You want to stop caring about what other people think.
Because we’d all benefit from a little less obsessing over what people may (or may not) think of us, yeah?
How often do you catch yourself perseverating on what you just said at that meeting that you fear wasn’t right? What about when you obsess about what your best friend REALLY thought of your new bangs? What about whether the dude you went out with “liked you enough” to secure the next date?
Some of this is natural. Some of it isn’t.
Here’s why you care more than you should:
1. We live in a society driven by ego.
Part of the excessive care about what other people think is because systemic values in the West are driven by a model of separation. We aren’t taught to experience ourselves as interconnected. We are more likely to harshly judge ourselves out of fear of rejection. Modern Western society doesn’t instill in us early on how to be kind to one another, how to cultivate self-compassion, regulate our own nervous systems or how to honor each other in our full embodied authenticity. We are constantly needing to protect ourselves from messages that are telling us we’re not okay (some marginalized groups experience this more dangerously than others).
2. You’re conditioned to.
The messages in the culture are conditioning you to base your sense of worth on external sources of validation. An actual impossibility. A premise that’s faulty in its foundation. Because, well, it doesn’t work that way.
3. We DO need each other.
Evolutionarily (and emotionally), we need each other. Ostracization was actually dangerous and an impediment to survival at one point. So, that pervasive collective experience of “I’m not good enough” does have an underlying biological underpinning.
Here’s how to stop caring about what other people think:
1. Know that one feeds the other.
If you don’t like you, it will be hard for others too. If you DO like you, it will be hard for others not to too. Aim to care more about how much YOU LIKE YOU, and less about how much others do.
2. Embrace that we do NEED each other.
Discover the balance between honoring your own authenticity and allowing yourself to be influenced. This is important because it helps you develop healthy relational bonds. It’s a process of discernment that you can practice.
3. It ultimately boils down to you and you.
Period. Everything else stems from that. What you attract is a mirror to that which lives within.
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