My guest this week is Dr. Joel Minden, a regular on the Think Act Be podcast. This time we focused on taking things less personally, whether we’re assuming people are upset with us when they’re not, or we’re blaming ourselves when things don’t work out, or anything else. We also talked about thinking errors, or cognitive distortions, that lead us to take things too personally. Toward the end we explored why we don’t have to see our own faults and limitations as personal failings. I think you’ll take a lot from this conversation. 

Topics we touched on included:

• Joel’s recent experience of taking things too personally
• How focusing on ourselves gets in the way of connection with others
• Some of the reasons for our personalizing
• Possible [evolutionary] advantages to taking things personally
• Normalizing our personalizing
• Cognitive distortions that contribute to taking things personally
  • Mind reading: assuming we know what others are thinking
  • Emotional reasoning
• The importance of validating feelings, even if thinking is flawed
• Finding freedom by not taking our human shortcomings personally
• Whether it ever makes sense to take other people’s behavior personally
• Joel’s helpful response to a recent issue that came up for me
• Treating our initial reaction as an hypothesis

For a deeper dive into not taking things personally, check out Joel’s excellent guide on Psyche. 

Joel Minden, PhD, is a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and related disorders.

He is the author of Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss (affiliate link), founder of the Chico Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, diplomate of The Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Chico.

Find Joel online at his website, follow him on Twitter, and read his blog on Psychology Today.