When I say to you to take nothing personally, I mean to take nothing personally. This applies even when something may have been intended for you personally, but much of the time an offense is not meant for you personally. For instance, when rain falls on you, it falls on you, and yet you know better than to take rain personally. Rain fell on you, but you already know that the rain wasn't out to get you. When you take anything personally, you feel singled out and often aggrieved. Don't feel aggrieved, beloveds. There's no merit in it. When someone's words or actions are uncalled for, do not think that a ready-made response from you is called for.
It doesn't matter whether an offense is intended personally for you or not. Of course, it matters to your ego, and it may matter to the one who may have intended his offense directly for you. In terms of your reaction, however, it is better that it matters not at all. You don't want to resent someone's words nor answer them in kind, for then you give them great power over you. When you resent, you are re-sending the offending message to yourself. You taunt yourself.
To all intents and purposes, you want to respond with wisdom and not peeve. Set your ego aside, beloveds, so that you are freed from the boundaries ego likes to set you up with. Your ego likes to get you hopping mad. It likes to tell you to put your dukes up and get you all het up and jumping around, all ready for a fight. Your ego relishes a good fight. Nonetheless, with the coaching help of your ego, you can only lose, for the insinuations of your ego make you defensive and weak. Ego puts you on the spot. It makes you think: "The nerve of them! How dare they! They'd better not bump into me, make those remarks, look at me that way, or I'll give them the old one-two! I'll show them! I'll put them in their place! No, Sir, no one is going to insult me!"
Don't you know better now than to listen to ego? Wise up. When you listen to ego, you get in a huff. Better to listen to Me and not get in a huff. Unlike ego, I won't tell you to be high and mighty. I will tell you to recede your thoughts of reprisal and to come take a swim in the ocean of My love with Me.
Letting go is such good advice. What you're letting go of is a negative aspect you pounced on. Letting go of it is not surrender. It is not capitulating. It is not placating the other. It is a breather. It is a break between bouts. If some fool has offended you, where is it said that you must be a fool in return?
Think of another way to respond. Think of a wise person's response. Think of a creative response. Even think of no response at all.
Most of the things you take serious offense to are but pin pricks, nothing more.
A mosquito bites you, and from what you might make of it, you would think it was a tiger.
Deflate your ego. Don't let it inflate you.
Consider yourself a mountain of consciousness. How much is a mountain affected by a little wind that blows?
Consider yourself My son or daughter, My legate to the world. How admonished can you be by a stray word here or there?
Consider yourself My reporter in the world. Would you report every incident on the front page?