Being Offended Is A Gift
If you happen to walk into a retirement home and some elderly person who you’ve never met sees you and begins singing your praises, are you elated at the positive reinforcement? No, you’ll know that the well intentioned and sweet elderly person also probably has dementia. You likely remind them of someone in their past or maybe this is what they say to every stranger they meet. The complement doesn’t count. Then you’re at work and a coworker praises you in front of some peers. All of a sudden the compliment makes you feel like a hero. You feel important and validated. People care about you! It feels so good.
What’s the difference between the elderly person and the coworker's words? The content of the information was the same; it’s only the source of the information that was different. You conclude that the other person was the one that made you feel good. But that isn’t it. There is something unconscious within you that interpreted what was spoken and made a decision: this praise counts, that praise doesn’t. If there is interpretation going on it proves that it isn’t the source of the compliment, it’s your interpretation that is responsible. It’s not the words spoken or the source of the words: Only interpretations can affect you.
You mistakenly confuse outside approval with your own self-approval because the two occur almost simultaneously. You mistakenly conclude that the other person has made you feel good. The fact that you do at times enjoy praise proves that you know how to approve of yourself because you're the one causing it to happen—you’re just endorsing yourself after someone else endorses you. What is the underthought criteria for endorsing yourself? It depends on if what is spoken lines up with what you believe to be true.
The same thing happens when someone tries to offend you. Have you ever seen a frustrated kid who out of desperation hurls an insult as a last ditch effort to redeem themselves? You tell them they need to go to their room and right before they slam the bedroom door they yell, “Oh yeah! Well you suck at sports!” You think, “Ha! Nice try kiddo, I don’t even care if I suck at sports.” There is zero alignment between your identity and being good at sports, so the insult is laughable. This is what makes the insults from people you love so much more salient and painful. They know you well enough to know what negative beliefs you hold about yourself. They know just the thing to say that you already believe about yourself. This is teasing: when someone’s beliefs about themselves are brought out into the open. The one doing the teasing is fueled to continue so long as the one being teased agrees with the teaser.
Being offended is a gift. It allows you to follow the feeling down to the root belief on which the offense is predicated. Identify the belief and then you can hold it up to the light and question it. Then you can doubt it and be a little less certain about it. Examine that belief long enough and you’ll realize it’s nothing but the ego’s way of trying to make you feel important for the sake of protecting and perpetuating the creature. The ego doesn’t care about what is true, it cares about reinforcing your identity at all costs. And believing you’re a shitty person is totally an acceptable belief to the ego. That belief will keep the creature safe as far as it is concerned.
But you’re not a shitty person. That’s a belief that was made up by your culture, your environment or some misunderstanding long ago. You are part of the incredible energy of the expanding universe. Understand that and any insults designed to provoke you will be as laughable as an insult from an immature child.