The Impact of Others

As is often the case, I learn much from my time in session with my clients.  Perhaps that is why I wanted to be a counselor, so that I could continually learn from others in such a way.
This particular session was concluding and my client said that he wanted to adopt the phrase "get over it" as his mantra or words to live by.  He had heard a famous preacher on television talking about this phrase and it struck him that he is too sensitive to what others think, do and say and this seemed to be the remedy to all of that.
Immediately I was struck by the harshness of this phrase. "Get over it"?  It's too dismissive.  I relayed this to my client and suggested perhaps considering a different term.  "Assimilate it".
"What I mean by that," I explained, "is that it makes sense that the things others say and do would impact you but it's how you respond to what is said and done that makes all the difference."
I asked him to imagine a leaf floating down the river.  Softly and smoothly the current carries the leaf along until it encounters a rock that is jutting out from beneath the water.  The leaf, on it's gentle journey, makes contact with the rock but merely spins around it or bumps off of it and glides along, continuing on down the river.  If we can approach the impact of others actions and words like this leaf and simply experience the impact, not be stopped or hung up by it, but to absorb it and keep on moving how much gentler would life seem.
Assimilate by definition is to "learn something so that is fully understood and can be used".
For instance, take the words and deeds of others that could otherwise offend and emotionally wound a person and instead approach these things in an objective way, considering if there is any truth to it, using that truth for growth and leaving behind the non useful and hurtful.  What a gentle journey that would be.
I, of course, (if you know me at all you already know this) have not mastered assimilation of words and deed otherwise hurtful or offensive for the benefit of knowledge and growth.  I'm a fairly sensitive person and in a perfect world would instead be that fair leaf floating along, experiencing the impact of others yet not being hung up by their words or deeds.
It is something to consider, and is also attainable at some level, in my opinion, otherwise I would have never suggested it to my client.  The idea did seem to resonate with him and it made sense to him to use the idea of assimilation" over the term "get over it".
And so as I continue to consider this life by still waters, I am struck by how this idea that was presented to a client who came to me for insight will actually in time change the way I experience others and will contribute to the gentleness that I seek for my own journey.