Don't take it personally, ever.

Even when you are certain something was meant to be on a personal level. Refuse to accept it in that manner. It is always your choice how you receive circumstances and situations.

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me. As I child, I not only repeated the phrase often, but also had it used back on me. Being one of seven children in the household, the childish bickering was considered the norm. While my mother spent plenty of time refereeing our squabbles, often living in confined spaces, she had no time to waste on hurt feelings over personal word attacks. We were expected to know this important lesson right away.

Into adulthood, I often forgot the lesson and suffered the enormous hurt feelings. I suppose it came from the lack of hearing that stick & stones phrase being tossed around so often. If felt somehow different coming from the adult world, as if no longer childish, but valid and powerful. I felt myself succumb to it and intimidated. It could be downright crushing.

But the truth is the same in childhood as in adulthood. It is not a lesson to be left behind but carried with us throughout our lives.

My furthering education brought me to the understanding that attacks on a personal level are about the attacker, not the attacked. That the subject of the personal attack is in fact a reflective measure of themselves. Example:

You're stupid!

The attacker is making a measurement of who is deemed stupid in their own limited opinion. Attacker will then place themselves at an appropriate slot above the attacked, in their mind. Therefore the attacker has used you as a peg to define itself. This makes the personal attack really about the attacker and not the attacked.

Throughout life you will hear many things. It is up to you to filter out the unwanted and chose what things you accept.

If you want more information on this subject, here is a great video from PragerU

Its all about how YOU think about it.