384. How to stop taking things so personally
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you’ve ever felt like a delayed reply, a change of tone, or a bit of feedback ruined your whole day, you might have a tendency to take things personally. In this episode, we’re looking at why your brain is wired to do it in the first place, and why it doesn’t automatically mean we’re self-centred and egotistical.
We explore:
• Why we interpret normal things as an attack
• The spotlight effect and personalisation
• The role of the id, ego and superego
• How to tell when the ego is being helpful or harmful
• 5 tips to stop taking things personally
Listen now!
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The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:08.5 | Hello everybody. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk |
| 0:15.4 | through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. |
| 0:28.7 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you |
| 0:35.7 | here back for another episode as we of course |
| 0:38.4 | break down the psychology of our 20s. This episode feels very timely, very necessary for the |
| 0:47.4 | moment that I'm in right now. Since moving to London, I have found myself becoming very self-centered, a much angrier person. |
| 0:58.4 | And part of what this has done to me and my personality is that for the first time in a while, |
| 1:06.1 | every slight thing feels like a personal insult. Every person who is pushing me on the tube, |
| 1:13.5 | every cancelled plan, even though I know the city is busy, every slightly weirdly worded email, |
| 1:20.7 | I have become very hypervigilant towards it and ready to really see the worst in people and in situations. |
| 1:29.1 | And that scares me because that's not like me. |
| 1:33.3 | That's not the person I am. |
| 1:35.1 | I think part of being a self-conscious kid was that at some stage I just realized it |
| 1:40.5 | cost too much to care what others thought about me. |
| 1:43.0 | And I've operated from that mentality for so long so |
| 1:47.3 | to have had this resurgence of this like weird making everything about me reading into everything |
| 1:53.9 | taking it all personally attitude is it's not something i'm interested in i don't think you guys |
| 1:59.8 | are particularly interested in it as well. |
| 2:02.2 | I think we could all use a bit of a psychological breakdown of how to release these feelings |
... |
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