What if it’s Not Personal?

Let’s play a game, a visualization game, shall we?

Ok, you’re walking down the aisle of a grocery store.  You’re looking at the shelves and you feel a sharp pain in your toe.  You glance down and see that someone has stepped on your foot.

Visualization Scenario 1:  The person says “Oh, I’m so sorry!  I wasn’t looking!”

Now, how do you feel?

Visualization Scenario 2: The person says “Did you like that?!  Ha!  I did it on purpose!”

Now, how do you feel?

The amount of pain to your foot is the same, but the feeling is quite different, and the difference is how personally you take the behavior.

The sense that something was personally done to “me” has with it the idea that there was intent to harm me in specific.  It makes us feel small, weak, and vulnerable.  It makes us feel competitive and not cooperative – separate and not connected.

In short, it feels far worse than the momentary pain to our toe.

But I hear you say “But, they said they meant to do it!  It IS personal!”

Now comes a download of their personal life experience.  You see that they were bullied and beaten as a child.  You see that when they admitted they made a mistake they were attacked and ridiculed.  You see that they have taken on the survival strategy of “never admit mistakes and be ready to fight to save my life at any moment.”  And with this insight comes the very clear view that they are not in fact in control of their responses.  Their conditioning demands that even when they are at fault they act like they weren’t because it never paid to be honest, vulnerable, or compassionate.

So, did they “do it on purpose?”  Did they “do it personally and willingly to you?” or was it a result of unconscious programming they have no control over?

In short, maybe it wasn’t personal after all?

Similarly, the universe itself is merely a product of the processes that came before it.  There is nothing happening in the present that isn’t a result of the karma that preceded it.  It is all one process and never is that process personally attacking you.  It is conditioned to be as it is, and so are you.

Maybe noting in the universe is personal because it is all, in the end, just you?

What would that feel like if embraced completely?

Something to consider…