A reflective talk on how the phrase it's not personal can both depersonalize and invalidate feelings, exploring how to hold complexity, intention, and humanity when actions affect others.
The host opens with warm greetings and an uplifting reminder that viewers are capable and worthy even on hard days. This short segment sets a compassionate tone and grounds the conversation.
The speaker introduces the phrase 'it's not personal,' cites You've Got Mail and Brandi Carlile's cover to illustrate how the line is used. They begin unpacking what people mean when they depersonalize actions or decisions.
This section asks reflective questions about intention and harm, noting how depersonalizing language can become gaslighting and that actions can be simultaneously personal and impersonal. The speaker emphasizes nuance, the lack of simple solutions, and the inevitability of both scars and resolutions in stories.
The speaker offers a practical invitation to acknowledge both viewpoints — that actions may be done as part of complex roles yet still leave personal impact — guiding listeners through an inhale/exhale practice and closing with a lyrical image.
Let's go. We'll hit pause before Brandy starts singing. Good morning, Mary Ann. Good morning, everybody. How are we doing on this Thursday? I hope you're doing great. But if you're not, here's your daily reminder that you are still incredibly capable, still incredibly worthy, and still going to probably accomplish some pretty remarkable things today, even if you're not feeling or doing all that great. Your capacity may change, your capability may change, but your value does not. Hey, I'm glad I'm here.
I'm glad you're here. I know the things I know and I care about you. And I am glad to be that squeaky wheel who says that to you every single darn day right here. Melody, nice to see you. Michael, nice to see you. You know what? Hey, it's not personal. That's a line that Tom Hanks says to Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail, featuring the song River, Joni Mitchell, being covered by Brandi Carlile. All of a sudden, Tom Hanks, after he puts Meg Ryan out of business, he says, hey, it's just business, it's not personal.
And she goes, what does it even mean? It's not personal. What you're saying is it's not personal to you, but it is personal to me. And what is something if it's not personal? And I love that reframe. Often what we mean when we say, hey, it's not personal is that I hope that my actions are taken within the complexity of the world in which I'm living. Tom Hanks is saying, hey, I didn't mean to hurt you. I meant to do my job. I meant to do the thing I feel like I'm supposed to do even when it's hard.
The birthplace of things like gaslighting, a term that now I think more and more people go, oh, I know what that means, is this space of attempting to depersonalize stuff. something can be incredibly personal to someone and without the intention of it being incredibly personal to anyone. But in this moment, in these moments where you go, is it personal, is it not? Did I harm them with intention or without intention? Am I being harmed intentionally or unintentionally? It invites you to go, the world is complex.
There is no three-step solution to the problem. But what there is, the reminder that because everything is personal, because everything touches someone, It requires us to go, so what do I do with that? And how do I place my humanity in the midst of? Not to give everybody the free space and the free ticket to go, it's not personal. But also to not go to the other way of like, oh my gosh, everything is personal, so then we can't move. The beautiful thing about You Got Mail and every other movie or story that we tell, is that there's rise and there's fall.
There's conflict and there's resolution. There's things that end in the space of that's a happy tale. There's things that end in that is going to be a scar that I carry with me. So my invitation for you today is to go, hey, it's not personal. And then exhale and go, and it is personal. Inhale. It's not personal for me to do the things I feel like I need to do that are complex in this world. And exhale. And that's going to leave evidence of the life I'm living within the things I feel, the things I think, the things I ruminate on, and the things that I carry with me as I skate down that river, frozen, with the reality of life.
Coming on Christmas and cutting down a tree Putting the reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace I wish I had a river
Reactions and comments are for members. Joining is free and takes a minute.
