Caring What Other People Think: Does it Prevent You From Being You?
CONSUMED WITH WHAT OTHERS THINK
Do you care what other people think of you? Do you make decisions based on what others think you should be doing? Or do you do them because it is what you want to do? Are you afraid people won’t like you if you act a certain way? Are you denying who you are because of how you think other people will respond to you? All of these questions get you thinking about how you make decisions in life. Are you living as your most authentic self, or putting on a face to make other people happy yet you are miserable inside?
Are you in the middle of a life challenge and afraid people will think differently of you if you share it with them? So many possibilities exist in this world and before you know it life is over in the blink of an eye. Other people’s expectations of us and our own expectations we put on ourselves can cause constriction in our lives. It’s easy to feel trapped and strapped from doing what you really want due to obligations, responsibilities, and what society thinks you should be doing.
What it really boils down to is honesty. Are you being truthful not only to other people but to yourself about who you really are? Are you masking yourself just to keep the peace while slowly dying inside? Are you denying a call to something else because you are fearful of where it will take you? Are you ultimately afraid of being different, strange, crazy, or seen as an outcast? If any of these questions resonate with you then it might be time to look deeper within to see what is inhibiting you from being okay in your own skin. If a life challenge has opened doors in your mind to other possibilities that exist, then by all means explore what it right in front of you.
AWAKENING LEADS TO INTROSPECTION
The various levels of spiritual awakening lead you on an inner quest to self-realization. Depending on where you are in your life and the layers you have already begun to shed will determine how you are seeing yourself as an identity, how you are seeing your role in the world, and how comfortable you are with this process. Some people can go within themselves and remain there in a private waking up process. They are very introspective and don’t discuss this with anyone else, it is a very personal journey. There are others who’s entire life blows up in smoke and prefer discussing the topic and may seek out groups of people or individuals to share their experiences with. The process can become extremely difficult and disorienting which may force the person to seek some sort of guidance.
The entire transformative process leads you to question who you really are. There may be a period of time where you are in the in-between, a space of limbo, or a type of purgatory where you see you are not who you thought you were, yet now you have no idea who you are. This can cause serious confusion and brings on a state of detachment, an unwillingness to conform, or you are no longer able to go along to get along. Life is too short and you feel that change is in order. The shift you feel within yourself is pulling you into another world. You must answer the call or stay miserable. You might be drifting away from your family and friends realizing you cannot pretend or please others any longer.
This can often bring upon a state of extreme uncertainty. You know you feel completely different, you are tired of living a life doing what you think you should be doing, doing what other people expect of you, yet you are still unsettled about diving into something new. You are on the fence about making any real change for fear of what everyone else around you will think. As many openings you may have had there are still huge blocks within you that may interrupt the transformative process. The question is are you willing to do what is necessary to be honest and truthful to yourself and those you care most about in your life.
AFRAID OF LOSING EVERYTHING
Fear has a way of creeping into everything, whether it was invited or not. It’s much like the over protected father who watches our every move. If you are wanting to make major changes in your life like embarking on a new career you have always been passionate about, you desire to move somewhere else and start a new life, you are unhappy in a relationship that you are too afraid to leave, you want to express your interests around people who think differently than you do, you have been stuck believing that others will only like you if you do what they do, or you have a lifestyle choice you think your family will dislike, no matter what you are afraid of how will you ever know if you don’t give it a try. It will remain a thought in your head until you turn those thoughts into direct actions to make transitions in your life.
If you are afraid of losing those closest to you if you express who you really are what does that mean to you? If the people around you really care and love you they will most likely respect your choices, even if they happen to disagree. Maybe they will withdraw temporarily, but many times those people will come around after the initial shock. However, there are those people who are not accepting of others. They are extremely attached to how they think you should be, how the world should be, and the door to any other possibility is always the wrong one. With these types of people you may find turbulence in your near future. However, what is more important to you, pretending to be someone you are not, or conforming, lying to them just to keep the peace. This is a personal preference and one that you will need to think long and hard about before making the decsion that is best for you. Can you love them anyway if they treat you differently? Can you empathize with the way they see even if you don’t agree with them?
Your level of tolerance for others may stem all the way back from how you were raised. Were you raised to keep things secretive, to make sure no one else knew anything that the family was really dealing with for fear of what others might think, or were you surrounded by a more boisterous bunch who laid everything on the table, so much so that the entire neighborhood knew your problems? These are extreme positions, and many people find themselves somewhere in the middle. Most people have some level of worry about what others think of them. The ego mind shines insecurities in your face, which can block necessary change in your life. The worry felt is simply created by the insane mind, the non-stop thinker that never quits. This cyclical chatter can keep you distracted and incapable of making a coherent decision. Anxiety and fear of the future dominates and the ability to trust what you really want to do seems further and further away. The interesting part is these are simply scenarios in your mind, they are not based in reality. In this world reality is happening in only one moment, NOW. While we are living here, there is only one moment we can ever have, which is right now. Everything else is conjecture, hypothesis, worry, and another uncertain drama the mind creates.
GETTING COMFORTABLE WITH YOURSELF
Part of any life challenge invites you to accept yourself for who you are and where you are in life, to really dive in and feel the larger awareness during this time of difficulty and connect with the real you. You can pretend, manipulate situations, put on a show in front of others because you think that pleases them, but eventually it will eat away at you enough that you simply must move on. You must get comfortable with yourself to feel content inside. When you are dishonest with yourself and others there is a disconnect within, harmony is absent, and you may feel a sense of lack, like something is very wrong. Acknowledging that you feel this way is step number one. Step number two is gaining the confidence to be yourself no matter who you are with. Being comfortable with yourself totally and completely will make others feel comfortable being around you. If you remain uncomfortable, chances are people you interact with sense this and are uncomfortable around you too.
Finding true comfort and contentment within liberates you from holding on to what other people think. Can you ever really control what other people think of you anyway? The need to control what others think of you is a monumental task? Each person you meet will have a completely different perception of you, there is nothing you can do to change that. Everyone has their own viewpoint which is why communication and working through disagreements is one of the most challenging things in life. People see situations completely differently and they bring different personal baggage to the table. Dropping the need for control, and respecting other’s ability to choose how they see you frees you from the padded room. You can only be who you are and let it go from there. If you genuinely feel someone is thinking wrongly of you over something that isn’t true, you can communicate that, but the verdict is still on them to decide. As long as you know what is true about yourself you are free to let others make their own decisions whether they are favorable of you or not.
If you are bothered by someone having a poor opinion of you, then it might be helpful to see which side of your mind is concerned. The ego mind is always in a state of concern, of worry, of anxiety about the past or the future, it’s never content nor will it be. The name of the game for the ego is to keep you distracted 24/7. Keeping you distracted eliminates your path to liberation. As long as you are chasing your tail the ego is perfectly happy. The second the ego senses you losing interest in the chase it will bring up another level of distraction to keep you believing in the game. It’s a constant bait and switch until you wake up from the trap permanently and shift where you put your focus. Shifting your focus into being yourself, getting comfortable with who you are while you are in this world, and presenting this happily to others will make a world of difference.
DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR OTHERS?
Just for a moment let’s flip this concept of caring about what others think of you and ask the question, do you claim to know what is best for other people? Do you ever find yourself projecting your thoughts and opinions onto others when they don’t ask for your advice? Do you ever step in and act like you are the solution to their problem? If you answered yes to any of these, and at the same time you struggle worrying what other people think of you, then ask yourself a few more tough questions. Do you really know what is best for someone else? How do you really know what is best for them? Why do their choices bother you so much? Is it about them, or is it about you? Are they making an error you previously made, and you want to stop them from doing the same thing? When you step in and think you know best for someone else you are essentially shining your special know it all mentality on them. How can anyone really know what is best for another human being? We can all have our own two sense and think we have the answers to everything, especially when it comes to other people, but the truth is we don’t know anything. Recognizing this in yourself will open you up to an entirely different way of being.
If someone genuinely asks for your opinion, then by all means give it, but don’t expect them to listen to you. And, does it matter if they listen to you or not? Are you attached to the idea that they need to listen to you? Allowing others the space to make their own decisions always puts them in a position of learning. It gives them the opportunity to be a student in their own classroom. Would you deny another their right to learn, their right to wake up from the illusion, or to gain a connection to something greater? Even though the steps they take may be painful to watch, can you see the benefit in allowing them that space? Can you still express unconditional love if they fall into difficulty after you warned them? When you begin to loosen your grip on another, you might free yourself from caring about judgment from others. You have shifted how you see the situation. You can understand why people think what they do and you can disconnect from the burden you placed on yourself. You do not need another person to take the burden away, you can do it yourself by simply shifting your perspective.
When you are trying to work on an internal block, it is helpful to see it from all angles. Play both sides of the equation so you can feel both the giving and receiving end of things. By doing this you understand all sides and it frees you from attaching to any particular view. It also helps you build your own sense of self, of comfort with who you are, a comfort with all perspectives, and who you may be becoming in the midst of any type of life challenge. Seeing the truth within you and within others gives you the tools to escape the hold you have allowed others to place upon you, and the hold you may have placed onto them. You can now put this into regular practice, be comfortable in your skin, and be the person you desire to be while living in this world.