This is a concept that is usually offered by my mom or my best friends when situations present themselves that I can’t always grasp. “Just remember, it’s probably not personal” is a phrase that dances off the tongues of people I seek advice from in various circumstances. Most often this idea has popped up in times of a disappointing rejection or even during a breakup. Each situation was completely unique from the one that preceded, but the same mentality was addressed in these situations.
For example, if you’re rejected by someone that you were vulnerable with — you told them your deeper feelings — and you can’t seem to understand why they said no, it can be really difficult to accept what they’ve said. It doesn’t always make a lot of sense and if you’re anything like me, you probably start wracking your brain for reasons why he/she/they made the decision that they did. Did you come on too strong? Is there something seriously problematic in your personality or character that turned them away from you?
And here’s where my little slogan comes into play. Honestly, it’s probably nothing personal and you shouldn’t automatically jump to the conclusion that it is. They could have said no because they weren’t in a time in their life that made sense to pursue a significant other and because of that they would have said no. But that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with who you are as a person or how you carry yourself. It’s okay to believe that their decision is in fact all to do with themselves and nothing to do with you at all.
Further into a relationship, when you’re going through a breakup it can be really difficult to accept and understand the reasoning behind why they chose to split with you. You sit there for long stretches of time wracking your brain to try to shed some light on the situation and a lot of times you’re not successful.
With that being said, if you know deep down that you didn’t actually do anything wrong then you shouldn’t blame yourself even if it wasn’t your choice. If you didn’t do anything wrong — intense enough to cause a breakup — then there’s a good chance that it has to do with the livelihood of the other person. They could have reached a point in their life where dragging you along would only make the situation more painful than it already was and thus they cut ties. But you shouldn’t be taking this personally because it’s not a direct judgment or reflection on who you are as a person or your character. It just wasn’t supposed to work during that time in your life, and that’s not your fault.
Trying to make sense of painful situations in your life that don’t immediately make sense can be very self harming to your mental state and it’s important to try to avoid that if you can. Like I stated before, if you know you didn’t do anything wrong then you shouldn’t burden yourself with blame because it’s not about you. Keeping this mentality in the corners of my mind when these kinds of things pop up has helped me to get through some pretty dark and painful events in my life. It’s helped me to keep my head held high even though emotionally I didn’t think I’d be able to for a long time. Understanding and believing in your self-worth is the absolute hardest to do when someone is rejecting your love and affection, but that’s when it’s the most important to have faith in it.