Are You Easily Offended?

What gets under your skin? Are you easily offended?

We are interesting beings, each of us with our past individual experiences and family heritage as reference points of how to live this life. Often we don’t make sense to each other at all and are a complete mystery to ourselves. There are many clues to help unravel the mystery.

Lets look at the experience of being touchy, very sensitive, easily upset, often feeling offended. According to Bob Proctor, it is linked to humility. So what’s your definition of humility?

True humility is believing the truth about who you are,” writes Bob Proctor. He says, “If you are easily offended you have a humility problem.

I looked up the meaning of humility: deference, lowliness, meekness, modesty, obedience, self-abasement, servility, submissiveness, unpretentiousness. (Opposite was listed as: arrogance, assertiveness, pride)

I looked up the meaning of offend: hurt, annoy, displease, fret, insult, irritate, miff, outrage, pain, provoke, rile, snub, upset, wound, wrong. (the opposite was listed as: please)

If you are easily offended or even occasionally offended, it is worth exploring what that is about for you. Being offended leads to either getting angry at, or withdrawing and hiding from the “offender”.

Bob Proctor says, ”Being easily offended comes from comparing self with others.” Offended can mean feeling humiliated.

So I looked up humiliate: bring low, chasten, confound, crush, debase, deflate, discredit, disgrace, embarrass, humble, mortify, shame, subdue. (the opposite was listed as dignify, exalt, vindicate)

To take offense we feel, either inferior or superior, otherwise there would be no reaction just interaction. Reaction means re-enactment of a past feeling and its behaviour. It’s not new, has happened before, is an instantaneous replay, before any thought can occur. And the reaction can take us by surprise or be a regular and familiar occurrence.

So if you feel superior, above others, you may take offense if someone believes they are your equal, or actually value themselves or their ability more than yours, or whatever. If you feel inferior, below others, you can feel offended by everything you relate to as a criticism or put down of any kind. Feeling offended is always about relationship within self, it’s a feeling already in you waiting to be triggered.

Once triggered it’s the perfect opportunity to deal with feeling offended in a way that sets you free, so it no longer lives in you in an active form. It becomes part of your history, something you know about and lived in the past, a reference for compassion as others struggle with it, but it no longer carries charge, does not get under your skin.

Feeling offended for various reasons can be acknowledged, sorted, balanced, defused, dissolved, so it doesn’t control your behaviour. Kinesiology is a valuable tool to help you take charge, be proactive, create change, so you can choose how you want to be, how you want to behave and feel, instead of offended.

Feeling offended will always go with beliefs about self. Inferior and superior are flip sides of the same cause, the same issue. It’s all about measuring up against other people. Often we measure our self against others achievements, skills, abilities, talents or appearance. Measuring against others is about not believing that you have value and can bring value, not believing the truth of who you are. Its about believing you are more than or less than others, either superior or inferior compared with others.

Now we don’t all have the long legs of a long distance runner or a fashion model, or the voice of a famous singer, or the grace of a dancer, or the mind of an Einstein. So we are not all equal in those terms. But we’re not supposed to be. We are not supposed to be anyone else, only our unique self. And we have this lifetime to develop the uniqueness we are, to recognize our inbuilt strengths, to develop them into our personal power, choose which of our talents we can hone, and decide what we can practise until we achieve mastery in that area.

To be able to admire and enjoy the contribution of others while also acknowledging you yourself are growing and flowering and expanding the expressions of who you are and what you can contribute, is the life journey you, and all of us, take. It’s not about being like others. It’s about being your real, whole self.

Key belief to consider and embrace: we are each magnificent and life events give us endless opportunity to unravel the mystery of who we are, to discover and grow into that magnificence.

Have fun and enjoy being you.
Cheers
Anna

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *