Your Truth, Their View
One of the most life-changing shifts a person can make is realizing that what others think, say, or do is rarely about you. While it might seem like a simple concept, internalizing this truth can organically transform how you experience relationships, conflict, and even your sense of self.
This insight lies at the heart of the second agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz's book The Four Agreements: Don't take anything personally. At first, it might sound like a call to emotional detachment, but it's actually an invitation to deeper awareness and compassion. The book reminds us that every person views the world through their own experiences, wounds, and beliefs. Their reactions often reflect their reality, not a measure of your worth.
Without this awareness, it's easy to fall into a cycle of self-questioning. A comment feels like judgment, and silence feels like rejection. You may begin to shape yourself according to others' expectations, chasing acceptance, performing for approval, and pursuing dreams that don't belong to you.
It's a painful and exhausting way to live. But once you realize that another person's reaction is not a verdict on who you are, you loosen your grip on needing validation. You stop trying to decipher someone else's behaviour as if it holds the truth about you. You begin, instead, to listen inward. From that place, you reclaim the energy you've poured into being understood and direct it toward authenticity.
This concept forms one of the guiding threads in my book, Don't Chase Your Dreams, Allow Them to Come to You. The second agreement, and all of The Four Agreements, offered a framework that helped me explore how often we define success, worth, and even our purpose based on how others see us. I write in the book about how this tendency to take things personally often drives the relentless pursuit of externally defined dreams. But when we stop outsourcing our value to someone else's view, we notice the quiet stirrings of what we truly want, not what we've been taught to want.
Living this way doesn't mean shutting people out. It means relating with clarity. It means hearing someone without letting their opinion override your inner truth. We can engage more meaningfully from that space, with less reactivity and more grace.
"Your truth is not their view. And their view is not your truth." This isn't a wall between people; it's a bridge. It's an invitation to live in alignment with yourself while holding space for the humanity in others. It frees you to walk your own path, gently and steadily, without waiting for approval or applause. And it's from that grounded, honest place that your truest dreams, the ones that reflect you, begin to arrive.
