No one can push your buttons unless there’s a button to push and the ego is a huge (easily offended) “button” in itself!

Don’t defend your ego, but also don’t become a doormat because sometimes it’s called for to really stand up for yourself while sometimes it’s best to keep quiet if you feel intuitively that others won’t be able to understand where you’re coming from. 

If they’re not being intentionally hurtful of course, then we should absolutely say something, but to try to explain to unconscious people sometimes is like trying to talk sense into a drunk person; it’s just not going to happen, so let it be. 

Sometimes people around you look at your situation (especially when you live and think differently from the norm) and they perceive whatever it is that you are experiencing in your life through their own filters, and when they look at your life through the lens of the ego their perception gets distorted.

You can be totally at peace where you’re at even in the midst of a challenging time while they go around having completely different thoughts about you and your life! (They might even worry about you while you have no cares at all.)

You know where you’re going, but sometimes you can meet opposition or receive advise from friends and family that doesn’t resonate at all and misunderstandings can surface where you realize that they don’t see things from the same perspective as you do.

This is when the teaching will come to you that you need to learn to stay centered in yourself, in your own truth, even at times when other peoples opinions comes towards you.

You need to know that you know that you know and just stand your ground, kindly letting other people know that those perceptions and opinions are simply their own assumptions about you and your journey. 

Know that they (probably) mean well, and also know that most people who follow their own (true) path will at times experience well-meaning friends and family members friendly (and sometimes not so friendly) advice and they will probably not understand you fully when you say to them that you know that all things are unfolding just as they should.

And when you know that every experience, every setback, every challenge you encounter in life is there to teach you something about yourself and about the path you’re on, just remind yourself of the fact that not everybody can understand that. 

So let the need to be understood go while of course stand your ground when you meet opposition or ‘friendly advice’ from well-meaning friends and family members. 

Thank them (inwardly) for showing you where you are, not by where they think you are, but where you know you are.

This too (the experience of being bombarded with other peoples opinions about you and your journey) was there to help you grow; everything is.

It’s just a matter of perspective. 

So release the need to be right and the need to be understood by everyone. 

There is no need to waste energy on trying to prove your point or explaining your point of view, you don’t have to convince anybody about anything; just do your own thing and when you change inwardly (by releasing the matter) then the people that is there (unknowingly) to help teach you how to stay centered in yourself, then they will vanish from your life experience.

(Or your relationship will simply transform into something better for both of you.)

But for as long as you have the need to defend yourself (or your ego) they will stay.

And when you let go of defending your (sometimes offended) ego then the whole matter melts away and you are set free.