn every sentence around and make it a different choice for you
  • She must feel really hurt to say something like this
  • I don’t appreciate the statement and I will let her know
  • I can’t control what they think of me
• We make a choice about the things that affect us
• and some things affect us more than others
• for example
• when we strongly identify with something, we are more likely to get offended when we encounter something contrary
• we see this every day in the media in the battles that take place when it comes to politics, sports, religious beliefs, and so on
• but it also is tied to simple personal identifications
  • If you consider yourself a runner and someone makes a joke about runners, your ears are perking up much quicker than if they made a joke about something you don’t care about
• When I hear a conversation about coffee shops, I am listening in because I have a thing for coffee shops and I know all the good ones in my area
• And if someone said something negative about my favorite ones, I would probably jump to the defensive
• The thing is – we attach value to something outside of us that doesn’t make us who we are
• We identify with it – but its not part of us
  • The coffee shop, the political party, our beliefs
• Think back 10 years and you can probably name a few things that you don’t care about anymore today but that were very important back then
  • I was a runner once and could talk hours about running
  • I couldn’t imagine my life without running
  • Not so today
• I am not saying you should not to care about something –
• We all hold strong beliefs about certain aspects in life that matter to us
•  
• But we don’t need to get attached to them
• They don’t define us because they are outside of us
•  
• We also derive value from other people’s opinions
• They criticize us or the thing we care about – and we take it personally
• The thing is – their criticism is their belief
• It doesn’t have to become ours
• Their words don’t need to affect that which is important to us
• We can let it be theirs – we don’t have to take it on
• Someone else’s opinion is their truth – not ours
•  
• The problem with feeling offended I see is this:
• We are giving away our power
• Someone has just ruined our day, zapped our energy and taken away our time
• Let me repeat
• Its good to care about something, to stand up for it
• But that also means we have to be strong enough to withstand the winds that try to push us over
• Its not good when we tumble every time someone says something against us
  • It means we are not strong enough
• So if you feel strongly about something, then also be strong enough to not be influenced by what everyone else says
• Choose to take the high road
• Choose to do your thing, no matter what everyone says
• Stand up fully for yourself
• Plan on criticism
• The stronger you feel about something, the more criticisms you will attract
• You can prepare for that
• Empower yourself and shield yourself against others that may try to take away that power
• When you are that strong, then you will not be offended by others
• Because when you allow yourself to be offended, you become weak
  • You will argue
  • You will most likely exhibit behaviors that you later regret
• Stay in peace
• Stay strong
• Hold your beliefs but don’t allow them to become part of you so that when you get attacked, you cannot separate yourself from them
• Its one thing to be personally insulted – your looks, your character, your upbringing
• Its another to be attacked based on beliefs – they are not part of us so we can stand above them
• Remember
• Being offended creates the same destructive energy that offended you in the first place
• It leads to just another attack
• I want to close with a few sentences from the late spiritual guru Wayne Dyer that describe beautifully the useless feeling of being offended

Much love