What do you think others are thinking about you? Does it matter to you what they are thinking about you? If so, how much does it matter and why?
Before going any further, see if you can identify what you think others think about you. Make some notes to revisit at a later time. The opinions of others do matter to most of society. Why do the opinions of others matter so much? When we have a poor opinion of ourselves, it is imperative that others have a good opinion of us. We use feedback from others to determine how we see ourselves. We depend upon the opinions of others to tell us we are good enough — or NOT!
When we don’t realize we are good enough just the way we are, we don’t trust our own opinions. So we give more value to the opinions of others than to our own. We depend upon others to give us the validation we crave because we are unable to give it to ourselves. In fact, the validation we need has to come from others or we go without. We more often than not allow the opinions of others to sway the decisions we make and don’t even ask ourselves why we do it. Most of us don’t even realize we’re doing it. It’s just what we do.
When we allow someone else to tell us what to do, how to look, what to think, etc., we not only give up who we are in order to gain approval from others, we put our own identity in jeopardy to get it and end up feeling worse about ourselves as a result. And for many, the price for worrying about what others think about us is more than just the loss of identity. By taking these blows to our identity over and over, we go deeper and deeper into the abyss of other-dependent esteem.
The abyss of other-dependent esteem can lead to anger, depression, insecurity, fear, more worry that leads to stress, and numerous other misery-making emotions, which reinforce the need for even more approval from others.
