Q: Dear Todd, what if a person treats everyone else well with kindness and compassion with the exclusion of oneself, that is, that person only feels hatred towards me? How can one not take it personally then? I’d like to think it’s a projection of how they feel about themselves but it’s apparent they’re okay and happy when with others just not me.

And it’s not because of something I did or said but hated for no good reason. I don’t know how to deal with that. I’ve been telling myself to just love myself, if I love myself, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of me, but the thought of being specifically hated and mistreated still occasionally comes up and causes pain.

TODD ANSWERS: We have to let people be their irrational, sometimes hurtful self because we can’t force others to change. The more we understand that people can be hurtful and irrational, the more at peace we can be when it happens. Also, boundaries, boundaries and boundaries.