When we don’t approve of ourselves, we tend to believe someone else’s opinion about us regardless of whether it is accurate or not.
We might even make up our version of what we think their opinion is about us and believe our own made-up version. In either case, we are personalizing their opinion of us.
Do you personalize what others say about you or how they treat you? Do you ever make up your own version of what you think their opinion is about you and
believe it?
What people say about you or how they treat you has little to do with you. It is a reflection of how they think about themselves. Their opinion of you is usually based upon their opinion of themselves. Therefore, why bother taking their opinion so personally when it has nothing to do with you? It’s all about them and not you.
Besides, when you approve of yourself, you could care less what someone else thinks about you. Very few of us have been taught that it doesn’t matter what others think about us. We aren’t taught that the only thing that really matters is what we think about ourselves. How much importance do you place upon what you think about yourself?
Terry Cole-Whitaker, writer and author of What You Think of Me Is None of My Business, reminds readers in her writings that it doesn’t matter what others think about you. She writes,
“…if I run my life on the basis of what you think of me, I destroy my own self….”
What matters most is what you think about you.
