Category Archives: Maturity

Photo by Don Debold: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddebold/5674779338/

There are times in our work­ing, pro­fes­sional, or per­sonal lives when some­one says some­thing to us just rubs you the wrong way. It can be espe­cially painful when it is done in front of oth­ers, in your blog’s com­ment thread, in an online forum, or with oth­ers copied on the email thread. We can feel offended or put off by these obnox­ious com­ments or ques­tions. When this hap­pens, the most impor­tant thing to do is to move on, and get over it. The worse thing you can do is to let it drag you down.

If you hold onto a grudge it WILL:
…keep you from pur­su­ing your per­sonal inter­ests, such as marathon run­ning, or cool DIY home ren­o­va­tions
…keep you from doing great things, like mak­ing that great dessert you wanted to make for the din­ner party
…keep you from your call­ing, such as learn­ing new tech­nolo­gies like HTML5 or web ana­lyt­ics tools that can help you solve more prob­lems at work

No mat­ter how ter­ri­ble you feel when some­one embar­rasses you, here are five tips you can use to… just get over it.

1. Accept the fact that it’s an ‘ego-thing.’

I heard once that usu­ally peo­ple don’t get over things because they hold onto their ego too much. They can’t believe that some­one could pos­si­bly find fault in them, or could not love them. How­ever, if we accept the fact that offense is all about the ego, we are well on the way to get­ting over the issue, and mov­ing on with hav­ing ful­fill­ing per­sonal and pro­fes­sional lives.

2. Do not tell any­one, do not gossip.

No mat­ter how hard it is to resist, do not tell any­one about the offender — it will NOT make you feel any bet­ter. This will not help you to get over the offender, and it will just make you look like you are a com­plain­ing gos­siper. Peo­ple who are famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, and involved with the offender, will look dif­fer­ently toward them. No mat­ter how much you want oth­ers to join you in your mis­ery, this can seri­ously back­fire. You should just give every­one the oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with the offender, and let the truth speak for itself. (Unless they have phys­i­cally harmed you, or are caus­ing harm to oth­ers. In this case, you should talk with some­one about it). It’s best to talk with a neu­tral party if any­thing, some­one who does not work with you, and is not related to you. If you have to let it out, jour­nal about it.

3. Let time run its course — by dis­tract­ing yourself.

Some­times you just need some dis­tance from the offender, or dis­tance from the offend­ing inci­dent. One thing I like to do is escape into enter­tain­ing TV shows, movies, or exer­cise. Some­times only time can help heal from being hurt.

4. Always keep some spare choco­late on hand — dark chocolate.

Don’t deny that dark choco­late makes you feel bet­ter… embrace it. This is def­i­nitely not some­thing to fight, but to allow it to soothe your bro­ken heart. You will soon be so mes­mer­ized by the bit­ter­sweet taste of the dark choco­late, that you will for­get all about the offender… at least for a lit­tle while.

5. Keep sooth­ing scents nearby that remind you of peace­ful places.

Some­one told me recently that smell is the strongest of the five senses for mem­ory recall — he said this is why, for exam­ple, we are able to remem­ber child­hood mem­o­ries so well when we smell the choco­late chip cook­ies bak­ing. I don’t know if this is true, but it seems to work well for me when I’m try­ing to just calm myself down. The scent I like to have with me is laven­der. It reminds me of my favorite yoga classes I used to take when I was in col­lege, which were SO sooth­ing. The instruc­tor used to spray laven­der on our hands just before chavasana, or the final relax­ation phase. Every time I smell laven­der, I can’t help but think of sooth­ing thoughts… and it gets rid of the embar­rass­ing thoughts I’m try­ing to for­get about.

In sum­mary, build a bridge and get over it. Seri­ously, this isn’t just a say­ing. Find some way to get past your hurt — built that bridge that gets you from where you are to the other side of the river.