Nothing Personal

My husband, Nirmala, has written a wonderful book called Nothing Personal. I love that title, so I?d like to talk a little bit more about what it means. We get into trouble (i.e. end up unhappy) when we take things personally. What I mean by that, besides the usual meaning, is that we get into trouble when we personalize our experience?when we have an experience and then tell a story about it. For instance we noticed the color of the sky, and we say ?I love it when the sky is blue; it makes me feel happy. The story is ?I love it and it makes me feel happy,? and that story, then, colors our simple experience of noticing the blue sky. That particular story isn?t much of a problem because that statement is pretty close to the truth?a beautiful sky or anything beautiful easily evokes a feeling of happiness. But what happens when the sky isn?t blue? Positive stories can easily flip into negative ones.

Telling stories wouldn?t be a problem if our stories were always positive, but our stories are often negative, unhappy, complaints about life that generate negative feelings. And those complaints and feelings color life and spoil the potential happiness and grace in each moment. For example: You notice your spouse?s clothes on the floor and say to yourself: ?Those clothes were so expensive; I can?t believe he/she threw them on the floor.? That short, little story can make you angry, and you might express this anger to your spouse or do something else in response to feeling angry (e.g. eat cake, go on a shopping spree, complain to a friend.) If you are able to just notice the clothing and notice the story that arises, then anger and any other responses that the anger might spark won?t result. And then just pick up the clothes or don?t pick up the clothes. End of story. The anger is unnecessary and so are the other responses. They waste our energy and get us nothing but unhappiness. What if you just noticed what you notice without telling a story about it and then just responded to it?

Source: http://www.radicalhappiness.com/all-blog-articles/306-nothing-personal

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