Stop processing other people’s opinions about you through your own sense of self. If you co-create your “self” with other people then you give them power over you, power to determine how you feel about yourself. Can you see the huge problem with this if your goal is to be happy and independent? In order to overcome this you will realize that almost 100% of what people think of you has nothing to do with you whatsoever. It has everything to do with them – the stuff that’s going on in their life, the mood they’re in, whether they have had breakfast or not, their preferences when it comes to the people around them, etc. So see their responses to you as THEIR (responses to you), instead of (their responses to) YOU.

Realize that nothing that anybody thinks about you or says to you can change who you are, and that includes your own inner monologue. No matter what you or anybody else thinks of you, your essence remains unchanged. And remember that you are not inherently “good”, “bad”, “ugly”, “beautiful”, etc – these are judgements bestowed upon you, either by yourself or by other people, and have very little to do with who you actually ‘are’. After all, everybody disagrees – some people, for example, find me annoying, others find me very charming and love being around me. That’s life.

But here’s the catch: In order to detach from what people think about you, to stop caring about all that (think of all the neurosis it causes throughout a lifetime to be constantly self-censoring and micro-managing just to control your image, which isn’t even a real thing, just an abstract concept in the minds of others and yourself!) you can’t have it both ways. You either believe people, whether they’re telling you good things or bad things, or you don’t, i.e. you realize that nothing anybody says changes who you are, even positive stuff. The problem is, if you give them the power to build you up with compliments, you also give them the power to smash you back down with insults, and vice versa. It’s too unstable, and people are too unpredictable, for this to be a good source of emotional stability. It will just throw you all over the place like you’re being washed around by the waves in the sea.

Imagine instead that the insults, and compliments (admittedly rather counter intuitively), could be seen from a distance, like an observation. “Oh, they think that. What does that say about them?” I’ll give you an example. A friend of mine has suddenly started becoming very rude to me and dodging my calls and blocking me. Weird, right? So I was angry and wanted to reply saying, get lost or something like that. But my phone died before I had time to respond. Good thing, too, because hours later my actual response was very different: I hope everything’s ok, let me know if you’re stressed or anything, it’s good to have somebody to talk to about these things. I therefore stopped taking it personally and started seeing it as having everything to do with them. Whether they came back “why the hell would I want to talk to YOU?” or “thanks so much, I’ll call in 5 mins” is totally irrelevant to who you are and what your action meant. All that matters is your intention and your orientation in life, to yourself and to others. The way they pick up on that intention doesn’t actually matter because you can’t control that at all. It’s moreorless completely unpredictable and can be influenced by totally arbitrary factors. So give over your happiness to it and you end up being washed around by the tides of whatever random thoughts pop into their heads. Scary stuff.

Realize that NO adjective of you actually describes you, you are not who you think you are, and you’re so much more than that besides. As a natural extension of that, if even your judgements about yourself have no inherent ‘truth’, why the hell would you believe anybody else? Do you really think they’re any more of an authority on ‘who you are’ than you are?

The real emotional benefit of this shift in thinking and being takes time and is something you work on, really, I’ve done it through reading philosophy, introspection and thinking, as well as some experimenting in shifting my perspective in certain moments. Change is often slow, so keep being positive if you’re not instantly walking into the world not caring at all about what anybody thinks. It may well take years to make this transition. Either way, if every day you are getting a little bit closer to where you want to be, then that’s all that matters. You will after all one day get there. Change WILL happen if you keep applying new perspectives, trying out new stuff and being relentless in your commitment. And remember Shakespeare’s quote: “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

By the way, quick note on empathy. Compassion & empathy are not hindered by you not being overly concerned about what people think of you, actually the opposite. As you stop caring about their opinion of YOU, you move out of a neurosis-driven ego space that’s all about “me me me”. And you start caring about THEM, helping THEM rather than trying to control how they see YOU. Your whole focus shifts to them and serving them effectively, whether they appreciate it or not. Remember the great people of the past who went against the ideas of their day (e.g. slavery, racial segregation) were hated by many people. It was irrelevant because the people that hated them were not ‘right’ if equality, empathy and compassion are taken as core values. Those great people DID have those values so were unaffected by such criticisms.

Also, when you stop people pleasing and being inauthentic to make others like you, you will often end up with a slightly more polarized response. Some will absolutely love you, more than you have ever been loved before, some will despise you, more than you have ever been despised before. I’m not saying this is necessarily true but for some people it could be. The trick is to keep living by your values and realize that not everybody will ever like you. Some people may just dislike you, due to your voice, your beliefs, whatever. Who cares? What does that say about you? Anything? Nope. Some people don’t like me, and that’s totally cool. The point is, when you’re inauthentic people pleaser, everybody kind of likes you or is pretty much indifferent. When you’re bold and totally your self, authentic and grounded in your values, it’s a possibility that you will get more of a love/hate polarized reaction. That shows you’re doing something RIGHT. If nobody hates you, what exactly are you standing up for, what are you representing, who are you in the world? If nobody hates you, are you grounded enough in your values and authenticity? After all, all the best people who made big positive changes in the world were hated by a large number of people. It’s part of the game. See it as necessary conditions of playing the game of life and the stress and anxiety around it dissipates.

It’s also true that the less judgmental you are of others, the less they tend to be of you, although that’s not always the case.

And even if you could successfully achieve your aim of having 100% of the population love you, you would still be a dumb idiot who spends all their time trying to get people to like them. Your energy would be totally wasted on that instead of making a positive contribution in the world. You would be obsessed with challenging nobody. And where’s the fun in that?

The above is the way I see things and it’s not the “truth” but the perspectives I believe in. I too have made this big shift and am continuing to make it day by day. If you are familiar with mindfulness and meditation etc then you will know already you are not your thoughts. Well, you’re not anybody else’s thoughts either. 🙂

All best
Much love!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Rock Banana.