WINFREY: This is Narissa she says taking things personally
is keeping her from living the life she wants, and she's desperate to stop,
so take a look.
NARISSA: For as long as I can remember, I've taken things personally.
Since I was a little girl, I can remember others talking about me
and my feeling bad about that. I often get my feelings hurt
and feel criticized by other people,
but they would never know that because I don't ever confront them.
I'll dwell on something for hours or for days.
Taking things personally has caused me to lose weight.
It's caused my hair to fall out.
I've lost many nights of sleep over comments that people have
made to me and I run them over and over in my head trying to figure
out why they said what they said.
I makes me feel very sad, because there's a part of me
that wants to let it go, but I can't.
Once I had to do a report for my boss.
I gave it to him and he handed it back to me with lots of corrections,
and it made me feel totally inadequate. I thought about it for days.
I saw this coat at a vintage store. I thought to myself,
`I have to have that coat.'
Well, I wore it to a party, and a very good friend of mine saw the coat,
and she said to me, `I cannot believe you wore that ugly coat.'
And I didn't say anything to her at the time, but it really,
really hurt my feelings.
I took her comment not as an attack on the coat but as an attack
on me and my choices.
If there's a friend that I usually talk to and I call them repeatedly
and they don't call me back, I think there's a problem.
`I haven't heard back from you.
I hope I haven't offended you in any way.'
If I'm trying on clothes at a store with a friend and they comment
on the way the clothes fit my body, I take it as a personal attack.
These pants are perfect!
Unidentified Woman #10: You know why? You don't have any hips.
This is--this is not right for you.
NARISSA: On the inside I was thinking it's not that she doesn't like the outfit.
She has an issue with the way I'm shaped.
It makes me very sad to spend so much of my time of my life worrying
about situations I just have absolutely no control over.
I want to learn not to take things so personally,
and to honestly look at them for what they are.
WINFREY: So Cheryl says there are three questions Narissa
can ask herself when she starts to worry and obsess
about what other people think. And they are?
Ms. RICHARDSON: Right. First thing is, how much of this is true about me?
How much of it is about me?
The second question is, how much of it is about the other person?
And the third question is, what do I need to do,
if anything, about this situation?
What we're talking about is an internal boundary.
And Narissa's example here is what happens
when we start to--when the outside world begins to mesh
with our inside world.
You feel vulnerable, and the more vulnerable you feel,
the more affected you are by everything that happens around you.
That's why you obsess about the friend who hasn't called back.
NARISSA: Right.
Ms. RICHARDSON: But we need to set an internal boundary,
and an internal boundary is like a shield that protects your vulnerable,
emotional well-being. When you set that internal boundary,
if you imagine that shield--and this takes practice
and it takes time--what happens is when someone makes a comment like
`That coat is ugly'- it stops at the shield and then you get to decide,
`Hold on a second.
How much of this is a--is true, how much of it is about the other person,
and what do I need to do, if anything?' Now the fact that Narissa…
WINFREY: It's all about the other person, because--that's why I love
"The Four Agreements" so much, that--that second agreement,
don't take anything personally.
Because everything is about the other person's opinion.
If I say I like your blouse, your orange blouse, that's just because I do.
I like the color orange. I like it, and--and that's my personal opinion of that.
NARISSA: Right.
Ms. RICHARDSON: I think that the real question is,
is there something that you can learn from someone's comment?
You know, the ugly coat may not be a good example-
but if someone were to say to you,
`You're really arrogant,' you might--this is an opportunity for you to stop,
as long as it stops, for you to say,
`Wait a second, let me a--am I?
Is there any part of that that's true that I could learn from?'
And then from there--you know, Narissa,
you said the thing about the ugly coat.
You said `It really, really hurt me.'
That was an indication that you probably needed to say something
and you probably still do--of course, you've already said it now.
NARISSA: Right. Right.
Ms. RICHARDSON: You know, where you can simply say to your friend,
`I really love you.
And you know, that comment you made about the coat really hurt
my feelings, and I just need you to know that.’
NARISSA: Right.
Ms. RICHARDSON: Too many women will internalize that stuff,
and I worry about what it does to our bodies.
You already said you lose weight, you lose your hair.
When someone makes a comment and it hurts you or it offends you
and you swallow it and you don't say anything,
it's got to go someplace. It doesn't just go out your feet immediately.
It hangs around for a while.
And we need to be concerned about what's going
on inside of us when we hold on to that stuff.
We have to bring it up and out,
whether it's to the person or to someone safe.
WINFREY: Yeah, I'm sitting here chuckling, because when I saw that,
I remember I was with my friend Gayle once.
We were trying on this dress. It had like a bow in the back.
And I said, `You should not put that on,
because that makes your butt look big.'
And she says, `My butt is big, so'--she goes--because
she was going to meet somebody, she goes-
`So I'll just back into the room so they won't see me.'