October 1, 2024 • 30 mins
Why do we care so much about what other people think?
In this episode of A Really Good Cry, we’re having an honest chat about that constant need for approval and why it's so exhausting! I’m diving into my own journey of always worrying about others’ opinions and how I finally learned to let that go (well, mostly… still working on it!). We’ll talk about the moments when I felt like a total stranger in my own life because I was living for everyone else instead of just being myself.
We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of why we feel this way, how to start letting go, and what it actually means to show up as the most authentic version of you. And yes, I’ll be sharing some practical tips and little exercises that have helped me stop overthinking and just be ME.
So, if you’re ready to have a heart-to-heart about living life on your own terms, grab a cup of tea, get cozy, and let’s figure this out together. You deserve to be loved for who you really are, and this episode is all about helping you see that!
What We Discuss:
- 00:00 Intro
- 00:40 Let’s start with an affirmation
- 01:23 Are you living in your own life?
- 03:47 Embracing how we’re always changing
- 05:22 Focus on being in the present
- 06:21 The danger of losing yourself to fit in
- 09:28 Approval addiction
- 09:40 Signs that you care too much about what others think
- 13:58 Ask yourself this when you start worrying about what others think
- 17:13 The real reason we’re obsessed with being liked
- 20:00 Get to know yourself
- 22:03 Identify your purpose and value in life
- 23:30 Setting boundaries
- 24:49 Practice perspective
- 25:45 Sit in that discomfort of not being liked
- 26:36 Finding freedom in being yourself
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We all just want to be loved and liked by people.
We want to feel close to other people. We want
to relate to others, and that's what relationships are, relating
to one another. We just want to be accepted, and
so when we feel part of us won't be we
lock them up and we create this new version that
we believe will be an easier version to like or
to love. But you know the problem with that is
(00:21):
you end up becoming a person that you're actually not.
I'm Rady Wukah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you
to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
I want to start this episode off with an affirmation.
(00:43):
So put your hands on your heart right now unless
you're driving, of course, and keep your hands exactly where
they are, and just say this in your mind or
out loud at the top of your voice. Say I
am worthy, and I release the need to control what
others think of me. Again with me, I am worthy,
and I release the need to control what others think
(01:06):
of me. Say one more time, like you mean it,
I am worthy, and I release the need to control
what others think of me.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Take a deep breath in exhale.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Now, I assume if you've clicked on this episode, do
you struggle with caring about what others think a little
too much?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Just like I do?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
And honestly, it's something that I've struggled with for as
long as I can remember, to be quite honest.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
But it's gone in ebbs and flows.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
There's times are I'm really like solid in how I
feel about it and I'm not as bothered, and other
times where I feel like I'm feeling the world's judgment
of me, and I find it really difficult not to
let it absorb into myself and let it affect everything
that I do, everything that I say, from the moment
that I walk out of the door. And you know what,
it has been something that I've struggled with, like I said,
(01:59):
my whole life pretty much. It's something that has defined me,
made me do things I don't actually want to, created
a persona that isn't really me, and made me feel
like a stranger in my own body because I had
moved so far away from who I actually was. And
I heard Gaba Marte recently say this on a podcast,
and Oh, by the way, I've been obsessed with him lately.
(02:20):
I don't know whether you guys have heard his podcasts
or heard him speak, but he is eighty years old
and he has just really absorbed life and churned out
so much wisdom from it, Like you know when you
hear people speak and you feel like they've really been
present in their life to be able to observe people,
observe their own life and observe the lessons that they
(02:42):
need to learn from it, and really reflected on life
in that way. He definitely has that energy about him,
and he said, the problem with worrying about what others
think of you is that you're living in their.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Mind and not yours. I can control my words.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
My actions, my thoughts, but I can't control how someone
perceives my words, my actions, and my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's not on me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
If you keep living through the eyes of others, are
you really living your life? And as soon as I
heard that, I was like, oh, my goodness, I have
lived in someone else's mind for so much of my life,
not in my own life, and so it made me
realize I actually had him in present in my life
because I was living in the minds of others, thinking
(03:26):
about what they might think about me, what they might
be seeing me as, what they might be perceiving me as.
And so really, you're not living your own life. You're
constantly living your life from the perception of somebody else.
And you know, I realized the more time I was
spending trying to convince someone of who I was, the
less time I was actually spending on becoming that person.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And you know what, this is.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So embarrassing, but I swear I still think about people
from ten years ago and I think, oh, I really
hope they still don't hate me for when for what
I did to them back then, Or the boys I
might have broken up with when I was like sixteen
over MSN before we had even met, or the girls
who were my best friends and then they weren't the
people that I maybe wasn't so nice to when I
(04:09):
wasn't going you know, when I wasn't having a good day.
Just so many interactions that randomly pop to my mind,
and I'm like, oh, my god, could they still hate
me like at this time? Could they still have this
negative view of me? As I was ten years ago,
fifteen years ago, whoever I was back then. And the
fact is we all just change and grow so much
(04:30):
every single second, so people see and experience all these
different versions of you, even on a cellular level.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
You become a whole new person every seven years.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
If I think about who I was seven years ago
or seventeen years ago, oh my goodness, I was all
over the place, And always wonder do those people from
back in the day see who I am now and
think she cannot be this person now because of who
they've experienced me as or who I was back then.
And then I realized sometimes the experience of me to
them was and they may have had a really good
(05:02):
reason to dislike me. Then well maybe they didn't. But
the only part of it I can control is how
I changed for the better, change myself to become a
better person after those experiences, and that I continue to
do so daily. That is a choice that I make
every single day to wake up and be better every
single day. There's also this immediate feeling of judgment where
(05:24):
sometimes you're at a party or you're around people and
you're having a conversation with them, but you're thinking about
their judgment in real time rather than being in the moment.
I could be in front of someone thinking about whether
they're looking at my creasetlines on my face when I'm laughing,
or judging my outfit, or wondering whether they like my
outfit or not. You can be so in your head
(05:45):
that you end up just not being present in the
conversation at all. It's like, I see your mouth moving,
but all I hear is what's in my head, and
it would honestly strip me from being in the moment
or actually having a decent human connection, or actually having
an interaction that was meaningful. And I actually used to
get that a lot in big parties or events whenever
I felt more self conscious. And I still have to
(06:07):
really try to control that when I do go out
to big events or when I meet people that I
don't necessarily feel comfortable around. To really make sure that
I'm present in that conversation, I have to stop thinking
about how they might be perceiving me in that moment.
And you know, in reality, it comes from a very
primal place, even though in theory we know we do
not want to be ruled or controlled by the opinions
(06:29):
of other people. Telling yourself not to care is like
telling yourself not to be hungry when your stomach is
telling you it's hungry. We're all wired to want community
and to connect with people, and someone not liking you
in some way does threaten that. There's actually this study
that showed that the same parts of your brain that
are activated when you feel physical pain are also the
(06:50):
same places that are activated when you feel socihort rejection. God,
we all just want to be loved and liked by people.
We want to feel close to other. People relate to others,
and that's what relationships are, relating to one another, and
connections come naturally from similarities. We just want to be accepted,
and so when we feel part of us won't be
(07:11):
we lock them up and we create this new version
that we believe will be an easier version.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
To like or to love.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But you know the problem with that is you end
up becoming a person that you're actually not.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
You end up creating this.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
New version of yourself, which actually the more you create
this new version, the further away you're getting from the
real version of you. And the thing is people feel it.
They feel the misalignment between you and who you really are.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Like They may not know it's that, but.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
They definitely feel there's something off when they're around you.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And even if people don't, you do.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Every single word, every single action that you do against
who you really are just takes you a step further
away from the real version of you. And that's actually
sad because you're turning your back on the person that
you actually are. We actually live in this world where
fitting in is encouraged more than creating a unique.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Version of yourself.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Instead of being encouraged to settle into who you are,
whether it's your own body, your own mind, or your
own thoughts, you're told to become a duplicate of the
people around you, of the person that came before you,
never really embracing the fact that we are all so
unique and different and how magical and.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Beautiful that really is.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
You can completely end up losing who you are just
in the pursuit of fitting in. Whether it's wearing the
same things, looking the same way, having the same body shape,
the same thoughts, the same beliefs. It's like you'll get
canceled just for being yourself. So we end up suppressing
and hiding who we really are, or we just end
up creating a facade of who we are or who
(08:39):
we think we should be for people to like us,
or love us or want to spend time with us.
And the more time that we spend trying to be
who others want us to be, the less time you
end up spending trying to figure out who you really are.
And the fact is, the more you figure out who
you really are and start to appreciate it, the more
in alignment you are, and the more people will feel
connected to you you the deeper your connections can be,
(09:02):
because if you don't know who you are, how can
others truly get to know you. You can be friends
with someone for years, or have so many friends but
still feel so lonely because they're not friends with the
real version of you. We end up spending more time
trying to convince someone we're kind rather than actually doing
things that make us kind humans, because we're so bothered
(09:22):
and so focused and obsessed with how people perceive us,
rather than actually being or becoming that.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I actually heard this term called approve of addiction.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's a real thing. It's where someone is causing themselves
excessive stress or changing their entire identity to fit in socially.
So I'm going to share.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Some signs with you to decipher whether the opinions of
others impact you too much, or that you care too
much about what others think. Really, these are based on
reflections of my own life and being in that place
far too often. So the first one is that you
change yourself in response to criticism, regardless of what it
is and who it comes from.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Let me give an example of that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I get DMS after DMS after DMS telling me so
many things that I need to change, judging me based
on so many different things, and when I'm in weaker moments,
I'll weed them and I'll be like, maybe I am this,
maybe I should change this. Suddenly I'll go to Jay
or go to some of my friends, and I'll be like,
I think I have to change this, or my behavior
will start changing. All the things I'll start posting will
(10:23):
automatically shift and change because I've allowed that judgment into
my consciousness to become my judgment of myself. So now
I'm acting in accordance to that judgment. I'm changing the
words that I use, the way that I'm acting such
subtle things. But I realized I've actually absorbed it into me,
and now I'm reacting and acting based on that judgment.
(10:44):
The second one is you let other people make decisions
for you. This was something I struggled with for a
lot of my younger life before I moved to New
York About what is it like seven years ago?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I never made.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
A decision for myself, my sister, my mum, I was
a youngest child, lived my life making decisions through them.
I wouldn't pick a knife without them, I wouldn't do
anything without them. They chose what career I should go into.
You know, anything they'd say about me, it would become me, Oh,
you're this type of person.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I'd be like, yeah, I am this type of person.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And so when you allow other people, you turn to
other people to make decisions for you, there's definitely another
sign you don't set or maintain boundaries. It's like, once
you have a boundary, a boundary is there to be kept.
But if it keeps shifting or keeps being pushed further
and further away from what that original boundary was, it
could be because you're allowing other people's opinions to shift
(11:41):
or move those boundaries, even though they were really important
to you at the beginning, you hold your tongue if
your opinion differs from everyone else's. Have you ever been
in that situation where you really fundamentally don't agree with
what someone is saying, whether it's about another person or
about a topic, but just in case or cause their
mind to change about your, just in case it will
cause some sort of conflict or rift between you.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
You end up keeping your mouth shut. Most of the time.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You end up regretting it afterwards, but in the moment,
just because you care about what they think about you,
or you think your opinion is not worth more than theirs,
you end up keeping your mouth shut. Your peace of
mind relies on approval from others. Boy, have I been there,
especially when I started online. Honestly, just even now, constantly thinking, oh,
(12:30):
when other people like something, or when other people give
me positive affirmations online.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Sorry, that's the sound of my glass straw as I'm
drinking it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Every time you're like, it's like your mind feels at ease,
and every time you're not or someone says something about you,
your whole your whole mind feels like it's in turmoil.
You're constantly apologizing, even when you did nothing wrong that
can be you know what I say sorry ray too much.
And one thing I love my training gift says is
(12:59):
all time, every time I would do something wrong, when
I am you know, throwing a punch or get a
combination wrong, he'll say, You're not sorry, You're amazing. You're
not sorry, You're amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
It's you know, when he says that, I'm like, oh, yeah,
I'm amazing. I'm not sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But on a deeper level, you end up saying sorry
a lot because you just constantly want someone to think
that you are passive. And just in case, I'm saying
sorry because I want to make sure that you know
whatever you say is more important. And lastly, you rarely
say no, but then you resent it afterwards. So again
I guess that's kind of like the boundaries thing, but
(13:35):
essentially keep saying yes to things, but actually internally it's
really annoying you or you're resenting saying yes afterwards. And
I always say, it's never really a good thing you've
done for another person if you're resenting it afterwards, like
you're not really helping the person. You're not really doing
good for that person. If actually you're resenting helping them
(13:56):
after that's not real help. So I wanted to share
these four questions that I started going through in my
mind that I would ask myself whenever I would start
spiraling and thinking about what others think about me and
stay in that spiral.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So the first one is why do I care? Why
do you care?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Why do you care? Think about something that you were
overthinking about. Think about something where you're worried about their
opinion for why did you care? Why do you care
what that person thinks about you? And it's not like
a blase why do you care? It's breaking it down.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I care. Let's say it's your mom.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I care what my mom thinks about me because when
she says something like that, it makes me feel like this,
And when I feel like this, it makes me think
I am not a good person, I am not worthy.
When she speaks to me like that, it reminds me
of a time when she did this, this, and this whatever.
It is really break down the root in your mind
(14:52):
of how did you get to the point of worrying
about what she's thinking about you or that person's thinking
about you, and what does it then en up making
you feel to cause you to keep thinking about it
over and over again, and then that kind of leads
on to why do I want them to like me?
You know, there's a very valid reason I want my
mum to like me, because I love her and I
(15:12):
want her to respect me and love me and think
what I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Doing is right.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then does their opinion of me trigger me because
it's something I need to work on? That was a
big one for me. And notice that I would get
triggered most like of strangers DMS, I would get really upset,
And first of all, i'd be like, I'm just upset
because I don't want people, you.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Know, people to think bad of me.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And then I realized, oh, sometimes it's actually because it's
a trigger and a reminder to me.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Of the things that I actually need to work on.
And so I actually feel.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
More defensive and more upset about it because I also
deep down think that about myself. And there could be
a difference between it being something that's true, or it
could be something where it's pushing on your insecurities.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And so actually it's not that it's true, it's that
you have.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
To work on your self worth because it's pushing on
your insecure authorities and making you feel worse about yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
And the last one is are they someone whose opinion
I value in that area of my life.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
The value of someone's opinion is directly correlated to the
value of their relationship in your life, and so a
throwaway comment from a stranger should not matter as much
as a truthful input from a trusted friend or a
loved one. And that's how you really filter judgment and
help from other people.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And that's something I've.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Really had to filter literally in my DMS and in
my inbox. It's like if someone tells me that they
now dislike me because of something I've posted, or that
they used to like me but now I'm posting things
about I don't know pair brands and now they think
I'm just trying to sell them something.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It's like, okay, well that's how you feel like.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I really am not going to I don't know how
much I can spend my time trying to change that.
By the way I used to try and change it,
I would send them voice notes to be like explain
to them why I took on that partnership or why
I did this, or explaining myself of why I haven't
posted about this, why I haven't done this, and it's
just exhausting. Why not invest more time in the relationships
and cultivate the relationships that do mean something to me
(17:07):
and make sure those relationships are good rather than sending
someone a random voice oot to a stranger that makes
no difference in my life. And you know, I realized
that nowadays, more people have the opportunity to have opinions
about you because of how social media is. It's like
back in the day, maybe the people in your village
might have an opinion about you your family, but it
(17:28):
was never to this scale. Now you have more judgment
and more opinion on you than ever before because we're
constantly showing people our lives and also more people are
seeing our lives than they would have ever been able
to before. And so we're kind of welcoming that judgment
into our life as well, and welcoming those opinions by
obviously sharing our.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Life more and more online.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's literally like having someone in your DMS is like
having someone knocking on your door and being like, I
just want you to know I hate you, slams the
door shut. Honestly, how are we taking that?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Seriously? Do?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Because I don't know why why do we do it.
It's because we just want to be loved and liked.
That's the essence of everything, And because we have to
start to appreciate ourself more. The more you appreciate yourself
and the more confident you are, the less the opinions
of strangers or other people will shake you. The more
insecure I feel, the more I care what others think,
and that has been a regular pattern in my life.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I feel insecure the words of other people. I almost
see as like the more self worth you have, it
acts as a shield. That shield will.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Deflect off and reflect off all of that negative energy.
The negative comments, the opinions of other people don't hit
you as hard because you have this shield that's fighting
them off. As soon as I become insecure and I
start questioning myself slowly, it creates these holes in this
shield that I'd created to allow those opinions in, to
(18:51):
allow the thoughts of other people and how they perceive me.
It start seeping into me and I start absorbing it
because that shield has been broken. So unfortunately it's a
you thing or it's an us thing. We have to
work on that foundational acceptance of yourself and building those
strong foundations means there's no cracks for others words or opinions.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
To enter and affect you. Or you may hear it,
it just won't affect you as much or balance off.
You'd be like, thank you so much for your opinion.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
You're not paying my bills, you're not somebody I love,
And for that reason, your opinion means a balance of
zero to me, Thank you very much. And you know,
I would doubt myself and my character and who I
was so easily because I actually had no clue who
I was. And the first step to self worth and
self acceptance is understanding yourself first, Because how are you
(19:42):
going to accept yourself or notice your worth if you're
not starting to learn about who you actually are and
what you do have to offer in this Well, then,
by the way, before you say I've got nothing to offer,
every single person has so much to offer just by
taking the time, like you were trying to date the
guy that you're obsessed with, take that time to be
obsessed with yourself for.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
A little bit. So let's talk about a few.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Actions and practices that can start you on the path
to caring less about what others think and caring more
about what you think.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
First of all, like I said, is self awareness.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Get to know you listen to what your body and
you're in a voice are telling you that you should
be doing. Start making choices and decisions for yourself. Follow
through with your decisions. The more you listen to you,
the louder your voice will get and others voices will
get quieter.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
The lower your self esteem is, the more you'll care
about what others think.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And low esteem really boils down to just not knowing
your worth or knowing the magic that you have in you.
You have to see it, look for it to remember
it's even there in those hard moments. So I actually
don't like the term finding yourself because you're not lost.
It's actually just returning back to yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Unlearn, excavate all those things to remember who you are
before the world got its hands on you, before other
people's opinions started changing who you are, before the view
of or the perception of others start to affect the
way that you acted.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
And so what does that take?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
It means spending more time with yourself, not trying to
feel the moments of silence, writing, hearing your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
What do you like what do you dislike? Can you
answer those questions right now? What do you like? What
do you dislike?
Speaker 1 (21:16):
What kind of things really upset you in a friendship?
What opinions matter to you the most? What are the
hardest things for you to hear about yourself? What are
your non negotiables? What are the things that you value
the most like? All of these questions are questions that
will help you to understand you and then help you
to almost build a good trunk for yourself where you
(21:38):
can't be pushed around. When you think about a tree,
the trunk is so solid that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
No matter what element comes at at rain wind snow.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Like not element but season, same thing, but no matter
what comes at it, it still stands strong because their roots
are so deep and their trunk is so strong. And
so that's really what we're trying to build for ourselves,
that no matter what the externals come to towards us,
we still stay solid and.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Who we are.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And that leads me on to the second action or
practice that you can do. Sit down and think about
what your personal purpose and values are. You're deeper why
when you have that thread or that trunk. As I
spoke about it before. Even if others don't understand it,
at least you see the connection.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I've had to keep.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Reminding myself of that, honestly, of my why all the time,
because you know, like I said, I do get a
lot of judgment in my life. And I'm not saying
that for sympathy, because I also understand that it is
part and parcel of choosing to be seen online, but
for me not to constantly be eaten up by all
these judgments and change who I am every five seconds,
and it affects my self worth constantly because, by the way,
(22:41):
it has for a really long time, I've had to
constantly remind myself or what my thread is, what my
value is, what my trunk is, because even if they
don't see it or understand why I'm doing anything I'm doing,
at least I do.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
At least I have this constant focus.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I have these branches that are coming off that people
may not see are linked to this trunk.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
But I do. I know it's linked.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And I've had so many times where people have said
something and it's really made me realize, I don't know
why I did it, and I don't know why I
ended up doing this thing and or why I didn't
do it, and it became a point of reflection for
me too that I need to constantly keep coming back
to my core, my thread, that I need to know
what that is, what is this route purpose that I
am doing all of this for. So if someone else
(23:25):
doesn't see it, at least I do. At least I
have that constant point to come back to. The Next
exercise I want you to do is write down three
things that you really wouldn't let's slide to show yourself
that there are things that you don't actually care about
what others thing. So, for example, what I mean by
that is when I did this exercise, I know that
there are a few things when no matter what, I
(23:47):
will not change my opinion about. So for example, if
someone spoke about my family, it's a no go. There's
not me buying my tongue. I'm not going to be polite,
no matter who is. No matter what happens, I don't
care what the person thinks of me or what their
perception of me is. In that moment, I'm defending them
till the better end. And you will not be saying
anything about my family, especially my grandma. Or if someone
(24:09):
pusses me for being vegan. That is a deep value
that I have a strong whiy for. So if someone
says something dumb about that, or someone says something rude,
I will never hold back why because they are deep
rooted values of mine. And so when I thought about
it in that way, I was like, that showed me
that I am capable of standing my ground and my beliefs,
and I appreciate those part of me.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So the mix of those two things.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
A strong belief and appreciating that belief would allow me
to stand my ground more and care less about the
thoughts of other people in those areas. So if I
apply that same concept to everything else, then I'll really
not be affected so much by what other people think
about any area of my life. The next thing is
practice perspective. When you're next worrying about what other people think,
(24:53):
take yourself and go ask yourself those four questions we
just spoke about before, though, Why do I care?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Why do I want them to like me?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Does their opinion of me trigger me because it's something
I need to work on? And are they someone whose
opinion I value in that area of my life?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So go back through and ask yourself those four questions
to really gain perspective.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And also think about this, when you're gaining perspective, how
much will what they think of me matter in a week,
in a month, in a year, in a decade, at
the end of time, when I'm sitting on my deathbed,
is am I really going to be worried about what
they think about me? That they unfollowed me because I
posted something or didn't post something.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, I probably won't be. And that one really.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Helps me to snap out of worrying about what others
think of me. I'm like, in my dying moments, will
their opinion of me really matter? It may right now,
but will it then? And the last thing is experiment
what it feels like to experience disapproval, to really sit
with it, to not explain yourself. Oh my goodness, that's
such a hard one for me. I want to like
just explain myself to everybody. Every time someone has like
(25:57):
a view of me that I'm like, why do they
think that of me? There's trying to write out a
full message or a voice note, trying to understand or
explain myself of why I did what they think I did,
whatever it is, But try and sit through it once.
Sit in that discomfort of not being liked, or sit
in that discomfort of someone's opinion of you being completely wrong,
(26:17):
of someone having the wrong perception of you? How does
that feel after a day, after a week, after a month,
And you might just realize it's not that bad, Or
you might find yourself sending out a whole lot of
voice notes and a whole lot of text messages. Either way,
at least you'll find out whether it actually is something
that matters to you.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
So, actually, you.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Don't need to focus on how to stop caring about
what people think of you. I think that's a very
natural thought, So we're.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Not really trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
What we need to focus on is building foundations and
values and understanding you so what others say about you
doesn't shake you as much.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I read this and I thought it was really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
It says, your fear of criticism is an unchecked need
for love and approval from all the wrong places. If
we don't love and approve ourself, we will first look
for it from others, whilst second simultaneously believing we don't
deserve it and fearing that they are going to see
us for who.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
We really are.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So I hope that this podcast helps you to reflect
on how incredible you are, the worst that you should
have in yourself, how wonderful you are, and how there
are very few people whose opinions should really matter to you,
and think about that deeply, and whenever the next time
someone's opinion really gets to you, go through those four questions,
(27:36):
go through those exercises and those practices, even just pick
one that you think would help you the most.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And try and utilize that.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Because I'm telling you, as someone who has experienced being
and living in the perception of others, it is exhausting.
It's not fun. You constantly feel like you don't know
who you are. You'll constantly have moments of feeling lonely
even when you have friends. Because all we want to
be is not accept We want to be accepted for
who we actually are, not who people think we are.
(28:04):
And so even if you do get accepted as this
other version of yourself, it will never feel fulfilling at all.
When we get to be authentic and then be accepted,
that's all we're really looking for. And so build those foundations,
figure out those values that you have, like go through
all of these things, because not only will it help
with the opinions of others, it will also help with
(28:25):
you loving yourself a little bit more and valuing yourself
a little bit more. And you know, I think sometimes
we can feel like that sounds so egotistical too, that
oh my gosh, I just want you just telling us.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
To start like bigging ourselves up.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
But actually I love to see myself as an instrument
of God, as an instrument of the universe. And so
everything that we have been given is a gift from God,
and so how can we not appreciate it, How can
we not find worth in it?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Because we are here for a reason.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
God has given us these gifts, these skills, these attributes
for a reason.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
And so how dare we not appreciate them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
How dare we not see them and notice them and
recognize them and see the worth in them? And you
have to remember, the opinions of others are based on
this tiny, little minuscule crumb that they get to see
of you, the tiniest crumb, And so we can either
live our life trying to let them see the full
(29:21):
version of ourself, or if there's someone who makes perceptions
based on a tiny crumb, then they may not be
worth having in your life. This came from I'm going
to leave you guys with this. It says it's from
just Talp's prayer, and I'm not sure what that is,
but it was lovely. I do my thing and you
do your thing. I'm not in this world to live
up to your expectations, and you're not in this world
(29:42):
to live up to mine.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
You are you, and I am I, And if.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Our true versions of ourselves happen to connect, then magic
will happen.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I did that last line, but that's really the essence.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I do my thing, You do your thing. I'm not
in this world to live up to your expectations, and
you are not in this world to live up to
a mine.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You are you and I am I, and.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
If our true versions of ourselves happen to connect, then
magic will happen.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I hope you will have such.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
A wonderful, wonderful day and don let the opinions of
others ruin what could be a wonderful, wonderful life.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Thanks guys, and I'll see you next time.
We all just want to be loved and liked by people.
We want to feel close to other people. We want
to relate to others, and that's what relationships are, relating
to one another. We just want to be accepted, and
so when we feel part of us won't be we
lock them up and we create this new version that
we believe will be an easier version to like or
to love. But you know the problem with that is
(00:21):
you end up becoming a person that you're actually not.
I'm Rady Wukah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you
to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
I want to start this episode off with an affirmation.
(00:43):
So put your hands on your heart right now unless
you're driving, of course, and keep your hands exactly where
they are, and just say this in your mind or
out loud at the top of your voice. Say I
am worthy, and I release the need to control what
others think of me. Again with me, I am worthy,
and I release the need to control what others think
(01:06):
of me. Say one more time, like you mean it,
I am worthy, and I release the need to control
what others think of me.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Take a deep breath in exhale.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Now, I assume if you've clicked on this episode, do
you struggle with caring about what others think a little
too much?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Just like I do?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
And honestly, it's something that I've struggled with for as
long as I can remember, to be quite honest.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
But it's gone in ebbs and flows.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
There's times are I'm really like solid in how I
feel about it and I'm not as bothered, and other
times where I feel like I'm feeling the world's judgment
of me, and I find it really difficult not to
let it absorb into myself and let it affect everything
that I do, everything that I say, from the moment
that I walk out of the door. And you know what,
it has been something that I've struggled with, like I said,
(01:59):
my whole life pretty much. It's something that has defined me,
made me do things I don't actually want to, created
a persona that isn't really me, and made me feel
like a stranger in my own body because I had
moved so far away from who I actually was. And
I heard Gaba Marte recently say this on a podcast,
and Oh, by the way, I've been obsessed with him lately.
(02:20):
I don't know whether you guys have heard his podcasts
or heard him speak, but he is eighty years old
and he has just really absorbed life and churned out
so much wisdom from it, Like you know when you
hear people speak and you feel like they've really been
present in their life to be able to observe people,
observe their own life and observe the lessons that they
(02:42):
need to learn from it, and really reflected on life
in that way. He definitely has that energy about him,
and he said, the problem with worrying about what others
think of you is that you're living in their.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Mind and not yours. I can control my words.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
My actions, my thoughts, but I can't control how someone
perceives my words, my actions, and my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's not on me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
If you keep living through the eyes of others, are
you really living your life? And as soon as I
heard that, I was like, oh, my goodness, I have
lived in someone else's mind for so much of my life,
not in my own life, and so it made me
realize I actually had him in present in my life
because I was living in the minds of others, thinking
(03:26):
about what they might think about me, what they might
be seeing me as, what they might be perceiving me as.
And so really, you're not living your own life. You're
constantly living your life from the perception of somebody else.
And you know, I realized the more time I was
spending trying to convince someone of who I was, the
less time I was actually spending on becoming that person.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And you know what, this is.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So embarrassing, but I swear I still think about people
from ten years ago and I think, oh, I really
hope they still don't hate me for when for what
I did to them back then, Or the boys I
might have broken up with when I was like sixteen
over MSN before we had even met, or the girls
who were my best friends and then they weren't the
people that I maybe wasn't so nice to when I
(04:09):
wasn't going you know, when I wasn't having a good day.
Just so many interactions that randomly pop to my mind,
and I'm like, oh, my god, could they still hate
me like at this time? Could they still have this
negative view of me? As I was ten years ago,
fifteen years ago, whoever I was back then. And the
fact is we all just change and grow so much
(04:30):
every single second, so people see and experience all these
different versions of you, even on a cellular level.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
You become a whole new person every seven years.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
If I think about who I was seven years ago
or seventeen years ago, oh my goodness, I was all
over the place, And always wonder do those people from
back in the day see who I am now and
think she cannot be this person now because of who
they've experienced me as or who I was back then.
And then I realized sometimes the experience of me to
them was and they may have had a really good
(05:02):
reason to dislike me. Then well maybe they didn't. But
the only part of it I can control is how
I changed for the better, change myself to become a
better person after those experiences, and that I continue to
do so daily. That is a choice that I make
every single day to wake up and be better every
single day. There's also this immediate feeling of judgment where
(05:24):
sometimes you're at a party or you're around people and
you're having a conversation with them, but you're thinking about
their judgment in real time rather than being in the moment.
I could be in front of someone thinking about whether
they're looking at my creasetlines on my face when I'm laughing,
or judging my outfit, or wondering whether they like my
outfit or not. You can be so in your head
(05:45):
that you end up just not being present in the
conversation at all. It's like, I see your mouth moving,
but all I hear is what's in my head, and
it would honestly strip me from being in the moment
or actually having a decent human connection, or actually having
an interaction that was meaningful. And I actually used to
get that a lot in big parties or events whenever
I felt more self conscious. And I still have to
(06:07):
really try to control that when I do go out
to big events or when I meet people that I
don't necessarily feel comfortable around. To really make sure that
I'm present in that conversation, I have to stop thinking
about how they might be perceiving me in that moment.
And you know, in reality, it comes from a very
primal place, even though in theory we know we do
not want to be ruled or controlled by the opinions
(06:29):
of other people. Telling yourself not to care is like
telling yourself not to be hungry when your stomach is
telling you it's hungry. We're all wired to want community
and to connect with people, and someone not liking you
in some way does threaten that. There's actually this study
that showed that the same parts of your brain that
are activated when you feel physical pain are also the
(06:50):
same places that are activated when you feel socihort rejection. God,
we all just want to be loved and liked by people.
We want to feel close to other. People relate to others,
and that's what relationships are, relating to one another, and
connections come naturally from similarities. We just want to be accepted,
and so when we feel part of us won't be
(07:11):
we lock them up and we create this new version
that we believe will be an easier version.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
To like or to love.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But you know the problem with that is you end
up becoming a person that you're actually not.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
You end up creating this.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
New version of yourself, which actually the more you create
this new version, the further away you're getting from the
real version of you. And the thing is people feel it.
They feel the misalignment between you and who you really are.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Like They may not know it's that, but.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
They definitely feel there's something off when they're around you.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And even if people don't, you do.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Every single word, every single action that you do against
who you really are just takes you a step further
away from the real version of you. And that's actually
sad because you're turning your back on the person that
you actually are. We actually live in this world where
fitting in is encouraged more than creating a unique.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Version of yourself.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Instead of being encouraged to settle into who you are,
whether it's your own body, your own mind, or your
own thoughts, you're told to become a duplicate of the
people around you, of the person that came before you,
never really embracing the fact that we are all so
unique and different and how magical and.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Beautiful that really is.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
You can completely end up losing who you are just
in the pursuit of fitting in. Whether it's wearing the
same things, looking the same way, having the same body shape,
the same thoughts, the same beliefs. It's like you'll get
canceled just for being yourself. So we end up suppressing
and hiding who we really are, or we just end
up creating a facade of who we are or who
(08:39):
we think we should be for people to like us,
or love us or want to spend time with us.
And the more time that we spend trying to be
who others want us to be, the less time you
end up spending trying to figure out who you really are.
And the fact is, the more you figure out who
you really are and start to appreciate it, the more
in alignment you are, and the more people will feel
connected to you you the deeper your connections can be,
(09:02):
because if you don't know who you are, how can
others truly get to know you. You can be friends
with someone for years, or have so many friends but
still feel so lonely because they're not friends with the
real version of you. We end up spending more time
trying to convince someone we're kind rather than actually doing
things that make us kind humans, because we're so bothered
(09:22):
and so focused and obsessed with how people perceive us,
rather than actually being or becoming that.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I actually heard this term called approve of addiction.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's a real thing. It's where someone is causing themselves
excessive stress or changing their entire identity to fit in socially.
So I'm going to share.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Some signs with you to decipher whether the opinions of
others impact you too much, or that you care too
much about what others think. Really, these are based on
reflections of my own life and being in that place
far too often. So the first one is that you
change yourself in response to criticism, regardless of what it
is and who it comes from.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Let me give an example of that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I get DMS after DMS after DMS telling me so
many things that I need to change, judging me based
on so many different things, and when I'm in weaker moments,
I'll weed them and I'll be like, maybe I am this,
maybe I should change this. Suddenly I'll go to Jay
or go to some of my friends, and I'll be like,
I think I have to change this, or my behavior
will start changing. All the things I'll start posting will
(10:23):
automatically shift and change because I've allowed that judgment into
my consciousness to become my judgment of myself. So now
I'm acting in accordance to that judgment. I'm changing the
words that I use, the way that I'm acting such
subtle things. But I realized I've actually absorbed it into me,
and now I'm reacting and acting based on that judgment.
(10:44):
The second one is you let other people make decisions
for you. This was something I struggled with for a
lot of my younger life before I moved to New
York About what is it like seven years ago?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I never made.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
A decision for myself, my sister, my mum, I was
a youngest child, lived my life making decisions through them.
I wouldn't pick a knife without them, I wouldn't do
anything without them. They chose what career I should go into.
You know, anything they'd say about me, it would become me, Oh,
you're this type of person.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I'd be like, yeah, I am this type of person.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And so when you allow other people, you turn to
other people to make decisions for you, there's definitely another
sign you don't set or maintain boundaries. It's like, once
you have a boundary, a boundary is there to be kept.
But if it keeps shifting or keeps being pushed further
and further away from what that original boundary was, it
could be because you're allowing other people's opinions to shift
(11:41):
or move those boundaries, even though they were really important
to you at the beginning, you hold your tongue if
your opinion differs from everyone else's. Have you ever been
in that situation where you really fundamentally don't agree with
what someone is saying, whether it's about another person or
about a topic, but just in case or cause their
mind to change about your, just in case it will
cause some sort of conflict or rift between you.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
You end up keeping your mouth shut. Most of the time.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You end up regretting it afterwards, but in the moment,
just because you care about what they think about you,
or you think your opinion is not worth more than theirs,
you end up keeping your mouth shut. Your peace of
mind relies on approval from others. Boy, have I been there,
especially when I started online. Honestly, just even now, constantly thinking, oh,
(12:30):
when other people like something, or when other people give
me positive affirmations online.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Sorry, that's the sound of my glass straw as I'm
drinking it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Every time you're like, it's like your mind feels at ease,
and every time you're not or someone says something about you,
your whole your whole mind feels like it's in turmoil.
You're constantly apologizing, even when you did nothing wrong that
can be you know what I say sorry ray too much.
And one thing I love my training gift says is
(12:59):
all time, every time I would do something wrong, when
I am you know, throwing a punch or get a
combination wrong, he'll say, You're not sorry, You're amazing. You're
not sorry, You're amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
It's you know, when he says that, I'm like, oh, yeah,
I'm amazing. I'm not sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But on a deeper level, you end up saying sorry
a lot because you just constantly want someone to think
that you are passive. And just in case, I'm saying
sorry because I want to make sure that you know
whatever you say is more important. And lastly, you rarely
say no, but then you resent it afterwards. So again
I guess that's kind of like the boundaries thing, but
(13:35):
essentially keep saying yes to things, but actually internally it's
really annoying you or you're resenting saying yes afterwards. And
I always say, it's never really a good thing you've
done for another person if you're resenting it afterwards, like
you're not really helping the person. You're not really doing
good for that person. If actually you're resenting helping them
(13:56):
after that's not real help. So I wanted to share
these four questions that I started going through in my
mind that I would ask myself whenever I would start
spiraling and thinking about what others think about me and
stay in that spiral.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So the first one is why do I care? Why
do you care?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Why do you care? Think about something that you were
overthinking about. Think about something where you're worried about their
opinion for why did you care? Why do you care
what that person thinks about you? And it's not like
a blase why do you care? It's breaking it down.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I care. Let's say it's your mom.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I care what my mom thinks about me because when
she says something like that, it makes me feel like this,
And when I feel like this, it makes me think
I am not a good person, I am not worthy.
When she speaks to me like that, it reminds me
of a time when she did this, this, and this whatever.
It is really break down the root in your mind
(14:52):
of how did you get to the point of worrying
about what she's thinking about you or that person's thinking
about you, and what does it then en up making
you feel to cause you to keep thinking about it
over and over again, and then that kind of leads
on to why do I want them to like me?
You know, there's a very valid reason I want my
mum to like me, because I love her and I
(15:12):
want her to respect me and love me and think
what I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Doing is right.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then does their opinion of me trigger me because
it's something I need to work on? That was a
big one for me. And notice that I would get
triggered most like of strangers DMS, I would get really upset,
And first of all, i'd be like, I'm just upset
because I don't want people, you.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Know, people to think bad of me.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And then I realized, oh, sometimes it's actually because it's
a trigger and a reminder to me.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Of the things that I actually need to work on.
And so I actually feel.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
More defensive and more upset about it because I also
deep down think that about myself. And there could be
a difference between it being something that's true, or it
could be something where it's pushing on your insecurities.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And so actually it's not that it's true, it's that
you have.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
To work on your self worth because it's pushing on
your insecure authorities and making you feel worse about yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
And the last one is are they someone whose opinion
I value in that area of my life.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
The value of someone's opinion is directly correlated to the
value of their relationship in your life, and so a
throwaway comment from a stranger should not matter as much
as a truthful input from a trusted friend or a
loved one. And that's how you really filter judgment and
help from other people.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And that's something I've.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Really had to filter literally in my DMS and in
my inbox. It's like if someone tells me that they
now dislike me because of something I've posted, or that
they used to like me but now I'm posting things
about I don't know pair brands and now they think
I'm just trying to sell them something.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It's like, okay, well that's how you feel like.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I really am not going to I don't know how
much I can spend my time trying to change that.
By the way I used to try and change it,
I would send them voice notes to be like explain
to them why I took on that partnership or why
I did this, or explaining myself of why I haven't
posted about this, why I haven't done this, and it's
just exhausting. Why not invest more time in the relationships
and cultivate the relationships that do mean something to me
(17:07):
and make sure those relationships are good rather than sending
someone a random voice oot to a stranger that makes
no difference in my life. And you know, I realized
that nowadays, more people have the opportunity to have opinions
about you because of how social media is. It's like
back in the day, maybe the people in your village
might have an opinion about you your family, but it
(17:28):
was never to this scale. Now you have more judgment
and more opinion on you than ever before because we're
constantly showing people our lives and also more people are
seeing our lives than they would have ever been able
to before. And so we're kind of welcoming that judgment
into our life as well, and welcoming those opinions by
obviously sharing our.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Life more and more online.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's literally like having someone in your DMS is like
having someone knocking on your door and being like, I
just want you to know I hate you, slams the
door shut. Honestly, how are we taking that?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Seriously? Do?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Because I don't know why why do we do it.
It's because we just want to be loved and liked.
That's the essence of everything, And because we have to
start to appreciate ourself more. The more you appreciate yourself
and the more confident you are, the less the opinions
of strangers or other people will shake you. The more
insecure I feel, the more I care what others think,
and that has been a regular pattern in my life.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I feel insecure the words of other people. I almost
see as like the more self worth you have, it
acts as a shield. That shield will.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Deflect off and reflect off all of that negative energy.
The negative comments, the opinions of other people don't hit
you as hard because you have this shield that's fighting
them off. As soon as I become insecure and I
start questioning myself slowly, it creates these holes in this
shield that I'd created to allow those opinions in, to
(18:51):
allow the thoughts of other people and how they perceive me.
It start seeping into me and I start absorbing it
because that shield has been broken. So unfortunately it's a
you thing or it's an us thing. We have to
work on that foundational acceptance of yourself and building those
strong foundations means there's no cracks for others words or opinions.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
To enter and affect you. Or you may hear it,
it just won't affect you as much or balance off.
You'd be like, thank you so much for your opinion.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
You're not paying my bills, you're not somebody I love,
And for that reason, your opinion means a balance of
zero to me, Thank you very much. And you know,
I would doubt myself and my character and who I
was so easily because I actually had no clue who
I was. And the first step to self worth and
self acceptance is understanding yourself first, Because how are you
(19:42):
going to accept yourself or notice your worth if you're
not starting to learn about who you actually are and
what you do have to offer in this Well, then,
by the way, before you say I've got nothing to offer,
every single person has so much to offer just by
taking the time, like you were trying to date the
guy that you're obsessed with, take that time to be
obsessed with yourself for.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
A little bit. So let's talk about a few.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Actions and practices that can start you on the path
to caring less about what others think and caring more
about what you think.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
First of all, like I said, is self awareness.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Get to know you listen to what your body and
you're in a voice are telling you that you should
be doing. Start making choices and decisions for yourself. Follow
through with your decisions. The more you listen to you,
the louder your voice will get and others voices will
get quieter.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
The lower your self esteem is, the more you'll care
about what others think.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And low esteem really boils down to just not knowing
your worth or knowing the magic that you have in you.
You have to see it, look for it to remember
it's even there in those hard moments. So I actually
don't like the term finding yourself because you're not lost.
It's actually just returning back to yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Unlearn, excavate all those things to remember who you are
before the world got its hands on you, before other
people's opinions started changing who you are, before the view
of or the perception of others start to affect the
way that you acted.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
And so what does that take?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
It means spending more time with yourself, not trying to
feel the moments of silence, writing, hearing your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
What do you like what do you dislike? Can you
answer those questions right now? What do you like? What
do you dislike?
Speaker 1 (21:16):
What kind of things really upset you in a friendship?
What opinions matter to you the most? What are the
hardest things for you to hear about yourself? What are
your non negotiables? What are the things that you value
the most like? All of these questions are questions that
will help you to understand you and then help you
to almost build a good trunk for yourself where you
(21:38):
can't be pushed around. When you think about a tree,
the trunk is so solid that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
No matter what element comes at at rain wind snow.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Like not element but season, same thing, but no matter
what comes at it, it still stands strong because their roots
are so deep and their trunk is so strong. And
so that's really what we're trying to build for ourselves,
that no matter what the externals come to towards us,
we still stay solid and.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Who we are.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And that leads me on to the second action or
practice that you can do. Sit down and think about
what your personal purpose and values are. You're deeper why
when you have that thread or that trunk. As I
spoke about it before. Even if others don't understand it,
at least you see the connection.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I've had to keep.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Reminding myself of that, honestly, of my why all the time,
because you know, like I said, I do get a
lot of judgment in my life. And I'm not saying
that for sympathy, because I also understand that it is
part and parcel of choosing to be seen online, but
for me not to constantly be eaten up by all
these judgments and change who I am every five seconds,
and it affects my self worth constantly because, by the way,
(22:41):
it has for a really long time, I've had to
constantly remind myself or what my thread is, what my
value is, what my trunk is, because even if they
don't see it or understand why I'm doing anything I'm doing,
at least I do.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
At least I have this constant focus.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I have these branches that are coming off that people
may not see are linked to this trunk.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
But I do. I know it's linked.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And I've had so many times where people have said
something and it's really made me realize, I don't know
why I did it, and I don't know why I
ended up doing this thing and or why I didn't
do it, and it became a point of reflection for
me too that I need to constantly keep coming back
to my core, my thread, that I need to know
what that is, what is this route purpose that I
am doing all of this for. So if someone else
(23:25):
doesn't see it, at least I do. At least I
have that constant point to come back to. The Next
exercise I want you to do is write down three
things that you really wouldn't let's slide to show yourself
that there are things that you don't actually care about
what others thing. So, for example, what I mean by
that is when I did this exercise, I know that
there are a few things when no matter what, I
(23:47):
will not change my opinion about. So for example, if
someone spoke about my family, it's a no go. There's
not me buying my tongue. I'm not going to be polite,
no matter who is. No matter what happens, I don't
care what the person thinks of me or what their
perception of me is. In that moment, I'm defending them
till the better end. And you will not be saying
anything about my family, especially my grandma. Or if someone
(24:09):
pusses me for being vegan. That is a deep value
that I have a strong whiy for. So if someone
says something dumb about that, or someone says something rude,
I will never hold back why because they are deep
rooted values of mine. And so when I thought about
it in that way, I was like, that showed me
that I am capable of standing my ground and my beliefs,
and I appreciate those part of me.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So the mix of those two things.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
A strong belief and appreciating that belief would allow me
to stand my ground more and care less about the
thoughts of other people in those areas. So if I
apply that same concept to everything else, then I'll really
not be affected so much by what other people think
about any area of my life. The next thing is
practice perspective. When you're next worrying about what other people think,
(24:53):
take yourself and go ask yourself those four questions we
just spoke about before, though, Why do I care?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Why do I want them to like me?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Does their opinion of me trigger me because it's something
I need to work on? And are they someone whose
opinion I value in that area of my life?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So go back through and ask yourself those four questions
to really gain perspective.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And also think about this, when you're gaining perspective, how
much will what they think of me matter in a week,
in a month, in a year, in a decade, at
the end of time, when I'm sitting on my deathbed,
is am I really going to be worried about what
they think about me? That they unfollowed me because I
posted something or didn't post something.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, I probably won't be. And that one really.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Helps me to snap out of worrying about what others
think of me. I'm like, in my dying moments, will
their opinion of me really matter? It may right now,
but will it then? And the last thing is experiment
what it feels like to experience disapproval, to really sit
with it, to not explain yourself. Oh my goodness, that's
such a hard one for me. I want to like
just explain myself to everybody. Every time someone has like
(25:57):
a view of me that I'm like, why do they
think that of me? There's trying to write out a
full message or a voice note, trying to understand or
explain myself of why I did what they think I did,
whatever it is, But try and sit through it once.
Sit in that discomfort of not being liked, or sit
in that discomfort of someone's opinion of you being completely wrong,
(26:17):
of someone having the wrong perception of you? How does
that feel after a day, after a week, after a month,
And you might just realize it's not that bad, Or
you might find yourself sending out a whole lot of
voice notes and a whole lot of text messages. Either way,
at least you'll find out whether it actually is something
that matters to you.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
So, actually, you.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Don't need to focus on how to stop caring about
what people think of you. I think that's a very
natural thought, So we're.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Not really trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
What we need to focus on is building foundations and
values and understanding you so what others say about you
doesn't shake you as much.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I read this and I thought it was really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
It says, your fear of criticism is an unchecked need
for love and approval from all the wrong places. If
we don't love and approve ourself, we will first look
for it from others, whilst second simultaneously believing we don't
deserve it and fearing that they are going to see
us for who.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
We really are.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So I hope that this podcast helps you to reflect
on how incredible you are, the worst that you should
have in yourself, how wonderful you are, and how there
are very few people whose opinions should really matter to you,
and think about that deeply, and whenever the next time
someone's opinion really gets to you, go through those four questions,
(27:36):
go through those exercises and those practices, even just pick
one that you think would help you the most.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And try and utilize that.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Because I'm telling you, as someone who has experienced being
and living in the perception of others, it is exhausting.
It's not fun. You constantly feel like you don't know
who you are. You'll constantly have moments of feeling lonely
even when you have friends. Because all we want to
be is not accept We want to be accepted for
who we actually are, not who people think we are.
(28:04):
And so even if you do get accepted as this
other version of yourself, it will never feel fulfilling at all.
When we get to be authentic and then be accepted,
that's all we're really looking for. And so build those foundations,
figure out those values that you have, like go through
all of these things, because not only will it help
with the opinions of others, it will also help with
(28:25):
you loving yourself a little bit more and valuing yourself
a little bit more. And you know, I think sometimes
we can feel like that sounds so egotistical too, that
oh my gosh, I just want you just telling us.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
To start like bigging ourselves up.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
But actually I love to see myself as an instrument
of God, as an instrument of the universe. And so
everything that we have been given is a gift from God,
and so how can we not appreciate it, How can
we not find worth in it?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Because we are here for a reason.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
God has given us these gifts, these skills, these attributes
for a reason.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
And so how dare we not appreciate them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
How dare we not see them and notice them and
recognize them and see the worth in them? And you
have to remember, the opinions of others are based on
this tiny, little minuscule crumb that they get to see
of you, the tiniest crumb, And so we can either
live our life trying to let them see the full
(29:21):
version of ourself, or if there's someone who makes perceptions
based on a tiny crumb, then they may not be
worth having in your life. This came from I'm going
to leave you guys with this. It says it's from
just Talp's prayer, and I'm not sure what that is,
but it was lovely. I do my thing and you
do your thing. I'm not in this world to live
up to your expectations, and you're not in this world
(29:42):
to live up to mine.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
You are you, and I am I, And if.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Our true versions of ourselves happen to connect, then magic
will happen.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I did that last line, but that's really the essence.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I do my thing, You do your thing. I'm not
in this world to live up to your expectations, and
you are not in this world to live up to
a mine.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You are you and I am I, and.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
If our true versions of ourselves happen to connect, then
magic will happen.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I hope you will have such.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
A wonderful, wonderful day and don let the opinions of
others ruin what could be a wonderful, wonderful life.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Thanks guys, and I'll see you next time.
Host
Radhi Devlukia
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