How People Treat You Is Their Karma

“How people treat you is their Karma, how you react is yours.” – Wayne Dyer

So often in life we find ourselves in situations where someone does something to us that is hurtful, unkind, ungrateful, unfair, unwarranted, dishonest, or a myriad of other mean things that hurt us or make us feel bad.  And often times when that happens our initial thought from the little devil on our shoulder is to lash back and protect ourselves by fighting fire with fire.  An eye for an eye, right?! Wrong!! 

Fighting fire with fire is what I would call a lose/lose situation. I cannot think of a single time in my life when lashing back at someone made me feel better.  On the contrary, the times I was dumb enough to lash back I felt small, and ashamed, and sick inside after.  I truly can’t think of a single instance where I felt good about myself after lashing back.

Now contrast that to the times where someone hurt me and I was wise enough to take the high road and not lash back – in those times I was able to feel at peace with myself even though my feelings were still sad or hurt. And despite the hurt I was able to hold my head high and feel good about how I reacted and that gave me peace even in the midst of the very worst of life’s storms.

None of us can control how other people treat us, we can only control how we react to it. 

Reacting nice when someone else treats you poorly is TOUGH!!!  REALLY TOUGH!!! It honestly takes tremendous self-control and self-discipline to control your thinking and to control your temper when someone treats you poorly. But the thing I’ve found that helps me most to stay in control when others are being horrible is to remember that everyone will one day be held accountable for the way they have treated others. In addition, Karma is a very real thing and what people put out will one day come back to them – it may come back fast or it may come back slow, but it will always come back in the end…that is guaranteed.

We also have to remember that we are also one of those people who will be held accountable for how we treat others. That’s why I keep a a sticker on my wall that says “When we one day stand before God, we will be standing alone” as a reminder that when I stand before God someday to be held accountable for my behavior I won’t be able to point to someone else and say “well they did this to me first” or “well they deserved it because of how they treated me” because I will be standing before Him alone, with no one I can point the finger at or blame – it will just be me. SO regardless of what anyone else did or said, or how bad it hurt us, none of us can justify bad behavior by blaming anyone else.  We had a choice to lash back or to take the high road – We always have that choice.  And while we didn’t choose to be hurt we can certainly cause it to hurt more if we allow ourselves to lose our own integrity in the process.  No one is worth giving our integrity up for. No one.

Make it your goal to be kind no matter what, to take the high road, to be the bigger person. And if that little devil on your shoulder starts acting up, grab the nearest fire extinguisher and have your little angel on the other shoulder take care of business :)!

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )

5 Comments

  • Teresa Hambrick says:

    your awesome!

  • Karen Darton says:

    The only thing worse than lashing back at someone is being the person who said something in the beginning that makes others want to lash back at you. Sometimes it just pops out, but it makes you feel so sick.

  • Lori Murphy says:

    I was so glad to read this..I was in two situations this month where I was getting lashed out at and I know I did not deserve it. I was so upset and kept revisiting both situations over & over again in my mind and wished I had lashed back. I was just going through my email list and came upon your blog. It really made me feel better…Integrity is the word that truly struck a cord and was a reminder to me that walking away from being yelled at was the right choice, and I have grown up. So thank you! I truly needed this

  • b says:

    I’m really glad I stumbled upon this. I’d just broken up with someone after months of being mistreated. I tried to be the bigger person but then they reached out again, and it caused me to lash out and say things I regret.
    Looking back, that wasn’t an excuse. I hope to learn from my mistake.

  • 777Seven says:

    Recently there has been so many horrid people in my life; who had cheated me, hurt me, lied, manipulated.. I tried to get “revenge” in the beginning but I’m realizing that serving justice is not my job. These bad thoughts of these ppl who hurt me is only creating bad karma for myself. Thanks for reminding me.

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