Are You A Personaliser?

It’s not about you.

Well, sometimes it is, but most of the time it isn’t. Even though you think it is. Confused? Yeah, you will be, and it can also lead to a few gloomy emotions for you as well, particularly if you’re one of those people that think like this.

Personalising. We all do it. Some of us more than others.

Have you sent a text message to someone before and didn’t get a reply? What immediately jumped to mind? They don’t like you. Perhaps they are purposefully ignoring you. They don’t want to see you. I guarantee that these thoughts will pop up before the more likely explanation of they didn’t get the message, or they just haven’t had a chance to reply yet. OR perhaps they are just one of those people that texts their response hours (or days) later. Annoying I know, however it has nothing to do with you.

Personalising is one of those distortions of thinking where we explain reality rather inaccurately. Like other cognitive distortions, ‘personalising’ can cause negative emotions and lead to an overall dismal outlook on the world. You are not to blame for everything. There are other reasons why negative external events happen, and you are not solely the cause.

Have you been on a date before and the person didn’t want to see you again? You were offended weren’t you? What are some of the myriad of other reasons why a person might not want to date you any longer? Tease out some other reasons. Practice doing this so you don’t automatically whip out YOU as the reason that this happened. Perhaps they were not ready to date. Perhaps they don’t feel good enough for you. Perhaps they don’t feel worthy enough. Perhaps they just have some other stuff just going on right now….all of which have nought to do with you. Practising considering alternative explanations will actually help you feel better and give you more confidence to go out dating again.

All of us have moments where we think we are the problem, we must be the cause of all of our less than fun occurrences, but you know, unless you live on an island by yourself, it’s likely that some other factors were involved. And you most likely have not considered any of them.

Noticing that you might be a bit of a ‘personaliser’ is a great first step to catching yourself before you feel more distress.

That way you get cracking on making it NOT all about you.