The holiday season is supposedly the most wonderful time of the year, but it is also the time when people are weirdly the rudest to each other. April Shprintz is here to remind you that such harsh treatment is not about you – they are all about them. Breaking down a few sample situations, she explains how to give other people a little bit of grace and give yourself peace of mind during the holidays.
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It’s Not About You – Holiday Edition
I am so glad you are here. I absolutely love doing the It Is Not About You episodes. Here is why. My learning that 99.9% of what people do has nothing to do with me or how they feel or how they act has become an absolute superpower. I told a friend recently that some people think I am mentally ill because I am so happy that it does not make sense in the face of the things that are happening around me.
Why You Shouldn’t Worry: A Few Examples
The reason I am so happy and at peace is that I know it is not about me. It has nothing to do with me. I am going to give you some examples that will help you during this holiday week, in case you encounter some of these things. Here is an example. Let us say your mother-in-law will not let you help with the holiday dinner. You think she thinks I cannot cook well, or she is so controlling, or she is so rude, or she is just trying to be mean to me. It is not about you.
Your mother-in-law probably got pressure from her mother-in-law to get the dinner perfect. Maybe it was from her mother. Maybe it was from no one. It was herself, because her family had perfect dinners, and she had decided that she was only good if she did it all on her own. That has nothing to do with you. If you are in a situation like that, just be as loving and kind as you can be because this has nothing to do with what you can do.
People can be strangely rude during the holidays due to stress. Share on XRelax, take the time off. It looks like she is going to make a great dinner, and you can offer to clean up. What if you have a teenager and they want to spend the holidays most of the time with someone else? Maybe it is your former spouse, maybe it is their friends, but they do not want to spend time with you. Again, it is not about you. They could want to spend time with your former spouse because they spend less time with that person during the year, and they feel bad for them. They might want to spend more time with their friends because when teenagers are in that stage of life, it is all about independence.
It is all about doing their own thing. It is all about them. That is completely normal and completely healthy. Also, you are already guessing what I am going to say. It is not about you. Let us say that people are rude to you because, weirdly, during the holidays, you think people would be their nicest, but because of stress, they tend to be their rudest. Whether you are driving or you are in a store, you are on the phone, or even at home, there is always a reason that has nothing to do with you 99.9% of the time.
You are driving. The person who has just made the complete asshole move on the road is late for an event and in a bad marriage, and knows that if they get there super late, it is going to cause an argument with their significant other. It is not about you. You just happened to be on the road when they were on the road. Let us say you are in a store.
Other people’s actions and reactions have nothing to do with you. Having peace will be the greatest gift you can give to yourself. Share on XThe person is rude. They want the last thing that you are trying to get. They are just standoffish or say something mean. What if that person just found out they got let go, and they are in the store trying to figure out how they are going to make the holidays work with the money they have and how they are going to find a job in this economy? Not about you, right? You get someone on the phone, a service person, and they are just short. They are not as nice as you would hope that they would be. They have been dealing with people who were stressed and rude all day long.
How Finding Empathy Can Give You Peace
Again, it is not about you. When you find empathy, it is not about being the nicer person or doing the right thing, although those are great. Finding empathy can give you peace because it does not involve you. It is just something that is happening in their world. Even if you have your significant other come home and just not fun to be around in a bad mood, all those things, they could have been going the extra mile for everyone all day long, and they just do not have anything left.
You might say, “They should save something for me.” If you give them a little grace, you give them a little time, and you do not take it personally, I will bet you money that they will come back to you and be more like their normal self. Even if they do not, just knowing that it is not about you will allow you to experience people’s actions and reactions as if you are watching a movie. Think about that.
When you are watching a movie and all the things that people do and all the ways that people react, you know that it’s about the story. That is about them. You are not worried that someone is about to jump off a building and pull a gun on you. Do that in your actual life. Realize how people’s actions and reactions really have nothing to do with you, and allow that to give you peace in all the different situations that you are in. Especially right now, because people are at a higher stress level than normal. Having peace will be the greatest gift that you can give yourself. Here’s to your success.
