The Power of De-Centering Yourself

Just One Person, Just One Piece of the Puzzle

While the effect we have on the people around us matters, our actions are never the complete picture of what's happening. People are complex and their reactions are often the product of many different factors.

Have you ever had a moment where, looking back, you feel as though you overreacted? Chances are, your feelings in that moment weren't an overreaction. You were reacting to a combination of things that were going on for you at that moment. Perhaps you didn't get enough sleep or your blood sugar was low. Perhaps you were struggling with the loss of a loved one. Perhaps you had just gotten turned down for a job you really wanted. Perhaps whatever you reacted to in the moment was very similar to a negative experience you'd had repeatedly before.

We don't go into situations with a totally clean slate. We bring with us all of our thoughts and feelings and experiences. They won't all be on the surface where we can easily notice them, but they are there. When we look at our behavior in this way, there really is no such thing as an overreaction. Just reactions that can't be explained by the most immediate and obvious factors.

This is important to keep in mind when someone has a reaction to us that we don't understand.

De-Centering Yourself

Especially when we think about all the complex factors influencing someone's emotions in the moment, it's easier to see why it's important to de-center ourselves when it comes to other people's experiences. By assuming that someone's behavior is entirely about us, we shift the narrative away from the experience that person is having.

The phrase "It's not all about you" frequently appears in contexts where it seems like a negative thing to say, as if it is accusing someone of being insensitive or self-centered. But what if instead we heard it as permission to not carry the weight of the world on our shoulders?

If someone has a negative reaction that seems out of proportion to what we said, focusing on their experience and the factors that might have contributed to their feelings allows us to care for them and take their feelings seriously without claiming responsibility for every single experience that contributed to their current emotional state.

On the surface, the practice of de-centering ourselves in these moments might seem to contradict what we've discussed about taking responsibility for our impact on others. However, it is actually a strategy for taking responsibility in a more productive and sustainable way.

For example, imagine a situation in which a White American student is making friendly conversation with a Pakistani-American classmate. The White student knows that her classmate is a domestic student and is curious where in the US he was raised. She asks him, "Where are you from?" and the question appears to upset him. He responds, "Right here! I was born in this country!" and then gets up to move to another part of the room. The White student had good intentions and her question wasn't actually based on any racist assumptions. However, the Pakistani-American has been asked that question so many times by people who think of his skin color and facial features as foreign. He is tired of having to explain over and over again that he is a US citizen.

Rather than focusing on the way he misunderstood her intentions and how his reaction made her feel, she can remember that his feelings in this situation aren't actually about her but about the many experiences which have made him feel like an outsider in his own country. Just as his situation is not improved if she gets angry with him, it also doesn't help him for her to agonize over the interaction and beg his forgiveness. What helps him, and others in similar situations, the most is for her to learn from the experience and be more mindful in the future of how the question "Where are you from?" might sound to the person she's speaking to. Less harm done to others, less anger and guilt for her.